10 Mind-Boggling Facts That You Won’t Believe Aren’t Made Up

With the internet the way it is nowadays, you might think that every little bit of trivia and every interesting fact on earth has been mined, blogged, tweeted, posted, and shared. But thankfully, there are still a seemingly endless amount of weird and crazy facts and absolutely bizarre (true) tales that will shock you. Heck, when compiling this list today, they shocked us!

So we decided to share them with you. The following ten facts are so mind-boggling and brain-melting that you’ll think we made them up. But we didn’t. These ten facts are 100% true and 1000% verifiable, even if they seem totally phony. Enjoy these shockers, and commit them to memory—so you can blow your friends’ minds when you share these tidbits with ’em soon.

Related: 10 of the Weirdest Things Held in Libraries and Archives

10 The Porcelain Throne

At least one of our American presidents liked to take meetings while on the toilet. And that person was… Lyndon B. Johnson. The native Texan had a very folksy image, to put it nicely. To put it less nicely, he liked to swear quite a bit and use extremely filthy language. Evidently, there was something related to that filthy language idea that had him enjoying the process of taking meetings while he was on the john, too.

According to multiple contemporary accounts from his time in office during the roughest portions of the Vietnam War, LBJ loved to call his advisers, cabinet members, and staffers from the bathroom while he had to use the facilities. There, while they were busy on the phone and furiously bouncing their ideas off of him, he’d drop trou and do his business. Then, his advisers would have to yell over the sound of running water while he cleaned up and washed his hands following his move to, uh, lighten the load. Hey, whatever works, right?^[1]

9 Hold onto My Heart…

Mary Shelley was so sad when her husband passed away that she kept his heart in a jar on her desk for the rest of her life after his death. As you may know, if you’re a fan of the world’s most classic works of literature, Mary was married to Percy Bysshe Shelley. Sadly, though the two were madly in love, Percy bit the dust far too early. When he was just 29 years old, he drowned while he was out in the middle of the open water on his boat during a storm. Devastated, Mary buried his body and mourned his passing.

But, well, she didn’t quite bury all of his body. Even though the rest of Percy’s remains were buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, Italy, Mary managed to keep his heart for herself. Rather than drop it into the ground, she dropped it into a jar… and dropped the jar on her desk. She carried it nearly everywhere she went and to every new home where she lived for the rest of her life. And it stayed with her right up until she died, too. After her death, Mary’s pals found Percy’s heart wrapped up (in a jar, ya know) in one of the final poems he ever wrote, “Adonais,” before he died so many years before. Talk about a true (and tragic) love story.^[2]

8 President Einstein?!

At one point during his life, Albert Einstein was offered the position of becoming the president of Israel. The year was 1952, and the newly formed nation of Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, had just passed away. One of Israel’s foremost diplomats in the United States, a man named Abba Eban, decided that he had the best idea ever: to make Einstein the president of Israel. After all, Albert was one of the smartest people in the world; why wouldn’t he make a good political leader who could figure out all of the fledgling nation’s most pressing problems and allow the country and its people to settle into the world?

The rules for Einstein to accept the position were pretty simple: He’d have to relocate from the United States to Israel full-time. And he would have to accept Israeli nationality, of course. But besides that, Eban made it clear that Einstein would be allowed to pursue his scientific endeavors outside of his work as the nation’s president, too. However, the scientist declined the offer.

Einstein wrote back to Ebban that because of his inexperience in dealing with people (and especially in dealing with diplomats and politicians), he wouldn’t be a good fit for the job. So the world-famous scientist turned it down. It would have been quite the thing if he’d accepted the role, though, wouldn’t it?^[3]

7 Evil Like a Cat

In the 13th Century, Pope Gregory IX and the Vatican declared a de facto war on cats. At the time, Pope Gregory and his disciples believed that cats carried the spirit of Satan within their dark and evil souls. In the modern era, that is the impetus for us to think that black cats bring bad luck to those unfortunate enough to come across one. But back then, it wasn’t about making sure a black cat didn’t cross your path; instead, the Catholic Church went full-bore on trying to ensure that cats were exterminated. During Pope Gregory’s run, his henchmen initiated a full-on cat genocide across Europe. They REALLY didn’t like cats!

The extermination plan went so well that historians now believe Pope Gregory’s push may have hastened the Black Plague. Even though rats didn’t outright cause the plague itself (that’s another can of worms, but roll with it), we know they did help spread it a bit. Had there been more cats around to fend off the rats, though, perhaps the plague wouldn’t have been as devastating as it was. But there were fewer cats and more rodents, so the plague spread like wildfire.

Anyway, back to the cats themselves. Pope Gregory IX had a thing against cats for literally his entire life. As long as he reigned in the Vatican within Rome, he urged his followers and adherents to keep exterminating cats. Thank goodness Pope Gregory himself was eventually exterminated in time; he died in 1241 at the age of 96. Had he not perished, maybe he would have gotten rid of every cat in Europe in due time.^[4]

6 Mary Actually Had a Little Lamb

Did you know that “Mary Had A Little Lamb” was actually based on a true story? Believe it or not, the Mary from the children’s song was actually a real person. And, yes, she actually did have a little lamb. Her name in real life was Mary Sawyer, and she was born in 1806 in rural New Hampshire. One day in about 1816, the little lamb she owned at her family home decided to follow her to school. When she arrived, Mary realized that she couldn’t just parade the lamb around the schoolroom all day. So she wrapped it in a blanket, laid the blanket at her feet, and prayed that it wouldn’t make a noise and alert the teacher to its presence.

Unfortunately for Mary and her little lamb, that didn’t happen. The lamb stirred, made noise, and moved around underneath the blanket. Almost immediately, the teacher realized that something was going on. That teacher was a man named John Roulstone. He had just arrived in town and was dumbfounded that Mary would bring her little lamb to school. He thought the whole incident was so funny that he wrote a poem about it.

Soon enough, American folklorist and nursery rhyme writer Sarah Josepha Hale picked up on the poem and completely reworked it into the nursery rhyme we know and love today. Who could have possibly figured that a loyal lamb in a schoolhouse in rural New Hampshire two centuries ago would turn into one of the most legendary moments in the history of nursery rhymes?!^[5]

5 Knock Me Up!

What do you think people did decades (or, well, centuries) ago to get up early in the morning and start taking care of their daily activities before alarm clocks were invented? Sure, perhaps some of them relied on the local rooster on their farm to wake them up just as soon as the sun rose. But people who lived in half-urban or completely urban environments needed to do something different. And for those people, the solution was simple: They hired people to shoot dried peas up at their windows in order to wake them up from their slumber. Wait, what?

The people who shot the dried peas were called “knocker-uppers,” they had an entire industry going in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. Basically, people would hire a knocker-upper to come by their home at a certain time and make sure they were awake. Think of them like a rudimentary hotel wake-up call, perhaps. These people would use long fishing pole-like sticks or other pea shooters to literally blow dried peas at the window of the person by whom they were tasked to wake up. The peas would hit the window, the noise would rattle around the room, and bam! You had a primitive alarm clock.^[6]

4 A Husband Never Forgets

Remember how Mary Shelley kept her husband’s heart in a jar at her desk for the rest of her life after he died? Well, we’ve got a fact that is going to seriously one-up that one. The Russian czar Peter the Great opted to keep the head of his wife’s lover in her bedroom after he had the man killed. According to historians, Peter the Great discovered that his wife Catherine was having an affair with a man named William Mons. Enraged, Peter had the man captured, interrogated, imprisoned, and eventually beheaded.

But cold-blooded murder wasn’t enough for Peter. No, he needed much more than that. So, after William Mons was killed, Peter ordered his henchmen to place William’s head into a jar with alcohol. Then, he demanded that the jar be placed in Catherine’s bedroom. It remained there until Peter’s death years later—you know, as a way to remind her of the shame of the affair, as well as what might happen to future lovers who she decided to take while being married to the most powerful man in the land. We can’t really imagine sleeping very easily with that head looking at you all night long!^[7]

3 That Swearin’ Parrot

President Andrew Jackson had a pet parrot during his time in the White House. There was just one problem with that: his parrot had such a filthy mouth that it made Jackson look bad. Not just in life, either—but in death, too. That’s right: after Jackson died, his beloved pet parrot actually had to be removed from his funeral because the bird couldn’t stop swearing during the service!

President Jackson died in 1845, and when he was buried, it came around with a lot of pomp and circumstance. That’s pretty typical for a president, right? After all, they have earned much respect and admiration from their peers in Washington DC—both back when Jackson lived and now, with modern-day leaders. So Jackson had a state funeral with hundreds of very important mourners in attendance. Along with all those people came Jackson’s loyal pet parrot. And the bird got a little bit out of control.

Nobody knows why the parrot couldn’t stop swearing at the funeral. Some people think the animal must have gotten excited about seeing so many people gather in a large crowd. Getting antsy over that, the bird started dropping f-bombs. Predictably, the mourners were horrified. After a while, with no sign that the bird would ever stop swearing, somebody had to escort the parrot out of the funeral. People then got back to mourning Jackson’s death—and the poor grieving parrot presumably continued to mourn in its own weird, unexpected, not-safe-for-work way.^[8]

2 Urine Luck!

Way back in the era of ancient Rome, many of the Romans living back then would use urine as mouthwash. Yes… you read that sentence right. Human urine was very valuable to the ancient Romans for many different reasons. They used it as an ingredient of a very primitive form of gunpowder, for one. But without a doubt, the craziest (and grossest) thing they used urine for was to clean out their mouths. Gross!

The Romans really loved urine and saw value in it. They collected it from their public urinals. They would buy it from each other, too, and a whole market sprung up to sell it. That market got so hot at one point that the human pee was even taxed by the government every time it was sold. But the mouthwash trumps all other uses in our minds.

Basically, the Romans thought that urine whitened their teeth and cleaned out their mouths. It certainly didn’t give them minty fresh breath. But, uh, maybe there was something there regarding the sterility of the liquid and its ability to clean out a dirty mouth? After all, ammonia is one of the main byproducts of urinary waste, so they weren’t entirely wrong about its effectiveness in removing stains and keeping things clean. But still, this is gross. Moving on…^[9]

1 Fork-rilegious

About a millennium ago, forks were seen as being offensive to God. That’s right—if you used a fork at the dinner table to eat your food, you were offending the Lord with your actions. Oh, and you were also behaving in an effeminate way by doing so. (You know, if you were a man, at least; apparently, women were allowed to use forks a little bit more than the fellas.)

Way back in the day, people used to eat with their fingers. That’s not that groundbreaking, of course. But in the 11th century, when eating utensils were just starting to come into favor, people pushed back against their use in completely unexpected ways. Even among Europe’s upper classes at the time, it was considered offensive to God and unacceptable in polite company to eat with a fork. Instead, the rich set themselves apart from the poor by eating with three fingers only—instead of the whole hand, which is what poor people would do.

Forks have been around for a very long time, of course. The three- or four-pronged utensil has been found in Turkey and other places in Europe and the Middle East and dates back as early as the fourth millennium BC. However, for thousands of years, they were merely used as tools to dig. Simultaneously, the Catholic Church and others argued that God gave you fingers for a reason, and you needed to use them. Thus, until about the 11th century AD, Italians (and nearly everyone else in Europe) regarded those who ate with forks as godless and sacrilegious.^[10]