Posted 2 minutes agoSubscribe to BuzzFeed Daily NewsletterCaret Down23 Wild Facts I Wouldn't Even Think To Question Because They Sound Too Obscure To Be FakeAll I can say is, "Wow."by Morgan MurrellBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink 1. Until 2015 in the UK, the coloring in red skittles contained carmine, which derives from the crushed abdomen of female beetles. Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images 2. There's an 80% chance your toothbrush has fecal matter on it. Even if it's stored in a closed container. Even toothbrushes stored outside the bathroom may be contaminated with fecal matter. Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF Universal Pictures / Buena Vista International 3. Winnie the Pooh was banned from a Polish playground because he doesn't wear pants. Peter Bischoff / Getty Images 4. The casting team for the Harry Potter movies was strongly against non-British actors being a part of the film, which meant that Robin Williams was turned down for Hagrid. Jason Laveris / Getty Images, Warner Bros. Liam Aiken was the only American actor who even got the chance to audition for Harry Potter. Aside from that one exception, the casting team insisted on hiring only British actors. Because of that rule, Robin Williams reached out to director Chris Columbus about playing Hagrid but was politely turned down. As casting director Janet Hirshenson later explained, once Columbus said no to Robin, there was no way he was going to make an exception for anyone else. 5. Cows have accents, and it goes way beyond moo! Fhm / Getty Images UK dairy farmers observed that cows seemed to moo with slight variations depending on the region. Curious about this, researchers from the University of London conducted a study and confirmed it - cows really do have regional differences in their moos. Interestingly, birds are also known to develop distinct local dialects. 6. Nutmeg isn't just used in food. It can also be hallucinogenic if consumed in large doses. Fcafotodigital / Getty Images 7. McDonald's used to have stirring spoons for their coffee until people began using them to snort cocaine. Picture Alliance / dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images 8. Pirates wore eye patches not because they were missing an eye, but to keep one eye adjusted to darkness. This let them switch quickly between bright sunlight above deck and the dim conditions below deck, giving them an advantage in battle or while moving through the ship. Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF ABC 9. You can actually go to Hell...
Hell, Norway that is, or even Hell, Michigan. And don't worry, it doesn't really get hot. Glasshouse Images / Getty Images 10. Pope John Paul II is an honorary Harlem Globetrotter. GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP via Getty Images 11. Believe it or not, the largest tire manufacturer in the world is...
Lego. Ekaterina Goncharova / Getty Images In 2011, Guinness World Records named Lego the biggest tire manufacturer in the world. That year, the company produced 381 million tiny tires - far more than Bridgestone's 190 million, Michelin's 184 million, or Goodyear's 181 million. Sure, Lego tires are much easier to make since they're miniature and don't require everything an actual motor vehicle tire needs, but the numbers are still surprising! 12. Roses are among the oldest plants on Earth, with fossils dating back 35 million years. The oldest living rose, which grows on a wall at Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany, is over 1,000 years old - and amazingly, it even survived a World War II bombing. Preto_perola / Getty Images 13. President Theodore Roosevelt had a pet hyena named Bill. Chuck Babbitt / Getty Images 14. There's a pretty high chance that the ground coffee you use likely contains cockroaches. Tap to play GIF Tap to play GIF New Line Cinema 15. On August 9, 1996, production on Titanic took an unexpected and alarming turn when almost 80 cast and crew members were sent to the hospital after eating clam chowder on set. At first, the incident was thought to be a case of food poisoning, but a Nova Scotia newspaper later reported that the chowder had been deliberately spiked with PCP. Among those affected were actor Bill Paxton and director James Cameron. CBSPhoto Archive / CBS via Getty Images 16. It's wild to think about, but none of us have ever actually seen our own faces - only reflections and images. Every time we look in a mirror or scroll past a photo, we're only catching a filtered representation. The world sees us directly, but we only know ourselves through glass and pixels. MUBI / Courtesy Everett Collection 17. Stop signs used to be yellow. Grace Cary / Getty Images Before the 1920s, stop signs didn't follow any uniform rules - they came in all different shapes and colors. In 1922, the American Association of State Highway Officials decided that stop signs should be yellow and octagon-shaped. At the time, they didn't choose red because red paint tended to fade quickly and appeared too dark at night. It wasn't until the 1950s, after more durable red paint was developed, th