Have you ever wondered where the superstition that breaking a mirror would bring seven years of bad luck originated? This ancient superstition dates all the way back to Roman times, according to our fun fact about mirror number 8.

The Romans believe that breaking a mirror would harm both your soul and your life, which are renewed every seven years. As a result, seven years of bad luck followed.

Imhotep, the world's first known physician, used Sleep Temples as healing sanctuaries. The temples were used as a type of suggestion therapy, and people would go there to be healed of physical and mental ailments. Patients who visit a Sleep Temple are said to be put under the influence of incantation or a hypnotic state. Before finally falling asleep, the physician would make whatever suggestions he could to help them overcome their problem in the hopes that the gods would visit the patient while he slept and fix them.

Insomniacs are frequently prescribed sleeping medications. According to the National Sleep Foundation, one in every four Americans takes sleeping medication each year. Sleep specialists, on the other hand, lack evidence for drugs that help cure insomnia. They place a greater emphasis on cognitive therapy lessons for patients in order to help them sleep better.

Australia played South Africa in a Test match in Melbourne in 1952. South Africa appeared untested and poor, to begin with, with only one victory in their previous ten test matches. Despite the disadvantage, South Africa scored 370 runs and took 13 wickets. It could go down as one of the biggest test cricket upsets ever.

No, butterscotch and salted caramel aren't interchangeable. Brown sugar and butter are used to make butterscotch (sometimes it includes salt and vanilla). Granulated sugar, butter, sea salt, heavy cream, and vanilla are used to make the salted caramel.

The Nepalese Himalayas are the confluence of three major Asian river systems: the Ganga, the Brahmaputra, and the Yamuna. The Himalayas also has the world's third-largest ice and snow depository.

Due to its simplicity of maintenance, the Sansevieria Trifasciata makes a great houseplant for novices. The Sansevieria is a great choice if you're just getting started with indoor plants. It is one of the simplest houseplants to maintain because it requires little maintenance and adapts to many conditions. The snake plant is a simple houseplant to grow and only needs a few simple maintenance instructions. Your plant needs to be in indirect sunlight, and it needs to be watered every two weeks. This plant is ideal for those who lead busy lives or are just beginning their gardening careers because it is not overly demanding in terms of maintenance requirements.

When the African Lungfish is in danger of dying, it secretes a mucus cocoon and burrows up to 9 inches into the earth, where it breathes through a built-in breathing tube that leads to the surface. It is thus dependent on rainfall to breathe.

This is from research done by Professor Chris Idzikowski, director of the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service, though five other sleeping positions have been identified: the log, yearner, starfish, soldier, and freefaller.

 

At a time when it was considered impolite to show a toilet being flushed on screen, Alfred Hitchcock saw an opportunity to add even more shock to his already shocking film by presenting a scrap of paper that proves to be an important clue, failing to flush in a toilet. The clue in the book was an earring discovered in the bathroom, but Hitchcock changed it to a piece of paper found in the toilet, partly to give viewers a surprise.

Toby Gard hacked together Lara Croft Manor, one of the most iconic locations in the original Tomb Raider, in a weekend, and it was based on the actual building Core Design was headquartered in. Yes, even indie video game developers can stay in castles in England.

You are not required to write about your deepest fears or your most ardent crushes, as you did in middle school. Rather, keep track of when your migraines occur. Take note of when they began, what you were doing, what you ate and drank in the previous 24 hours, and your menstrual cycle, if you're a woman. This can assist you in determining your migraine triggers.

Among all the animals, termites are among the best builders. They build enormous mounds that tower over the ground, and they use the tunnels therein to move between their nests and their source of food. When compared to termites' relative size, one mound that was found in Africa was an incredible 42 feet high. That is approximately the height of a two-story structure!

If you disassembled the Sun and piled up its various elements, you'd discover that hydrogen accounts for 74% of its mass. With a helium content of 24% The remaining 2% consists of trace amounts of iron, nickel, oxygen, and all of the other elements found in the Solar System. To put it another way, the Solar System is mostly made of hydrogen.

The music of Wilhelmus, the Dutch national anthem, dates back to between 1569 and 1572. This makes it the oldest melody used in a country’s national anthem, although it did not become the official Dutch anthem until 1932. 

The lyrics were also written at least 400 years ago and they refer to “Dietse Bloed”, an old word for Nederlands (Dutch).

In Greenland, 11% of the population is not Inuit. As a result, any Inuk who lives in Greenland has the opportunity to have new dining experiences, however even this hasn't significantly changed their traditional diet. Because it is difficult to get vegetables and fruit in cold, remote places, anthropologists and other experts have concluded that the Inuit diet has remained mostly unchanged over the centuries and consists predominantly of meat and fish.

A command entered in the "master machine" where the animation for Toy Story 2 was stored deleted 90 percent of the work the Pixar team had done on it. As Mental Floss describes, "A plan was quickly hatched to restore the data from a regular backup, which meant that only half a day of work would have been lost. But the backup system had failed. Pixar, incredibly, did not have a copy of the Toy Story 2 files on its servers." Fortunately, the film's technical director had a copy she had been working on from home, and much of it was restored.

Zeus had a large family outside of his marriage to Hera. This enraged Hera, and in order to exact her vengeance, she claimed that their son, Hephaestus, was the result of a virgin birth. This meant that Hephaestus was not descended from Zeus, which infuriated the Thunder god. And he vented his rage on Hephaestus by tossing him off the summit of Mount Olympus.

In Muslim and Jewish traditions, Henna or Mehendi is thought to protect the bride from the evil eye! According to superstition, a complex Mehendi design protects the bride better. So, if you suspect a jealous relative or person, get to work on some intricate Mehendi patterns!

The tides are caused by the tiny changes in gravitational pulls of the Moon and Sun, as well as centrifugal forces in opposite directions. The tides on Earth are at their greatest when the three bodies are aligned, which occurs near the full and new Moons. The Earth is then extended along that line According to Ingersoll. "The water responds the greatest, but the solid Earth responds as well," he explains. "Water flowing in the oceans and rocks moving underground, both of which lose kinetic energy, are the answer. As a result, the Earth is rotating slower and the day is growing longer."

When you consider the average number of lipsticks purchased over a lifetime and their average wearability, it comes down to women licking off or eating with food approximately 4 lb of lipstick in their lifetime. This equates to 533.76 lipsticks. Of course, for some women, this number is far too high (or far too low), which is why it is only an average — it varies by country and culture.

Centipede is a Latin word that means "hundred legs," but that name is actually quite deceptive. Since centipedes only have one set of legs per body segment and they are always oddly shaped, they can never have exactly 100 legs. Each species of centipede has a different number of legs. Some species only have 15 pairs, while others have 177 pairs!

Did you know that certain NASA scientists have shown that a flame would be spherical under microgravity (like on a space station)? The absence of gravity is what causes this phenomenon.

Many people assume that slaves built the pyramids, however this is not the truth. They were hired workmen who constructed with great respect for the Pharaoh, and those who died were interred in tombs near the holy pyramids.