A little book of facts
Ten Strange Facts to Tell a Friend
One fact on every page. Read them out loud, the way you would tell a friend.
Fact 01 of 10
Okay, so get this.
‘Hip-hop’ first appeared in English in 1672.
Fact 02 of 10
This one gets dark.
King Charles XIV of Sweden
had a tattoo which read
‘Death to Kings’.
Fact 03 of 10
Quick, think big numbers.
400,000 human beings
are born every day.
Fact 04 of 10
Now a weird one.
In June 2013,
21 women born
in the 19th century
were still alive,
but no men.
Fact 05 of 10
Bees run hot. Like us.
The average temperature
of a beehive
is the same as that
of the human body.
Fact 06 of 10
Space is never empty.
There is 40 times
more energy in empty space
than in matter.
Fact 07 of 10
Two islands, one big gap.
Iceland is the
world’s youngest land mass;
Greenland is the oldest.
Fact 08 of 10
Forever has a catch.
If we could extend
our lives indefinitely,
we’d still die, but in an accident,
at an average age
of 1,200.
Fact 09 of 10
This one is sad. Sorry.
An ‘endling’
is the final
individual in a species.
Fact 10 of 10
Last one. Brace yourself.
Eugene Cernan,
the last man to walk on the Moon,
wrote his daughter’s initials
in the lunar dust. They will still be legible
in 50,000 years.
Sources & method
Every fact is set word for word as the author supplied it. No outside source was checked for this book.
Every picture is an original drawing by vizmaya desk. No photographs are used.
Worked numbers: 4.6 births a second is 400,000 divided by 86,400 seconds. 354 years is 2026 minus 1672. The curve on the 1,200 page assumes the same accident risk every year.
Flags: flag-icons, MIT licence. More at vizmaya stories.
Now go tell someone.
vizmaya.fyi