14 Facts That Sound Fake But Are True

There are certain facts that are so strange they sound completely made up. For example, there was Mike the headless chicken who lived without a head for 18 months in the mid-1940s and was a carnival/side show attraction. I saw a segment on a documentary type television show about the headless chicken including film footage.

I came across such a list recently (I have not verified any of these) and want to share it with you. Here is a list of 14 such strange facts in no particular order.

1) There are more tigers in captivity in the U.S. than there are in the wild around the world. According to the World Wildlife Fund, it's estimated that around 3,890 tigers exist in the wild today. According to the U.S. government and conservation groups, around 5,000 to 10,000 tigers are privately owned in the U.S.

2) A typical cumulus cloud weighs about 1.1 million pounds. An average cumulus cloud—the fluffy ones you see on a sunny day—has a water density of half a gram per cubic meter and a volume of one billion cubic meters. When you calculate the cloud's total water content, you end up with about 1.1 million pounds. [This was recently a question on the quiz show Master Minds, put forth as what can hover and weighs over a million pounds]

3) Pineapples take about two years to grow. Pineapple plants take about 18 to 36 months from the time they are planted before they yield fruit that can be harvested and eaten.

4) Cheetahs can't roar. They can only meow like domestic house cats. Only four big cats can roar—lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars. Small cats such as cheetahs can purr continuously, but they cannot roar.

5) Maine is the closest US state to the continent of Africa.

6) Reno, Nevada, is farther west than Los Angeles, California.

7) A woman named Violet Jessop survived the sinking of both the Titanic and its sister ship, the Britannic. Nicknamed Miss Unsinkable, she was a stewardess and nurse on the White Star Line's trio of Olympic-class passenger ships. In addition to surviving the Titanic and Britannic disasters, she was aboard the trio's third sister ship, the Olympic, when it collided with a British warship in 1911.

8) The Holy Roman Empire still existed when the U.S. was founded. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to declare their independence from Great Britain. It wasn't until three decades later, in 1806, that the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved following a military victory by Napoleon. [Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo in 1815]

9) More time separates Tyrannosaurus rex from Stegosaurus than T-rex from humans today. Stegosaurus roamed Earth about 150 million years ago. Stegosaurus had already been extinct for approximately 80 million years when dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex first appeared about 67 million years ago. 80 million years separated Stegosaurus from T-rex, while 67 million years separate T-rex from us—a difference of 20 million years.

10) Nintendo was founded in 1889. Nintendo actually dates back to the late 19th century. Before becoming the gaming giant it is today, it got its start as a humble Japanese card game company.

11) Nearly the entire continent of South America is located east of Florida. Without looking at a map, you might assume Brazil is located somewhere directly south of Florida. However, almost the entire South American continent is east of Florida.

12) Sharks predate trees. Archaeopteris, the earliest species that scientists can classify as a tree, lived about 350 million years ago. Sharks can be traced back 50 million years earlier than that, appearing in the fossil record 400 million years ago.

13) Cleopatra lived closer in time to the release of the first iPhone than she did to the building of the pyramids of Giza. The pyramids of Giza were built between 2550 B.C. and 2490 B.C., according to estimates. About 2,421 years later, in 69 B.C., Cleopatra was born. She died at the age of 39 in 30 B.C. Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs debuted the first iPhone in 2007, only 2037 years after Cleopatra's death.

14) Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barbara Walters were all born in the same year. Anne Frank was born June 12, 1929. Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929. And Barbara Walters was born September 25, 1929.