Category: 365 things you didn’t know

They didn’t do it for a medal. They did it for each other. What happened next stunned medical science. In the small mountain village of Acciaroli, Italy, something astonishing has been happening for decades. Starting in the 1990s, nearly the entire population began taking daily group walks and runs—often clocking marathon-level distances each week. It…

Wearing overalls and gumboots, he turned up with no coach, no plan—just a lifetime of chasing sheep. And he outran the elite athletes by days. In 1983, Cliff Young, a 61-year-old potato farmer from rural Australia, showed up to the starting line of the Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon—a brutal, 544-mile (875-km) race that takes elite…

He didn’t steal it. He didn’t climb it. He just quietly hijacked it—and used it to broadcast to the world. In 1925, a forgotten French radio enthusiast named Gustave Ferrié used the Eiffel Tower not as a monument—but as a giant experimental antenna. While officially it was still a tourist site, Ferrié secretly rewired the…

He lost his nose in a duel, kept a pet elk that died from drinking beer, and made some of the most accurate star charts before telescopes existed. In the late 1500s, Tycho Brahe, a Danish nobleman and astronomer, became one of the strangest scientific geniuses in history. After losing part of his nose in…

It sounds like a cartoon plan—but this real operation helped turn the tide of World War II. In 1944, as part of the preparations for D-Day, Canadian and Allied forces launched Operation Fortitude—a brilliant deception campaign designed to fool the Nazis about the real location of the invasion. One part of it? They built entire…

Found in only one mountain range on Earth, this tiny creature lights up like neon and oozes poison when touched. In the dark forests of California’s Sierra Nevada, scientists discovered an almost alien organism: Motyxia, a genus of bioluminescent millipedes. These thumb-sized arthropods glow with a green-blue light, not to attract mates or prey—but to…

To villagers, it was alive. To scientists, it defied classification. Its name? The bleeding stone. In a remote corner of Chile, nestled in the coastal region near Punta de Choros, lives a sea creature so bizarre it was mistaken for a living rock. It’s called Pyura chilensis, and at first glance, it looks like a…

It sounds like a joke—but one creature can actually survive underwater using its rear end. And now, scientists are copying it. Certain turtles, like the Australian Fitzroy River turtle and North American eastern painted turtle, can perform cloacal respiration—they breathe through their butts. Their cloaca, a multi-purpose opening used for excretion and reproduction, contains specialized…

She walked up to snakes, stared down armed robbers, and nearly died—without flinching. Doctors were stunned when they found out why. A woman known as “SM” is one of the most studied patients in neuroscience. Due to a rare genetic condition called Urbach-Wiethe disease, she has complete bilateral damage to her amygdala—the brain’s fear center.…

Its eruption turned sunsets blood-red around the world—and helped create one of literature’s greatest monsters. In 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted in the most powerful volcanic explosion in recorded history. It blasted 100 cubic kilometers of ash into the sky, killing over 70,000 people and altering the global climate. The next year, 1816, became…

When it’s injured or aging, it doesn’t die—it starts life over again. Could this be the key to immortality? Turritopsis dohrnii, a tiny, transparent jellyfish found in oceans around the world, has an unbelievable ability: when it’s threatened, injured, or dying of old age, it doesn’t perish—it transforms back into its earliest life stage, essentially…

It has no brain, no nerves, no blood—but it can remember past events and calculate time. Scientists couldn’t believe it. The Mimosa pudica, also known as the “sensitive plant,” is famous for folding its leaves when touched. But in a 2014 study, scientists found something astonishing: these plants can learn. In experiments, researchers repeatedly dropped…

One moment it was a mining town, the next it was a smoking crater. What swallowed it was almost beyond belief. In 1980, the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, began to disappear—literally. A coal seam fire accidentally ignited beneath the town and is still burning today, over 60 years later. The underground blaze, fed by vast…

It looks calm and serene—but one night, it silently killed over 1,700 people in seconds. Lake Nyos in Cameroon holds a deadly secret. It’s one of only three known “exploding lakes” on Earth. In 1986, this volcanic crater lake suddenly released a cloud of carbon dioxide so dense it suffocated everything in its path. Entire…

Something strange is happening in one small village—so many twins are born there, scientists are baffled. In the tiny village of Kodinhi, in Kerala, India, an extraordinary phenomenon occurs: it has one of the highest twinning rates in the world. With just over 2,000 families, the village has produced more than 400 pairs of twins—an…

It sings at a frequency no other whale can understand—and no one has ever answered its call. Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean swims a mysterious whale known as the “52-Hertz Whale.” Unlike other whales that communicate at 10–40 hertz, this one sings at 52 hertz—too high for other species to hear or respond to. Discovered…

In a quiet town in Georgia, a tree once made a legal demand—and the town agreed. But how can a tree own land? In Athens, Georgia, a white oak tree is said to legally own itself and the land within 8 feet of its base. The story, dating back to the early 1800s, claims that…

It started as a school science project—but what happened next baffled scientists and changed how we understand sleep forever. In 1963, 17-year-old Randy Gardner stayed awake for 11 days and 25 minutes as part of a science fair experiment. Under the supervision of sleep researcher Dr. William C. Dement, Gardner broke the world record for…