The Top 10: Facts That Sound Fake
Escalators, rats, Saddam Hussein and the Eiffel Tower: ‘that can’t possibly be true!’
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Your support makes all the difference.This started when I came across a reddit thread, from where I got the first two. The rest came from the wisdom of the Twitter crowd.
1. There are only four escalators in the state of Wyoming (two pairs, both in banks in Casper, the second biggest city, population 55,000).
2. Saddam Hussein was given the key to the city of Detroit in 1980.
3. There are no rats in Alberta. Nominated by Elliot Kane.
4. If you melted down the Eiffel Tower, and stacked the iron up on its base, the iron would be about two inches deep. From Chris Jones. (I make it 6cm: volume of iron is 930 cubic metres, base is 125 metres square.)
5. More than half of the UK population take a train no more than twice a year. (Not in past year: 39 per cent; once or twice: 15 per cent.) Thanks to Matthew Smith and YouGov.
6. In most sets of numbers, 30 per cent begin with a 1 (Benford’s Law, which applies to electricity bills, street addresses, prices, population numbers, death rates, lengths of rivers and so on). Nominated by Tim Lattimer.
7. Portugal is the fourth largest Portuguese-speaking country (after Brazil, Angola and Mozambique). Thanks to John Peters.
8. The etymology of the word helicopter is helico-pter not heli-copter (from Greek for spiral flyer: helix or helico; pter as in pterodactyl). Spun by David Gentle.
9. Lake Baikal in Siberia contains nearly a quarter of the world’s fresh water (22-23 per cent: it is a mile deep). Old favourite from Peter Warner.
10. The second largest air force in the world, by number of aircraft, is the US Army. Thanks to Tim Ruff.
We had already done Timespan Quirks and Geographic Anomalies, many of which are along similar lines.
Three entries in the “there’s always one” category: More people voted for Brexit at the 2016 referendum than have ever voted for anything in British history (Jonathan Isaby); humans landed on the Moon in 1969 (Graham Fildes); and Donald Trump is US president (Rob Kemp).
Next week: After British place names, other pronunciations designed to trick the unwary, such as epitome and chipotle
Coming soon: Pseudonyms for more than one person, such as Nicci French, used by Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, the wife-and-husband thriller writers
Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk
Update: this article was amended on 31 December 2018 to amend no 5, which originally said more than half the population never used trains at all, and to provide a source.
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