Fascinating Facts and Trivia

Among the most notorious Malaysian royals was King Mahmood Iskandar of Johor, who was accused in the 1980s of fatally beating a golf caddy who had laughed at his putt. (He was immune from prosecution.)

Elizabethan preachers condemned coal as literally the Devil’s excrement.

Across the world, only 9 percent of all the plastic ever made has been recycled.

Blind people smile even though they’ve never seen anyone else smile.

Black sapote has another irresistible name: the chocolate pudding fruit.

The fruit—native to Central and South America—tastes like sweet custard with a hint of chocolate.

When it's fully ripe, the flavor (and consistency) has been described as a dead ringer for chocolate pudding.

Between 1912 and 1948, the Olympic Games awarded medals in sculpture, music, painting, and architecture.

After a heated debate in the post-war years, the competitions were scrapped.

John Copley of Britain won one of the final medals.

At 73, he would be the oldest medalist in Olympic history if his silver, awarded for his 1948 engraving Polo Players, were still counted.

You can literally call someone a fathead, but it's still unkind.

According to Psychology Today, 60 percent of human brain matter is made of fat.

Drinking too much water can be deadly.

When guzzling a lot of liquid, you can suffer from water intoxication or hyponatremia, which occurs after an obscene amount of water is consumed, often during endurance events when participants are also losing sodium through their sweat.

There have been many notable cases, including the 2002 Boston Marathon competitor Cynthia Lucero, who died from overhydration.

The blob of toothpaste that sits on your toothbrush has a name.

It's called a "nurdle," and there was a lawsuit over which toothpaste company had the right to depict it.