OMG Facts *official tumblr*

Jun 01

By law, if you catch a sturgeon in the UK, you have to give it to the royal family!

United Kingdom law states that whales, dolphins, and sturgeons are royal fish. The porpoise was later added to the list of royal fish by Sir Matthew Hale. 

Any royal fish caught become personal property of the monarch of the United Kingdom as part of their royal prerogative. The monarch’s right to royal fish was recognized by a statute enacted during the reign of Edward II. 

Henry Bracton stated that the king owns the head and the queen owns the tail. Sturgeons are actually a group of about 26 different fish, though. They are characterized by elongated bodies ranging from 7 to 12 feet long and a scale free body. 

Some sturgeons are completely freshwater fish while others stick to the coast. It is very rare for them to venture off into the deep ocean. Several types of sturgeons are harvested for their roe and made into caviar. Many species of sturgeons are at risk for extinction. 

(Source)

May 31

In 1953, it took 27 hours to make one Marshmallow Peep.

Peeps are marshmallow candies produced by Just Born known mostly as chick or bunny shapes sold around Easter. More than 1 billion of them are made every year. 

In 1953, Just Born acquired the Rodda Candy Company which had hand produced Peeps (though they had a different name at the time). Before being purchased by Just Born, the Rodda Candy Company made each Peep in a painstaking hand-forming process, which took 27 hours for each one. 

The Peeps, in chick form only back then, were squeezed out of a tube one at a time and the eyes were hand painted on. Once the company’s ownership changed, however, the production of Peeps was greatly sped up by way of a mass production line. 

The time it takes to create them has decreased as technology has improved, and today it takes around six minutes to create a Peep- of course they aren’t made one by one. The machines used to create them make 3,500 every minute. 

(Source)

Of course eating them is the LEAST fun thing you can do with Peeps, check out this video of us at the office Peep-Jousting

The Yucatan Peninsula translates to “I don’t understand you” peninsula in Mayan!

Before the Spaniards arrived to the peninsula, the area was called el Mayab by the Mayans meaning “a few.” It was a very important region to the Mayans with many of their key cities. 

After the Spanish conquest, the Yucatan Peninsula became a single administrative and political entity. The region was renamed Yucatan out of confusion. Before the Spaniards conquered the area, they had sent conquistadores for early exploration. 

In 1517, the Spanish explorers were trying to communicate with the Mayans. They asked for the name of the region, but the Mayans couldn’t understand them.

They simply said something along the lines of “I don’t understand you” in their native tongue. It ended up sounding like “Yucatan” to the Spaniards, and they continued to call the area by that name. 

The same thing happened in Australia and the aborigines. When the Europeans came to explore the land, they asked the native aborigines the name of an interesting animal that was very tall and hopped on its two back feet. 

The aborigines said “kangaroo” which meant “I don’t understand you.” The Europeans thought they had given them the name of the animal and called it a kangaroo ever since. 

(Source)

In June 2008, a tornado hit Kansas State University’s campus destroying only one building: their wind erosion lab.

In 2008, the weather was not kind to Kansas. The state was hit with 187 tornadoes that year, more than any other state. Over Memorial Day weekend of the same year, 412 separate tornado and thunderstorm warnings were issued to the state. 

The damage caused, as you may remember from the news, was nothing short of catastrophic. Kansas State University wasn’t exempt from the damage, with several buildings harmed on campus. 

The engineering complex, though still standing, faced significant damage, as did the building that housed the university’s nuclear reactor. Both buildings were still standing, though, despite the 20 million dollars of damage to the campus, which included damaged or torn off roofs and blown out windows. 

Because nobody was harmed, it makes it considerably more comedic that the only building destroyed was the Wind Erosion Lab. 

(Source)

You cannot drown in quicksand!

The reason for this is very simple. You can only sink halfway, because the quicksand is twice as dense as the human body. It’s actually also twice as dense as water, so it means that you float more easily in quicksand than you do in water.

Daniel Bonn took quicksand samples from Iran to figure out what it is actually made up of. He found that quicksand is made up of four key ingredients: sand, water, clay, and salt. 

Together they create a structure much like a house of cards. There are large water filled gaps between the sand, which is loosely glued together by the clay. When the quicksand is left alone it is stable. 

When the quicksand is disturbed by something stepping or falling into it, the consistency of the clay changes. It changes from a jelly-like consistency to a runny liquid. 

By liquefying the clay, the quicksand as a whole becomes very runny and the whole thing collapses in on you. The sand then sinks to the bottom and the water floats to the top. 

With enough salt present, when the clay liquefies, electrical charges make it stick together and make bigger particles. The particles then settle at the bottom with the sand. 

This results in a very heavy layer of sand and clay that is twice as dense as the original quicksand. It is packed tightly around the trapped body part. 

(Source)

The “Human Barbie” has had over 100 surgeries!

Sarah Burge is a British woman who’s undergone over 100 plastic surgeries over the past 20 years. Her first surgery was when she was SEVEN years old to pin her ears back, because she felt they stuck out. 

Then, at the age of 26, she had surgery on her “double chin.” After that, she was beaten by her boyfriend within an inch of her life. He broke her cheekbones, her jaw, and smashed her face with scissors. 

He threw her down a flight of stairs and left her for dead. After her harrowing ordeal, she made a business proposition to plastic surgeons telling them that if they put her back together, she would become their walking advertisement. 

Now, she’s had over £250,000 worth of plastic surgery done and continues to be a consultant for the plastic surgery industry. She has admitted to being a plastic surgery addict and won’t stop until she dies. 

She’s even gone so far as to give her seven year old daughter, Poppy, vouchers for breast implants, liposuction, and other elective surgeries worth £22,000 pounds to be redeemed when Poppy turns 18.

(Source)

The grave marker seen in the film “Tombstone” at the beginning when the Earps enter the town is real!

The grave marker seen in the film “Tombstone” at the beginning when the Earps enter the town is real!

When the Earp family arrives in Tombstone, Arizona (in the film “Tombstone”) the camera spans a cemetery with a unique grave marker. The grave marker says “Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a .44, No Les No more.”

There is an actual grave stone in Tombstone, Arizona with that epitaph. The film was originally written as an epic, but later trimmed down to focus on the Earp family.

Wyatt Earp’s fifth cousin, Wyatt Earp, plays Billy Claiborne in the film. The director wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. Therefore, all the actors wore wool suits, as was customary in that time period.

The director was quoted as saying that all lightning and mustaches were real. The big storm that took place the night the cowboys attacked the Earp family in the film wasn’t in the script. The storm blew in and the director decided to film with the storm.

(Source)

The fact that full eclipses occur on Earth is a giant coincidence.

Unless you’re an early 16th century Jamaican, you probably know what an eclipse is. As we just saw recently, the moon eclipsed the sun during a solar eclipse, or when the moon is in perfect alignment between the Earth and sun. 

Though a planet’s moon crossing the line of sight it has with its sun is a relatively common occurrence, the chances of the distances being just right for an eclipse are actually really small. In fact, the only reason it happens for Earth is because the size and distance of the sun and moon. 

The sun is about 1.392x10^6 km in diameter and about 1.496x10^8 km from Earth. The moon, on the other hand, is 3,474 km in diameter and a distance of 384,400 km from the Earth. 

If you take a quick look at the numbers, you’ll notice that means the moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, but just happens to be 400 times closer to the Earth than the sun as well. 

If that weren’t the case, when the moon crossed the sun’s path between the Earth, we would see the moon covering up part of the sun, but a full eclipse wouldn’t be possible. 

(Source)

Homosexuals Often Had a High Status in Native American Tribes

Native American males were expected to become warriors and hunters, but it was also recognized that the stress of being under such burdens often demanded spiritual advice and healing. 

This duty would usually fall upon a homosexual Shaman. In the Native culture, to be gay meant to be “from the outside world,” to be “spiritually gifted.” However, Homosexual only included men who preferred social and sexual “female roles.”

Needless to say, they were highly respected within the community. In fact, straight men could have sex with a homosexual without having his manhood doubted. 

It was actually considered a huge honor to have a Gay lover or “wife,” and raised one’s honor in the tribe. In many other ancient cultures, such as the Greek and the Roman, homosexuality was associated with spiritual insight. 

(Source)

May 30

The Dutch government sends Canada thousands of tulips every year!

The Netherlands has been sending thousands of tulips to Canada every year since 1945 as a gift from the Dutch Royal Family in thanks for sheltering Princess Juliana during World War II.

The Canadian Tulip Festival, held every May in Ottawa, is the world’s largest tulip festival. It began because in 1945, the Dutch royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in gratitude for Canadians sheltering Princess Juliana and her daughters during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. 

The festival started in 1953 in part because of how famous the tulips became. In 1967, Queen Juliana returned to celebrate the festival, and Princess Margriet (Princess Juliana’s daughter) came to visit in 2002 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the festival.

The festival also featured outdoor musical performances for years. In 1972, famous musician Liberace performed. In 1987, Alanis Morissette performed in her very first appearance at the age of 12. After several years of poor weather drove the festival to the brink of bankruptcy in 2006, the musical performances were cancelled. 

The following year, the festival was reorganized to promote international friendship, the original symbol behind the gift of tulips. 

(Source)