250 Fun Facts
250 Interesting Facts: Animals, Human Body, Space, Food & History
History Facts
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Teaching at Oxford University began around 1096, more than 200 years before the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was founded.
Napoleon wasn't unusually short. At about 1.69 metres, he was around average height for a Frenchman of his time.
Vikings didn't wear horned helmets in battle. That image came from costume designs for 19th-century operas.
The Great Wall of China can't be seen with the naked eye from the Moon.
Ancient Roman laundries used urine to help clean and whiten clothes, because it contains ammonia.
The shortest war in recorded history was between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896. It lasted less than an hour.
Nalanda, founded in the 5th century in present-day Bihar, was one of the world's first great universities and attracted students from across Asia.
Chess is believed to have started in India around the 6th century as a game called "chaturanga."
Indian mathematicians gave the world the rules of zero
Around 628 CE, the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta wrote the first known rules for using zero as a number in calculations. This idea, together with the Indian place-value number system, travelled through the Arab world to Europe and became the foundation of modern mathematics, computing and science.
The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair and was only supposed to stand for 20 years.
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States, and it was originally a shiny copper colour before turning green.
The Titanic sank in April 1912 on its very first voyage.
The world's oldest surviving photograph, taken in the 1820s, needed an exposure time of several hours or more.
Leonardo da Vinci often wrote his notes in mirror writing, from right to left.
Ancient Egyptians played a board game called senet more than 5,000 years ago.
The first recorded ancient Olympic Games in 776 BCE had just one event: a short running race.
The Taj Mahal took around 22 years and about 20,000 workers to build.
The Indus Valley city of Mohenjo-daro had covered drains and planned streets around 4,500 years ago.
The printing press changed the world
Around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg developed a printing press with movable metal type in Germany. Books that once took months to copy by hand could now be produced quickly and cheaply, helping knowledge spread faster than ever before and shaping education, science and religion across the world.
Many common English words, such as "eyeball," first appear in writing in Shakespeare's plays.
Woolly mammoths were still alive on a remote Arctic island when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.
Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he politely declined.
The Hundred Years' War between England and France actually lasted 116 years.
The first email was sent in 1971 by computer engineer Ray Tomlinson.
The first computer mouse, built in the 1960s, was made of wood.
The Wright brothers' first powered flight in 1903 lasted just 12 seconds.
The Berlin Wall, which divided East and West Berlin, fell in 1989.
Ancient Romans had their own fast food shops, called thermopolia, which sold hot food and drinks to people on the go.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote the national anthems of two countries
Tagore composed "Jana Gana Mana," the national anthem of India, and "Amar Shonar Bangla," the national anthem of Bangladesh. In 1913 he also became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, for his collection of poems "Gitanjali."
The earliest known writing system, cuneiform, was developed in ancient Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago.
Paper was invented in China around 2,000 years ago.
The ancient Indian surgeon Sushruta described techniques for rebuilding the nose, among the earliest known examples of plastic surgery.
The Pantheon in Rome, built nearly 2,000 years ago, still has the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.
Martin Luther King Jr. was 35 when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, making him the youngest winner at the time.
Mahatma Gandhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times, but never received it.
Gandhi's Salt March in 1930 covered about 390 kilometres on foot in 24 days.
In 1930, C. V. Raman became the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in science, for his discovery about how light scatters.
The Aztecs built their capital, Tenochtitlan, on an island in the middle of a lake.
Your phone is far more powerful than the Apollo 11 computer
The computer that guided Apollo 11 to the Moon in 1969 had only a tiny fraction of the memory and processing power of a modern smartphone. Even so, it helped land Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin safely on the lunar surface and bring them home.
The Colosseum in Rome could hold around 50,000 spectators.
Machu Picchu was built by the Inca in the 1400s and became internationally famous after 1911.
The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest human-made structure on Earth for around 3,800 years.
Gunpowder was invented in China more than 1,000 years ago.
The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896.
The Mughal emperor Akbar is believed to have been unable to read, yet he built up a huge library and had books read aloud to him.
India's national emblem comes from the Lion Capital built by Emperor Ashoka more than 2,000 years ago.
India's first satellite, Aryabhata, was launched in 1975 and named after the great ancient Indian astronomer.
One of the oldest known toothpaste recipes comes from ancient Egypt.
The Rosetta Stone unlocked the secrets of ancient Egypt
Discovered in 1799, the Rosetta Stone carries the same message written in three scripts, including Egyptian hieroglyphs and ancient Greek. By comparing them, French scholar Jean-François Champollion cracked the code of hieroglyphs in 1822, finally allowing people to read ancient Egyptian writing again.
Sources and Further Reading
- NASA – Solar System Exploration and Space Station pages
- ISRO – Chandrayaan-3, Mars Orbiter Mission and Aryabhata mission pages
- National Geographic – Animals and History
- Smithsonian Institution and Smithsonian Magazine
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Natural History Museum, London
- NOAA – Ocean and marine life resources
- The Nobel Prize official website (nobelprize.org)
- Royal Museums Greenwich – Astronomy guides
Frequently asked questions
What is the most interesting fact in the world?
That's up to you, but favourites include octopuses having three hearts, a day on Venus lasting longer than its year, and Cleopatra living closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.
Are these facts true?
Yes. Every fact on this page was written by the WebFunFacts team and checked against trusted sources such as NASA, ISRO, National Geographic, Britannica and the Smithsonian. If you spot something that needs updating, let us know and we'll review it.
What are some fun facts about animals?
Wombats produce cube-shaped poop, sea otters hold hands while they sleep, and the Greenland shark may live for around 400 years, making it the longest-living vertebrate known.
What are some amazing facts about India?
Indian mathematicians gave the world the rules of zero, chess began in India as chaturanga, and in 2023 India's Chandrayaan-3 became the first mission to land near the Moon's south pole.
How many bones does a baby have compared with an adult?
Babies are born with around 300 bones, while adults have 206. As children grow, many of the smaller bones gradually fuse together.
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