1. Carrots originally used to be purple in colour. They acquired their present orange colour as a result of Dutch cultivation in the 17th century - patriotic Dutch growers selectively bred the carrot and turned it into the colour of their national flag.
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2. Victorinox gets its name from the combination of Victoria (the name of founder Karl Elsener’s mother) and the French word for stainless steel - ‘acier inoxydable.’
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3. The game of dominoes traces its beginnings to the objects (called bones or tiles) originally used to keep track of dice throws - the number of pips on each domino represent the twenty-two possible results of a two-dice throw.
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4. Isaac Newton is the first person to be knighted for scientific acheivement. He was kighted by Queen Anne in 1705.
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5. Sudan is Africa’s largest country.
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6. Blind children used to be taught to write Braille right to left, so it could be turned over and read left to right.
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7. The Sun doesn’t stay in the same place of the sky at a given time each day - the shape traced out by it over the course of a year is called an analemma.
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8. Although widely thought to be Japanese, the tree-cultivating art of Bonsai actually originated in China.
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9. Pears sink in water; apples, on the other hand, float.
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10. Rocket engines are rated on a letter scale from A to Z, with each letter representing twice as much power as the preceding one.
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About:
Iqbal Mohammed is Head of Innovation & Strategy at a digital innovation agency serving the DACH and wider European markets. He is the winner of the WPP Atticus Award for Best Original Published Writing in Marketing & Communication.
He blogs about #innovation, #technology and #marketing at misentropy.com. You can reach him via email or Twitter.