Curious Mind Blowing Facts - 109

From Gold Nuggets and Ancient Names to the Odds of Being Born

Jun 22, 2026

These are the actual odds of you being born calculated by a Harvard mathematician. 1 in 400 quadrillion to the 150th power. That’s the same probability as winning the Powerball jackpot every single day for 10,000 years straight. That’s how lucky we should feel to be alive. So smile.

The oldest given names in the US:
The average Myrtle is 84.3 years old
Nannie is 84.0
Gertrude is 83.5
Flossie is 82.6
Beulah is 82.2

Safe to say Flossie has the best teeth?

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Mr. Potato Head made history on April 30, 1952, when it became the first toy ever advertised on television.

Peter Dinklage is the only American cast member in Game of Thrones with a leading role.

Provocative new research suggests the iPhone could be to blame for declining fertility rates, noting that the fertility rate in the U.S. has fallen by 22 per cent since 2007, when the first iPhone went on sale in the country.

Bees. Turns out the hardest workers in the world aren’t asking for much; because if they were paid minimum wage, honey would cost US $187,000 a quart. 🍯

The Basilica Sagrada Familia Virtual Tour

It is the world’s tallest church at 566 feet, the basilica attracts roughly 2 million visitors annually.

Have you heard about these 2, local newsletter companies?

At the time 6AM City acquired Good Daily in July 2025, the subscriber figures and growth timelines were as follows:

6AM City: The company reported reaching nearly 2 million daily subscribers across more than 400 cities. 6AM City was founded in 2016 (in Greenville, South Carolina), meaning it took approximately nine years to build this audience.
Good Daily: At the time of the acquisition, Good Daily added over 500,000 subscribers to 6AM City’s network. This milestone was achieved in under a year, as the network had expanded to its hundreds of markets within that timeframe.

Following the acquisition of Good Daily in July 2025, 6AM City’s combined network footprint expanded to over 400 cities across all 50 states.

The total combined employee headcount for both companies is around 60 employees, with all staff concentrated entirely at one company. They serve 2.5 million subscribers.

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At the time of writing this newsletter, Elon’s $1.16 Trillion net worth is worth 7 Warren Buffetts.

There’s Gold in them thar doorstop.

The legendary discovery took place in 1799 when 12-year-old Conrad Reed found a massive 17-pound yellow rock while fishing in Little Meadow Creek on his family’s farm in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Unaware of what it was, the family used the heavy rock as a doorstop for three years until it was finally identified as gold in 1802.

This chance find sparked America’s first documented gold rush, and North Carolina remained the sole supplier of gold for the U.S. Mint until the late 1820s.
When Conrad’s father, John Reed, finally took the rock to a jeweler in Fayetteville, the jeweler recognized it as gold but bought it for a mere $3.50, a tiny fraction of its $3,500 true value.

After realizing he had been shortchanged, John Reed started the nation’s first commercial gold mining operation on his land, eventually pulling out nuggets weighing up to 28 pounds.

The original 17-pound nugget was unfortunately lost to history, but the Reed farm is now a designated historic site where visitors can pan for gold. You can learn more about touring the site at the NC Historic Sites directory.
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Fingers wrinkle in water because your body is helping you grip wet things better.

When your fingers soak, your nerves signal tiny blood vessels under the skin to shrink. That makes the skin pull inward and form wrinkles.

There is a rare blood type known as Rh-null (or Rh null). It’s often referred to as “Golden Blood” and has been found in fewer than 50 people worldwide.

America’s first multi-millionaire, John Jacob Astor, was an opium dealer.

A snake’s heart can move around its body to protect it from harm when it’s eaten by large prey. Because snakes do not have a diaphragm, their internal organs are incredibly flexible and can shift to accommodate large meals.

Since the 1990s, military forces, including the U.S. Navy EOD and infantry units in Iraq, have used Silly String to safely identify near-invisible tripwires before entering potentially booby trapped rooms or buildings.

Former 25 year CEO of McDonald’s, Don Thompson left the company to sit on the board of a vegan company, Beyond Meat.

*** “All 32 patients with bowel cancer who took part in a groundbreaking UK trial have seen no return of their disease three years later, researchers say.

The patients all had stage two or stage three bowel cancer and shared a specific genetic profile that affects about 10–15% of people diagnosed with the disease.

The treatment involved immunotherapy before surgery and removed the need for chemotherapy”.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx21dx9ljmwo
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Because lions primarily roam the African savannah while tigers live in Asian forests, these two massive felines rarely cross paths in the wild. However, in a one-on-one fight, a tiger would beat a lion. King of the jungle is fake news.

Estimates indicate that roughly 64% of bottled water in the U.S. comes from municipal tap water sources, while in Canada, about 25% originates from municipal systems. Major brands (such as PepsiCo’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani) simply treat and repackage local city water.

While both tap and bottled water must meet safety standards, bottled water is generally not healthier or strictly purer than city tap water. In fact, city municipal supplies are regulated and tested much more frequently than bottled water.

Because bottled tap water undergoes extra filtration, it essentially tastes like clean, filtered tap water but sells for hundreds of times more.

In August 1999, hackers exposed a crippling vulnerability in Hotmail that allowed anyone to access any account by simply using “eh” as the password. The exploit, publicized by the group Hackers Unite was widely described as the most widespread security incident on the Web at the time. Wonder if the website’s coders were Canadians?
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Did any of the facts stop you cold, causing you to close your laptop, and immediately go for a walk outside?
Didn’t think so, but comment and share anyway. 👍

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