# Unbelievable facts that turn out to be true. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 27, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648 "2010-02-27T14:47:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/1 "2010-02-27T14:47:56Z")
I am watching a documentary on TV called _Bomb Harvest_ about Aussie ordinance disposal guys who are training people to disarm bombs in Laos. They mentioned figures for the number of bombs but they seemed ridiculous - no one was at war in Laos. However it all turned out to be true: \*In Laos, unexploded bombs left over from the Vietnam war are being scavenged to sell as scrap metal. During the nine years of the Vietnam War the US dropped more cluster bombs on neighbouring Laos than it did world wide during the whole of World War Two. It is estimated that the bombing in Laos equated to a B52 load of cluster bombs dropped every 8 minutes for 9 years, this totals to 260 million bombs being dropped between 1964 and 1973. Since the 1990s an official clearance operation has been in place but they say that more than 80 million unexploded ordnance (UXO) or cluster bombs still litter the countryside. \* from [Bomb Hunters in Laos](http://www.pri.org/world/asia/bomb-hunters-laos.html) More bombs dropped on Laos than in WWII - fucking unbelievable. Got another? ---
**Author:** ![figure9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/2 "2010-02-27T15:41:13Z")
Japanese bombs from WWII have been found in the Pacific Northwest. They were carried there by cleverly constructed balloons and were supposed to start forest fires. A Japanese sub shelled a US west coast city. Not sure which one. Read it in a book called “I-boat captain”. ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/3 "2010-02-27T15:58:09Z")
It takes some very large balls to use an unexploded bomb as an axe, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![SurrenderDorothy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/surrenderdorothy/32/1221_2.png) [@SurrenderDorothy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SurrenderDorothy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/4 "2010-02-27T16:21:19Z")
My best friend told me that female cats can mate with multiple males at a time- like have a litter of kittens with multiple daddies. I didn’t believe her, so I looked it up. Lo and behold, she’s right! ---
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/5 "2010-02-27T16:52:47Z")
Diphallia. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/6 "2010-02-27T16:59:02Z")
> [@SurrenderDorothy](#): > > My best friend told me that female cats can mate with multiple males at a time- like have a litter of kittens with multiple daddies. > > I didn’t believe her, so I looked it up. Lo and behold, she’s right! Dogs can do that too as well as humans given the right circumstances in the case of multiple fraternal births. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/7 "2010-02-27T17:04:11Z")
I remember when [Martha Mitchell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Beall_Mitchell) turned out to be (bascially) correct. She was involved in the Watergate Scandal ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/8 "2010-02-27T17:08:10Z")
> [@figure9](#): > > A Japanese sub shelled a US west coast city. Not sure which one. Read it in a book called “I-boat captain”. On 23 February 1942, the Japanese submarine I-17 shelled the Ellwood Oil Field near Santa Barbara, CA. They only did minor damage to a couple of structures (they missed the oil tanks, and one shell literally missed by a mile), but the hysteria resulted in ‘The Battle of Los Angeles’, in which anti-aircraft artillery was shot into the air for about half an hour. This is the incident underlying Steven Spielberg’s _1941_. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/9 "2010-02-27T18:34:15Z")
There was no “Tokyo Rose”. There were multiple English-language female propagandists on the radio, but no one “Tokyo Rose”. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/10 "2010-02-27T18:40:43Z")
John Tyler, born in 1790, has two living grandsons. He was the twelfth President of the United States. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/11 "2010-02-27T18:50:27Z")
My two favorite: - A gallon of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a gallon of liquid hydrogen. - The U.S. state closest to Africa is Maine. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/12 "2010-02-27T18:50:44Z")
Osamu Tezuka drew 10 pages of comics every day of his nearly 40 year career. 20 per cent of Americans don’t believe the Holocaust happened. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/13 "2010-02-27T18:56:31Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > 20 per cent of Americans don’t believe the Holocaust happened. Is this really accurate? How was it measured? ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/14 "2010-02-27T19:21:04Z")
- A telegraph cable was laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean before the start of the U.S. Civil War. - The first successful contact lens was invented in 1887. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/15 "2010-02-27T19:23:21Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > - A gallon of gasoline contains more hydrogen than a gallon of liquid hydrogen. How does that work? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/16 "2010-02-27T19:33:25Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > - A telegraph cable was laid across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean before the start of the U.S. Civil War. In a similar vein, the fax machine was invented in 1843, well before the telephone. Another military example is the B-52 bomber. It was conceived in the 1940’s, designed in the 1950’s and the current fleet was built in the early 1960’s. Those planes aren’t scheduled to be retired until past 2040 when the planes themselves are about 80 years old and could have been flown by the grandfathers of that generation of pilots. It is still very much in active service as the U.S. primary long-range strategic (nuclear capable) bomber. It can stay in the air for days at a time with in-flight refueling and its missions often originate within the U.S. to a foreign target like Iraq and back again in a single round-trip flight. The B-52 survived several attempts at replacement when no one could figure out to make something that did the job better, more reliably, and as cheaply so the military basically gave up trying for very hard a long-time. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/17 "2010-02-27T20:48:09Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > How does that work? 😕 Liquid hydrogen has a much lower density than (liquid) gasoline. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/18 "2010-02-27T20:56:48Z")
An American penny contains less copper than a nickel, dime, or quarter. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/19 "2010-02-28T01:42:14Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > More bombs dropped on Laos than in WWII - fucking unbelievable. Why unbelievable? The war in Laos went on for twice as long. And the US government had decided that the public was unwilling to accept soldier casualties, so they tried to win it with aerial bombing instead of infantry. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648/20 "2010-02-28T03:20:17Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > - The U.S. state closest to Africa is Maine. Holy smokes! Wow. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unbelievable-facts-that-turn-out-to-be-true/530648.md?page=2)