10 facts that will make you stop and marvel once again at the diversity of the world (11 photos)

The world around us is simple, yet amazing. Sometimes the most ordinary things can tell amazing stories.





These curious facts about nature, historical figures, and cultural customs will make you take a new look at familiar phenomena and reveal unexpected facets of everyday life.

1. One grandmother for all



The English Queen Victoria (1819-1901) had 9 children and 42 grandchildren. During World War I, she was the grandmother of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, Emperor Nicholas II, and King George V of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

2. Valuable seasoning





Real wasabi (hon-wasabi) is a type of perennial herbaceous plant known as Japanese horseradish. It grows only in Japan, under special conditions: in running water and strictly at a temperature of 10–17 °C. That is why it is very expensive. Due to the high cost, imitation is used outside the country - a composition based on horseradish, spices and food coloring.

3. Best Friends



Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla were best friends and were fascinated with electricity. They met in 1889 at the New York Gentlemen's Club. It was Twain who supported the budding researcher in his studies of electricity.

4. Snake Island



Queimada Grande Island, located 35 kilometers from Sao Paulo, is so densely populated with poisonous snakes that the Brazilian Navy has quarantined it, and one biologist once said that on the island you are "never more than three meters from death."

It is home to one of the most dangerous snakes in the world - the island Bothrops insularis. Its bite causes immediate tissue necrosis, acute renal failure, bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract and brain, and death in 7% of cases.

5. Competition for resources



In conditions of limited resources, adult dingoes prevent older and weaker members of the pack from accessing food and water, so that they die faster.

6. Prophecy and Aliens



In 1969, musician Jim Sullivan recorded the album "U.F.O.", which contained strange lyrics about him abandoning his family and being abducted by aliens. Six years later, Sullivan disappeared without a trace, and the only evidence was his abandoned car, found on a deserted road.

7. Posthumous Recognition



Golfer Margaret Abbott competed in the golf tournament at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris and won. She and her mother came to Paris for the World's Fair. By coincidence, this event was held at the same time as the Games. Margaret competed in the golf tournament and won, sincerely believing that the competition was part of the fair. She went home to the United States, never knowing that she had become the first American gold medalist in history.

Only 60 years later, when Margaret had already died, it turned out that the tournament she had won was part of the not particularly well-organized 1900 Olympic Games.

9. A Head Instead of a Door



Cephalotes varians or the turtle ant is a species of ant that has the ability to block the entrance to the anthill with its own head. Chitinous growths act as plugs and do not allow anyone to get inside.

9. Cleanliness is the key to morality



Most Japanese schools do not have janitors. Instead, children clean every day, part of a practice rooted in Buddhist traditions that associate cleaning with responsibility, independence, and morality.

10. Historical Parallels



The struggle for the throne of the two branches of the Angevin dynasty - the houses of Lancaster and York in the 1450s - the Wars of the Roses - served as a source of inspiration for George R. R. Martin's novel A Song of Ice and Fire. The author admitted that he used such parallels in the work as the conflict of dynasties (Starks and Lannisters), the betrayal of feudal supporters and frequent changes of rulers.