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It's the weekend; let's have FUN with some Random Facts
👇🏻 Enjoy 🤗⁠

😉 Chinese police use geese squads

You've heard of police dogs, but police geese? As of 2013, 12 police stations in a rural area of China have begun to use geese as sentries. They are alert animals and, as you probably know, can create a lot of noise and commotion, which creative Chinese law enforcement officers are taking advantage of. While this trend has yet to spread throughout China, Dongwan police claim that the geese have already stopped at least one theft.

😉 The first iPhone wasn't made by Apple

The first mobile device to be called an "iPhone" was made by Cisco, not Apple. It allowed the user to use the voice functions of Skype without a computer. Apple announced its own product just 22 days later, and Cisco sued for trademark infringement. The lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court and both companies were allowed to keep using the name. However, you've probably never heard of the Cisco iPhone.

😉 There's a country where twins are most likely to be born

Benin, a country in central Africa, is notable for having the highest birth rate of twins in the world. While the world average is just 13 twins per 1,000 births, Benin more than doubles that rate, at nearly 30 twins per 1,000 births. There's no single factor that causes this, but genetics, diet, and even the mother's height are thought to play a role.

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It's the weekend, and with Summer Solstice happening this week, let's have FUN with some Random Facts you may, or not, know about it.
👇🏻 Enjoy 🤗⁠

☀️✨ Thousands of people gather at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice.

People have long believed Stonehenge was the site of ancient druid solstice celebrations because of the way the Sun lines up with the stones on the winter and summer solstices. While there's no proven connection between Celtic solstice celebrations and the megalithic monument, these days, thousands of modern pagans gather at the landmark to watch the sunrise on the solstice.

☀️✨ Pagans celebrate the summer solstice with symbols of fire and water.

In Paganism and Wicca, Midsummer is celebrated with a festival known as Litha. In ancient Europe, the festival involved rolling giant wheels lit on fire into bodies of water to symbolize the balance between fire and water.

☀️✨ In Ancient Egypt, the summer solstice heralded the new year.

In Ancient Egypt, the summer solstice preceded the appearance of the Sirius star, which the Egyptians believed was responsible for the annual flooding of the Nile that they relied upon for agriculture. Because of this, the Egyptian calendar was set so that the start of the year coincided with the appearance of Sirius, just after the solstice.

☀️✨ The Earth is actually at its farthest from the Sun during the solstice.

You might think that because the solstice occurs in summer that it means the Earth is closest to the Sun in its elliptical revolution. However, the Earth is actually closest to the Sun around the time the Northern Hemisphere experiences winter and is farthest away near the summer solstice. The warmth of summer comes exclusively from the tilt of the Earth's axis, and not from how close it is to the Sun at any given time.

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☀️✨

It's the weekend, and with Summer Solstice happening this week, let's have FUN with some Random Facts you may, or not, know about it.
👇🏻 Enjoy 🤗⁠

☀️✨ The name comes from the fact that the Sun appears to stand still.

The term solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (Sun) and sistere (to stand still), because the Sun's relative position in the sky at noon does not appear to change much during the solstice and its surrounding days. The rest of the year, the Earth's tilt on its axis—roughly 23.5 degrees—causes the Sun's path in the sky to rise and fall from one day to the next.

☀️✨ One of the world's biggest bonfires was part of a summer solstice celebration.

Cultures around the world have held celebrations in conjunction with the solstice for hundreds of years. Among these is Midsummer, which is celebrated on June 24 in Scandinavia and other northern European countries. In 2016, the people of Ålesund, Norway, set a world record for the tallest bonfire with their 155.5-foot celebratory blaze (their record was broken in 2019 by Austrian Carnival festivities).

☀️✨ The hot weather follows the Sun by a few weeks.

You may wonder why, if the solstice is the longest day of the year—and thus gets the most sunlight—the temperature usually doesn't reach its annual peak until a month or two later. It's because water, which makes up most of the Earth's surface, has a high specific heat, meaning it takes a while to both heat up and cool down. Because of this, the Earth's temperature takes about six weeks to catch up to the Sun.
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It's the weekend; let's have FUN with some Random Facts
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😉 Redheads aren't actually going extinct.

Periodically, a rumor starts on the internet that says natural redheads will become extinct by the year 2060. Lucky for gingers everywhere, this is a myth. It's true that the gene that causes red hair is recessive, meaning that both parents must have it for their child to have red hair. However, even non-redheads can carry the red hair gene, and it can pop up unexpectedly in generations down the line.

😉 Koalas have fingerprints.

Chimpanzees and gorillas have human-like fingerprints and so do koalas. In fact, koala prints are very similar to human fingerprints, even to expert crime scene investigators. As of yet, no koalas have framed humans for their crimes, but now we know it's not impossible…

😉 Dinosaurs lived on every continent.

Back in their day, dinosaurs lived on every continent on Earth, including Antarctica. The reason we only find their bones in certain places, though, is that weather and soil conditions in those places were just right for the bones to be fossilized. Scientists also speculate that there may be many smaller-sized dinosaurs that we know nothing about because their bones were too small to fossilize well.

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It's the weekend; let's have FUN with some Random Facts
👇🏻 Enjoy 🤗⁠

😉 One man has saved more than 200 people from su***de.

It's a sad fact the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is a site where many su***des take place. However, one California Highway Patrol officer has done more to combat this problem than any other individual. Officer Kevin Briggs, who battles depression himself, has personally talked more than 200 people down from the proverbial ledge throughout his career. After retiring in 2013, Briggs wrote a book called Guardian of the Golden Gate and now goes on speaking tours to encourage public discussion of su***de and mental illness.

😉 Our European ancestors were cannibals.

In 16th and 17th century Europe, cannibalism was actually a fairly common practice, and it was all for medical purposes. The practice seems to have started because Egyptian mummies were thought to have magical curative properties—so they were ground up and put in many remedies.

As the idea evolved, human bone, blood, and fat were all used in medical concoctions. Got a headache? Crush a skull and make it into tea! While medical cannibalism has fallen out of favor, modern medicine still sometimes uses one human body to heal another in the form of blood donations, organ transplants, and skin grafts.

😉 Pro baseball once had women players.

While there are currently no female players in Major League Baseball, there have been plenty of women in professional men's leagues. The first was Lizzy Arlington, who pitched during the ninth inning for the Reading Coal Heavers in 1898 and won her team the game. A little over 30 years later, an African-American woman, Jackie Mitchell, pitched against the Yankees during an exhibition game, striking out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. What's more impressive: Mitchell was 17 years old at the time.

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