Here are 30 interesting unknown facts:
- The shortest war in history was between Britain and Zanzibar, which lasted only 38 minutes.
- The world's largest snowflake on record measured 15 inches in diameter and 8 inches thick.
- The shortest commercially operated airline route in the world is between the Scottish islands of Westray and Papa Westray, which takes only 2 minutes.
- The world's oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9,000 years old.
- The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.
- The world's oldest existing democracy is in Iceland, established in 930 AD.
- The first recorded use of the word "nerd" was in Dr. Seuss's book "If I Ran the Zoo."
- The longest traffic jam on record was in China and lasted for 12 days.
- The world's deepest postbox is in Susami Bay, Japan, and is 10 meters underwater.
- There are more possible iterations of a game of chess than there are atoms in the known universe.
- The shortest verse in the Bible is "Jesus wept."
- The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat, which weighs less than a penny.
- The world's first novel, "The Tale of Genji," was written by a Japanese noblewoman named Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century.
- The world's largest flower, the Rafflesia Arnoldii, can grow up to 3 feet in diameter and weigh up to 15 pounds.
- The shortest complete sentence in the English language is "I am."
- The world's oldest profession is not what you might think - it's actually farming.
- The world's tallest tree, a coast redwood named Hyperion, stands at over 379 feet tall.
- The world's first computer, the Antikythera Mechanism, was built over 2,000 years ago and was used to calculate the movements of the stars and planets.
- The world's largest island that is not a continent is Greenland.
- The world's first recorded use of the @ symbol was in a letter written in 1536 by a Florentine merchant named Francesco Lapi.
- The world's oldest known piece of jewelry is a set of 100,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells.
- The world's largest iceberg on record was roughly the size of Jamaica and broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000.
- The world's first telephone directory was published in 1878 in New Haven, Connecticut and contained only 50 names.
- The world's oldest known musical instrument is a 40,000-year-old flute made from a vulture's wing bone.
- The world's first traffic light was installed in 1868 outside the Houses of Parliament in London and looked nothing like the traffic lights we use today.
- The world's largest living organism is a fungus in Oregon that covers over 2,200 acres.
- The world's first recorded Olympic champion was a baker from Elis named Coroebus, who won the only event of the 776 BC games, a 192-meter footrace.
- The world's largest living structure is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, which spans over 1,400 miles.
- The world's first ATM was installed at a Barclays Bank in London in 1967.
- The world's largest underwater cave, the Ox Bel Ha in Mexico, stretches for over 270 miles.