Asklemmy

The northern most part of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the southern most part of Brazil.

European settlers committed genocide in America on such an incredible scale that the global climate cooled.

The world is running out of sand.

It's one of the most used materials in the world for construction but islands are disappearing because of its limited supply.

Tiffany was a really common name in Ancient Rome.

The can opener was invented 30 years after the can.

Oh, I have two good ones:

1. Nuclear power causes less deaths (per energy unit produced) than wind (source)

2. You get less radiation when living near a nuclear power plant, than if that nuclear plant hadn't been there.

To explain the second: A major misconception is, that nuclear power plants are dangerous due to their radiation. No they aren't. The effect of radiation from the rocks in the ground and the surroundings is on average 50x more than what you get from the nuclear power plant and it's fuel cells. (source). Our body is very well capable of dealing with the constant background radiation all the time (e.g. DNA repairs). Near a power plant, the massive amounts of isolation and concrete will inhibit any background radiation coming from rocks from that direction to you. This means, that you'll actually get slightly less radiation, because the nuclear plant is there.

Regarding the dangers of nuclear disasters. To this day, it's been very hard to find out, if at all any people have even died to Fukushima radiation (ans not other sources such as tsunami/earthquake/etc.) Nuclear radiation causes much more problems by being an emotionally triggering viral meme spreading between people and hindering it's productive use and by distracting from the ironic fact, that the coal burned in coal power plants spew much more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants themselves. (source)

Most people have more than the average number of legs.

General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil, and Phillips Petroleum were convicted of an actual conspiracy related to the monopolization of transit systems, which replaced beloved streetcar (rail) systems with rubber-tired oil-burning buses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy

Texas is larger than any country in Europe except Russia.

Maine is the closest US state to Africa.

A broken clock is right twice a day, but a clock running backwards is right four times a day.

Oxford University is older than the Aztec empire.

Oxford University founded in 1326, Aztec empire ~1428-1521

Drinking Water has a 100% fatality rate. Everyone who drinks it eventually dies.

(also a good example of why correlation =/= causation)

The country claiming to have the most “freedom” of any country has the highest incarceration rate of any country.

Lighters were invented before matches! 1823 vs 1826

Your car keys have better range if you press them to your head, since your skull will act as an antenna. It sounds like some made up pseudoscience that would never work in practice or have a negligible effect, but it actually works.

Edit: idk if it's actually because your skull acts as an antenna, although that's what I've heard. I looked it up and it seems like it's your head acting as a reasonance chamber. Since your body is conductive, your head can bounce and amplify the radio signal.

Every Rubik's Cube, no matter how scrambled, can be solved in at most 20 rotations.