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A best-selling 15th century work of fiction was The Tale of the Two Lovers, an erotic novel by the man who later became Pope Pius II.

In 1967, Picoaz, Ecuador, elected a brand of foot deodorant as the town’s mayor.

The word ‘fun’ does not appear in the King James Bible.

At least 109 journeys between adjacent London Underground stations are quicker to walk.

Apostasy, the abandonment of religion, is a capital offence in Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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The third President of Kenya was called Mwai Kibaki (pronounced wacky backy).

From 1934 to 1948, the motto of the BBC was Quaecunque, Latin for “Whatever”.

There are no rivers in Saudi Arabia.

A male capuchin monkey will have sex with any female that throws a stone at him.

In the United States, the last recorded clitoridectomy for ‘curing’ masturbation was performed in 1948, on a five year old girl.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

A Short Digression on the Pig

‘All religions have a tendency to feature some dietary injunction or prohibition, whether it is the now lapsed Catholic injunction to eat fish on Fridays, or the adoration by Hindus of the cow as a consecrated and invulnerable animal (the government of India even offered to import and protect all the cattle facing slaughter as a result of the bovine encephalitic, or “mad cow,” plague that swept Europe in the 1990s), or the refusal by some other Eastern cults to consume any animal flesh, or to injure any other creature be it rat or flea. But the oldest and most tenacious of all fetishes is the hatred and even fear of the pig.

It emerged in primitive Judaea, and was for centuries one of the ways—the other being circumcision—by which Jews could be distinguished. Even though sura 5.60 of the Koran condemns particularly Jews but also other unbelievers as having been turned into pigs and monkeys—a very intense theme in recent Salafist Muslim preaching—and the Koran describes the flesh of swine as unclean or even “abominable,” Muslims appear to see nothing ironic in the adoption of this uniquely Jewish taboo.

Real horror of the porcine is manifest all over the Islamic world. One good instance would be the continued prohibition of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, one of the most charming and useful fables of modern times, of the reading of which Muslim schoolchildren are deprived. I have perused some of the solemn prohibition orders written by Arab education ministries, which are so stupid that they fail to notice the evil and dictatorial role played by the pigs in the story itself.

Orwell actually did dislike pigs, as a consequence of his failure as a small farmer, and this revulsion is shared by many adults who have had to work with these difficult animals in agricultural conditions. Crammed together in sties, pigs tend to act swinishly, as it were, and to have noisy and nasty fights. It is not unknown for them to eat their own young and even their own excrement, while their tendency to random and loose gallantry is often painful to the more fastidious eye.

But it has often been noticed that pigs left to their own devices, and granted sufficient space, will keep themselves very clean, arrange little bowers, bring up families, and engage in social interaction with other pigs. The creatures also display many signs of intelligence, and it has been calculated that the crucial ratio—between brain weight and body weight—is almost as high with them as it is in dolphins.

There is great adaptability between the pig and its environment, as witness wild boars and “feral pigs” as opposed to the placid porkers and frisky piglets of our more immediate experience. But the cloven hoof, or trotter, became a sign of diabolism to the fearful, and I daresay that it is easy to surmise which came first—the devil or the pig. It would be merely boring and idiotic to wonder how the designer of all things conceived such a versatile creature and then commanded his higher-mammal creation to avoid it altogether or risk his eternal displeasure. But many otherwise intelligent mammals affect the belief that heaven hates ham.’

– Hitchens. C. 2007. God Is Not Great London, Great Britain: Atlantic Books (2008) p. 37-38

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A baby puffin is called a puffling.

The peak weight of Khalid bin Mohsen Shaari was 610 kg. In August 2013, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ordered him to be hospitalized and lose weight.

The brain cannot feel pain, even if you stick a knife in it.

The Parsi people of India leave their dead to be eaten by vultures.

Crocodile dung, blacksmith water, Weasel’s testicles, mercury, animal intestines, cola and other carbonated drinks, an acacia and honey tampon, an opium or lemon diaphragm and brewed tea with Beaver testicles have all been used as contraceptives.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

On The Quran

“The idea that this is the best book ever written – on any subject – can only be maintained in an enormous intellectual isolation.”[1]

– Sam Harris

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[1] Consider: the country of Spain translates more of the world’s literature and learning into Spanish every year than the entire Arab world has translated into Arabic since the 9th century.

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During the siege of Paris in 1870, the artist Manet’s cat was eaten by a person, or persons, unknown.

In 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove the word ‘lunatic’ from federal law by a margin of 398 to 1.

Damfino was Victorian slang for ‘damned if I know’.

Barbara Cartland dictated all her novels (over 700 titles) to a secretary, while lying on a sofa with a white fur rug and a hot water bottle.

Mohammed Salah al-Munajjid, the Sheik of Saudi Arabia, decreed in 2015 that making snowmen is a punishable offence.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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During mating season, the testicles of some fruit bats become so swollen that flight becomes impossible.

In Spanish, the verb trasnochar means ‘to stay awake all night’.

The Atlantic Ocean is slightly saltier than the Pacific Ocean.

In the Arabic broadcast of The Simpsons episodes, Homer drinks soda instead of beer and eats Egyptian beef sausages instead of hot dogs.

In 2006, a Gallup poll revealed that 53 percent of Americans believe the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago – interestingly, the Sumerians had invented glue one thousand earlier.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Interesting Etymologies

A number of English words have come a long way to become part of the language. A brief look at the histories that accompany them reveal some interesting stories.

Avocado [Noun.]
A pear-shaped fruit with a rough leathery skin, smooth oily edible flesh, and a large stone.

The word for avocado comes from the Aztec word, ahuacatl, which means ‘testicle’. Aside from the similar shape, avocados also act as aphrodisiacs, foods that stimulate sex drive. Avocado therefore is the ‘testicle fruit’.

Jumbo [Adjective.]
Very large, unusually for it’s type.

In 1880, P.T. Barnum bought an elephant, called Jumbo, from the Royal Zoological Society in London. By age 7, this pachyderm consumed 200 pounds of hay, one barrel of potatoes, two bushels of oats, 15 loaves of bread, a slew of onions, and several pails of water every day. His caretaker at the zoo also gave him a gallon or two of whiskey every now and then. At full size, Jumbo stood at 11-and-a-half feet tall and weighed six-and-half tons. His name likely stems from two Swahili words: jambo, meaning ‘hello’, and the word jumbe, meaning ‘chief’.

Clue [Noun.]
A fact or idea that serves as a guide or aid in a task or problem.

According to Greek mythology, when Theseus entered the Labyrinth to kill the minotaur (a half-man, half-bull), he unraveled a ‘clew’ — a ball of string — behind him, so he could find his way back. The word clue didn’t even exist until the mid-1500s when people started to vary the spelling of ‘clew’.

Robot [Noun.]
A machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer.

The word robot comes from the Czech word robota, meaning ‘forced labour’ — which sounds strangely like slavery.

Sycophant [Noun.]
A person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage.

Technically, sycophant means someone who denounces someone else as a fig-smuggler. Since the beginning of the sixth century, Athens outlawed transporting food, except olives, outside the city-state’s borders. People mostly broke the law by smuggling figs. Back then, Athenian law permitted blackmailing. These blackmailers, or sykophantes in Greek, wanted to earn some extra cash and threatened to tell the courts about others’ fig-smuggling habits.

Assassin [Noun.]
A person who murders an important person for political or religious reasons.

Members of a fanatical Muslim sect during the Crusades used to smoke hashish and then murder leaders on the opposing side. They started going by the name hashishiyyin, meaning hashish-users in Arabic. Through centuries of mispronunciation, English arrived at assassin.

Phony [Adjective.]
Not genuine, fraudulent.

Back in day, pirates used to sell fawney, basically British slang for fake gold rings. Anything can happen when you add a buccaneer’s accent.

Nimrod [Noun.]
An inept person.

Nimrod actually means a skilful hunter. The word comes from Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, one of the most powerful biblical kings. During the golden age of American animation, Bugs Bunny called Elmer fud a nimrod in an episode of Looney Tunes. As Cracked puts it, that’s kind of like calling your friend “Einstein” after he makes a really dumb statement. Bugs’ sarcasm just stuck.

Whiskey [Noun.]
A spirit distilled from malted grain, especially barley or rye.

Whiskey is the shortened form of whiskeybae, which comes from the Old English usquebae, derived from two Gaelic words: uisce meaning ‘water’, and bethu meaning ‘life’. Thus, whiskey literally means water of life. How accurate.