16+ Things We Never Knew Were Going On In Our World

Whenever I go somewhere new, I come back knowing more about the world.

Sometimes I learn something that changes my whole perspective about an entire country’s history and sometimes I learn that St. Louis was the birthplace of toasted ravioli. Also important: learning how utterly delicious toasted ravioli is.

But even without going anywhere, you can find out a lot about the world that previously slipped under our collective radars. All it takes is for someone to share their passion in just the right way and suddenly, we’ve entered a whole new world.

This isn’t always what it looks like when lightning strikes a car, but this one was just…lucky enough to experience an extreme case.

As we can see, it the lightning itself didn’t appear to do as much damage as the resulting fire. The melted glass and discolored metal are telltale signs of that.

When the California Alligator Farm was still open, this wasn’t an unusual sight.

According to The Smithsonian , the attraction ran in Los Angeles from 1907 to 1953.

Although there was a sign that told guests not to “throw stones at the alligators, spit on, punch or molest them in any way,” it wasn’t unusual for visitors of all ages to handle them.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t closed down for safety reasons, but rather declining interest.

When Swedish transport company Arriva prohibited its bus drivers from wearing shorts, they switched to skirts to stay comfortable during the summer months.

As the BBC reported , Arriva accepted this as an alternative because it would be discriminatory to allow their female drivers to wear skirts, but not their male ones.

This is called a slab wave and only the most fearless of surfers would dare take it on.

According to The Surfer’s Journal , a slab occurs when a heavy wave slams into a particular rock ledge and they’re mostly known to occur off the southern coast of Australia.

Yes, this person somehow managed to balance a full pint of beer on a pen.

For the sake of bartenders everywhere, I can only hope that as few people try to mimic what they’ve accomplished as possible.

This isn’t the first time a plane has been photographed carrying a space shuttle, but it’s rare for people stuck in traffic to get such a good look at it.

Either this happened higher up in the air than it seems or the noise must’ve been unimaginable at the time.

If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when storefronts have their giant letters delivered, here’s your answer.

Obviously, giant letters need protection during shipping just as everything else does, but I wouldn’t have guessed they’d pick see-through shipping crates.

Perhaps that ensures that Ikea’s letter don’t end up going to Walmart and vice-versa.

One airplane passenger got to see the power of a wind farm in action.

While flying over Denmark, they noticed that the fog was dissipating in weird, straight streaks as it approached these turbines.

That’s not a sight we see every day.

This crayfish had such a rough time as it shed its shell that it actually lost an arm.

But it seems that trusty pincer wouldn’t go missing for long because after another molting session a month later, he appears to be growing it back.

Apparently, it’s not such a safe bet that you’ll see the sun every morning if you live in Barrow, Alaska.

At least, that was the case late last year, when residents went a whole 65 days without ever catching a glimpse of it.

As if watching the sun set at 1:44 pm wasn’t weird enough to experience.

This artistic cube has a single light bulb in it, but that’s all it needs to fill the whole room with impressive shadows.

The uploader also seemed to think it looked like it was hovering, but the chains holding it up are visible if you look at all the vertices at the top of the box.

Somehow, this game of Jenga managed to go on against some pretty intense odds.

Whoever set that mind-boggling leaning tower up must’ve been pretty sure they would win, but another kid was just as daring as they were crafty.

Or lucky, depending on how charitable you’re feeling.

This recreation of the Eiffel Tower is already pretty impressive before you realize a spider did it.

Granted, it was probably a coincidence unless there’s a burgeoning arachnid art community I wasn’t aware of, but that almost makes it harder to believe this happened.

In rare cases, this is what a sunset can look like from above the clouds.

This photo was taken over Oahu, Hawaii and the clouds were just thin enough to let this breathtaking sunset peek through.

And that’s not the only trick we’ll see the sun play today.

Although it certainly wouldn’t be impossible to make sunlight refract like this on purpose, it happened to hit a glass coffee table at just the right angle to make this little rainbow.

Some street artists are so talented that they can make their work seem three-dimensional, but this piece actually is.

That’s because this letter T wasn’t made with paint, but rather carefully arranged string. Even Spider-Man would probably have trouble making this.

Aberdeen, Washington has no shortage of monuments honoring Kurt Cobain, but this one definitely comes across as unique.

And no, you’re not the only one wondering if anyone who sees this is actually concerned that somebody stole it.

This might seem like some weird decoration project with someone’s old CDs, but we’re looking at something far bigger than that.

It’s actually an aerial view of different farms in Saudi Arabia and the reason why they’re all circular has to do with the well shafts placed in the middle of each circle that spin around and water everything.

In Japan, groping on trains has become a widespread enough issue that some have cars that only allow women.

According to The Guardian , these were actually put in place almost 20 years ago.

In recent years, an app has been developed that either allows women who experience groping to activate a loud voice that screams “stop it” or presents a message they can show to other passengers that reads, “There is a molester. Please help.”

This slurpee was mixed so well that its flavors showed up in the straw at perfectly balanced levels.

It feels weird to be satisfied that there’s a slurpee out there that Thanos would approve of, but I can’t deny it.

Did you know that scallops have eyes and teeth?

I bet you wish you didn’t. I know I wish I didn’t, but since I do now, it’s my obligation to inflict that knowledge on you.

Follow4Follow?

This is a new type of farming — click farming. What this person is doing is going to the same accounts, posts, pages, tweets, etc on all of those phones and liking, retweeting, following, sharing, etc on all of them. If you’re desperate to get those clicks on your account, you can pay someone to do this for your accounts.

Smooth operator.

Lightning struck this tree and blew the bark clean off of it. I imagine this tree feels the way women do when they just freshly shave their legs. Feel me, I’m so smooth!

I don’t envy the person who’s job it is to empty this.

These are mesh drains used in Australia to keep garbage and other kinds of pollution out of the water system. Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest!

Motivational gym shirts.

Rather than the standard “work hard, play hard” type slogans on workout gear, this shirt has a message that only becomes visible when you’ve sweated through your shirt. I still don’t want to go to the gym, but that is pretty cool.

This is why people believe in dragons.

This is the spine of a fin whale found in an inlet in Norway. I can’t even imagine seeing something that big, let alone seeing a live one.

Tiny bonsai tree, full size apple.

This tiny bonsai tree managed to grow a full size apple, which is pretty impressive. Think of how much energy and effort it takes to grow something more than half your size — it takes women nine months and tons of energy to grow a baby, and babies are pretty small compared the rest of us.

I’ve had it with these monkey-fighting horses on this Monday-to-Friday plane!

I’ve never considered how they get horses from one place to another when it’s a long distance trip. I guess I just assumed they rode them, which might take longer but would probably be more fun.

Take a walk on the crab bridge.

Christmas Island in Australia has bridges built for crabs to allow them to migrate safely without getting crushed by cars. Are people allowed on them? I’m asking for a friend. A friend who loves crabs.