30 totally awesome and unknown facts about YouTube - Bemorepanda

Everyone knows Amazon.com, where you can order fast and convenient delivery of everything. Its creator, Jeff Bezos, promises that it will soon be possible to deliver orders in 10 minutes using aerial drones. But few have heard of Relentless.com. By typing this address in a search engine, you will be automatically redirected to Amazon.

The fact is that "Relentless" is one of the first names that 30-year-old Bezos came up with for his online store. The second option was "Kadabra" as part of a magic spell. But both did not pass, then Bezos simply took a dictionary from the shelf and chose one of the first words he came across - the Amazon River. Thus began one of the most successful business stories in the world. It has a bit of magic and ruthlessness.

Brad Stone's book "The Everything Store" is about Jeff Bezos and the Amazon era, which explores the early years of Amazon and how it evolved from an online bookstore to today's e-commerce giant. Bemorepanda have collected some interesting facts about Amazon from this book.

1. Amazon originally had a different name.

Jeff Bezos wanted to give his company the name Cadabra, which sounded like part of a spell.

But Amazon's first lawyer, Todd Tarbert, said the name was too similar to the word cadaver, which translates from English as "corpse." Customers may have misheard such a name on the phone.

Bezos also liked the title Relentless. By the way, if you go to Relentless.com, you will be redirected to the Amazon home page.

Finally, Bezos chose the name Amazon - he liked the idea of ​​naming the company after the largest river in the world. It can be seen on the original Amazon logo.

2. There used to be a bell in the company's office that would ring whenever someone made a purchase on Amazon

After a few weeks, the bell began to ring so often that it had to be removed.

3. Initially, Bezos opened a company in his garage. The servers required so much power that when Bezos and his wife turned on a hairdryer or vacuum cleaner in the house, they would short-circuit.

4. In its first month of operation, Amazon sold books to people from all 50 states of America and 45 different countries.

5. A little-known lichen book saved Amazon from bankruptcy.

Book distributors demanded to buy books in batches of ten, but Amazon didn't need that much, and the company wouldn't have enough money to buy them.

But in the end, there was one loophole with which it was possible to bypass this rule. Amazon began ordering one book and nine copies of some obscure lichen book that was always out of stock.

6. Bezos used to hold meetings at the Barnes & Noble bookstore.

In the early days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, his wife Mackenzie, and their first employee, Shel Kafan, held meetings at a local Barnes and Noble store.

In 1996, Bezos met with the shopkeepers, and they said they respect him, but they are still going to launch a site that will destroy Amazon. Barnes and Noble co-founder Len Riggio wanted to call this site the Book Predator.

7. Jeff Bezos wanted his employees to work at least 60 hours a week.

Previously, the company did not know what it meant to maintain a balance between work and personal life. One of the first employees said that he worked without rest for more than eight months: he came to work early in the morning and returned late at night. He constantly rode his bike to work and completely forgot about the minibus that was parked at his house.

He didn’t have time to check his mail, and when he did open it, he saw several parking tickets, a notification from the tow truck and, finally, a message that his minibus was sold at an auction.

8. In 1998, Amazon had a very busy Christmas.

At that time, the company had a significant staff shortage. At Christmas time, all fulfillment center employees had to work the night shift. They called for help from friends and relatives and sometimes slept in their cars to go straight to work in the morning.

After this incident, Amazon promised to make sure that the next holidays the company has enough employees who would be able to fulfill the holiday orders. This is why Amazon is recruiting so many seasonal workers these days.

9. When eBay came along, Amazon launched its own auction site.

The idea failed, but Bezos liked it.

For $ 40,000, he bought the skeleton of a primeval cave bear and displayed it in the lobby of Amazon headquarters. This skeleton stands there to this day, and next to it is a sign "Please do not feed the bear."

10. Bezos enjoyed growing his company quickly, leading to chaos in Amazon's order centers.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, Amazon was in chaos. Centers were closed for several hours due to system failures, and mountains of goods were lying around, and the company was not ready to store new categories of products.

When Amazon started selling kitchen goods, it sometimes happened that the knives without the protective packaging cut the conveyor belt. The situation was extremely dangerous.

11. In early 2002, Bezos introduced the concept of a “two pizza team”.

He suggested that workers should work in groups of less than ten people - that's how many people can be fed with two pizzas. According to Bezos, such groups should work autonomously, they should have clear goals and a formula for assessing success.

12. Dissatisfied customers can send a complaint to Bezos's personal mail, and he will forward it to the right employee with a single scary "?"

Whenever Amazon employees receive a letter from Bezos with a question mark, they react to it like a bomb. They usually have several hours to solve the problem and prepare a detailed explanation of why it arose. The explanatory note is checked by senior managers and then redirected to Bezos himself. In this way, Bezos shows customers that their complaints are constantly reviewed by the company.

13. Even before Google Street View came along, Amazon had Block View.

In 2004, Amazon launched the A9.com search engine. The team that worked on it also began to develop a project called Block View, which would display photographs of them from the street in response to a search query about stores and restaurants. For less than $ 100,000, Amazon sent its car photographers to twenty US cities to photograph the restaurants they needed. In 2006, Amazon abandoned the project, and in 2007 Google launched Street View.

14. Amazon employees fought stress with primal screams.

During the holidays, it is especially difficult for the employees of the logistics department. In the early 2000s, Jeff Wilkie, Chief Operating Officer for Amazon, allowed anyone who was able to achieve a big goal at work to close their eyes and yell at him with all their might on the phone.

Some of these primal screams nearly broke his speakers, Wilkie said.

15. Sometimes the "protests" of employees of Amazon fulfillment centers ended in rather funny ways.

The working conditions in these centers are notorious and sometimes their employees have tried to go on strike. One day, a worker decided to quit his job and sat astride a conveyor belt - and so he rode all the way out of the building.

But the funniest story happened in 2006 with a temporary employee of a Kansas center.

This employee came and went at the beginning of the shift, but no one saw him during working hours. Only a week later, it was discovered that the man had made himself a lair inside a pile of empty wooden boxes. Inside, he built a bed of Amazon products, reinforced the walls with pages torn from books, and even stole ordered food. When his lair was finally discovered, the employee was fired (not surprisingly).

16. The original Amazon Kindle e-reader was codenamed "Fiona".

This name Kindle got from the book by Neil Stevenson "The Diamond Age". It told of a distant future in which an engineer managed to steal a rare interactive book for his knowledge-hungry daughter, Fiona. The team behind the Kindle prototype was inspired by this fictional device.

The team asked Bezos to keep the name Fiona, but he ended up choosing the Kindle. This word is translated as "kindle the flame", and it really liked Bezos.

17. Jeff Bezos is said to have hired a leadership coach to shout less at his subordinates.

Bezos is known for being quite harsh or sarcastic about employees who tell him something unpleasant. Rumor has it that he has hired a special assistant to help him respond to the news in a less harsh manner.

During one meeting, Bezos chastised employees in his usual harsh manner. He said that they were all fools and that he gave them a week to figure out what they were doing. Then he took a couple of steps, froze as if he suddenly realized something and said: "But still, you did a good job."

18. Bezos Realized a childhood dream.

Bezos founded his own space tourism company Blue Origin in 2000, decades after telling teachers and friends as a child that he wanted to be a “space entrepreneur” when he grew up.

19. Space enthusiast.

Jeff is so passionate about NASA during the Mercury and Apollo missions that he equipped and financed an underwater expedition to locate and recover the debris of Apollo rockets.

20. Bezos doesn't use an alarm clock.

He does not use an alarm clock and tends to sleep a full eight hours a night. No overnight fires or early risings for this CEO.

21. A good father.

As a child, Jeff was adopted by his stepfather Miguel Bezos. Today, the entrepreneur has four children with his wife Mackenzie: three sons and a daughter, whom the couple adopted in China.

22. He has come a long way.

As a teenager, Bezos worked at McDonald's, making French fries. At the same time, he founded a small summer camp for primary school students DREAM Institute.

23. Demanding to women.

Jeff had high demands on candidates for the role of a life partner. In an interview with Wired, he said that he was looking for one that "will get him out of the trap of the Third World."

24. Altruist, but not strong.

Originally from Albuquerque, Jeff studied at Princeton. There he studied electrical engineering and computer science. In 2011, he donated $ 15 million to the university to build a center for the study of neurological disorders.

At the same time, being the richest man on earth, Bezos is ranked last in the ranking of the top 10 billionaire benefactors.

25. A big fan of reading.

Bezos's favorite book is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

26. Customers come first.

If you have any complaints or suggestions, just email jeff@amazon.com. Receiving emails to this mail, Bezos forwards the question to the person in charge at the company, who then reports directly to the CEO on the progress of the issue. So the problem is under control.

27. Bezos made the first tables for himself and Amazon employees himself.

He could not afford expensive furniture at the beginning of the journey, so he put together tables for the first employees himself, using wooden doors instead of tabletops and boards for legs. Now these tables have become something of an artifact at the company - for over 20 years at Amazon, they have been using various variations of that historically simple design for the desktop.

The company even instituted the Door Desk Awards, which give creators "good ideas to offer consumers the lowest prices."

28. Bezos is not a fan of expensive cars.

Despite the fact that after the founding of Amazon, Bezos' business rapidly went uphill, he did not, like many, buy yachts and expensive cars for himself and for a long time remained faithful to his 1987 Chevrolet Blazer, which at first personally delivered deliveries. In 1997, when the company went public, he finally swapped out his old car for the new Honda Accord.

29. Bezos once looked into the eyes of death.

In 2003, Jeff Bezos practically looked death in the eye. He was looking for land to build a test site for Blue Origin when his helicopter crashed on a tour of Texas. The Amazon CEO received a number of minor injuries and recovered quickly, but after that he did not fly helicopters for a long time.

“Nothing special occurred to me. I was only thinking about what a stupid way to die, ”Bezos told Fast Company in 2004.

It didn't become some kind of life-defining experience for me. I’m afraid I’ve learned a rather mundane lesson: Avoid helicopters whenever possible! They are not as reliable as air transport with wings. "

30. Bezos is an Early Investor in Google.

Less than five years after founding Amazon, Bezos demonstrated his investment flair by investing $ 1 million in Google in the late 90s. Then it was a serious risk, which by now has paid off handsomely.

The brand of the search giant Google is probably one of the most recognizable on the globe, and today only a person who is very far from the Internet and civilization has not heard about the company. At the same time, the activities of the "corporation of good" are so diverse that even its employees themselves do not know about all the initiatives of their management. Bemorepanda choosed 30 unusual and interesting facts about the world famous company that you most likely did not even know about.

Many people dream of working at Google. Getting there is not easy - sometimes interviews alone can take six months. But if you happen to be there, even if you are an intern, you can celebrate winning the jackpot.

1. Before giving the user the result of a search query, Google takes into account about 200 different factors.

2. The company owns a bunch of domains that are the wrong spelling for Google. For example, Gooogle.com, Gogle.com, Googlr.com and many others. Among them there are even such exotic ones as 466453.com - these are numbers on the phone's disk that correspond to the letters of Google.

3. When Google launched in 1998, the system was processing 500,000 queries a day. Now users ask the system for something more than 2 million times per second.

4. Since Google launched Street View in 2007, the project team has photographed over 11.5 million kilometers of roads and objects.

5. The first five American cities were captured with a 5 megapixel camera. Now the company uses devices with 75-megapixel sensors.

6. Every month, YouTube users watch over 6 billion hours of video - about an hour for every inhabitant of the globe.

7. Google regularly buys and funds projects that aim to change the world and the lives of millions of people. However, the "corporation of good" does not shun small, local projects. For example, in 2012, the company added the Cherokee American Indian language to Gmail.

8. More than 300 hours of new videos appear on YouTube every minute.

9. Last year, more than 1 billion Android devices were sold worldwide. This means that Google's market share in this segment is 81%.

10. In total, Google employs 53,600 people in 70 offices from 40 countries.

11. If a corporation likes something, then it will not stand up to the costs to buy it. This year, the company made more than 170 acquisitions, and the value of the top 10 purchases exceeded $ 24.5 billion.

12. Despite the huge number of adventurous and super-innovative projects, such as self-driving cars or smart contact lenses, the bulk of Google's revenue comes from advertising. In 2014, revenue from this type of activity amounted to $ 66 billion.

13. Larry Page and Sergey Brin released the first Doodle in August 1998. During this time, they were participating in the Burning Man rally through the Nevada desert and wanted the world to know where they were at the moment.

14. The volume of the Google search index is over 100 million GB. To accommodate this amount of data would require over 100,000 terabyte hard drives.

15. People trust and love Google services so much that when the system dropped by 5 minutes in 2013, the volume of global traffic dropped by 40%.

16. Google is probably the only company in the world that wants people to spend as little time on their website as possible.

17. Google was originally called BackRub. This is how the main page of the search engine looked like, which became the prototype of Google.

18. Google's incredibly fast growth is especially noticeable against the backdrop of one curious fact: since 2010, the Internet giant has bought an average of one company per week.

19. The first doodle was invented by Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page together. It happened in 1998. A schematic image of a burning guy, a symbol of the Burning Man festival, which takes place in the Black Rock desert of Nevada, has been added to the usual multicolored Google inscription. Brin and Page went there in 2008.

20. Google's own chef, Charlie Ayers, came to Google in 1999, when the company had only 40 employees.

21. Ayers built a good career in the corporation, becoming the chef of the entire company. At the time of leaving Google, he controlled 150 employees and 10 cafes at Google's Mountain View headquarters.

22. Gmail already supports over 50 different languages. Among them are the Basque, Welsh, Tagalog, Malayalam, Telulu and Cherokee languages.

23. In 2004, Google went public, selling part of its shares on the stock exchange. On the same day, about 1,000 of its employees became millionaires.

24. One of these lucky ones is masseuse Bonnie Brown. She joined the company in 1999. Her initial salary was $ 450 per week.

25. Button "I'm Lucky!" became extremely popular. But it costs Google $ 100 million every year in lost ad revenue.

26. Google is hiring goats. In 2009, the company rented about two hundred goats that grazed on its California campus, while fertilizing the soil with their excrement along the way.

27. The first official tweet from Google's corporate Twitter meant "I'm in luck," but it was written in binary, meaning it was all zeros and ones.

28. Google's competitor, Mozilla (Firefox browser), receives money from the Internet giant. For the fact that the default browser uses the Google search engine, its developer receives $ 300 million a year.

29. The total cost of this 16 percent stake is close to $ 46 billion.

30. Each new employee within the company is called a noogler, and the former is called a xoogler.

Tokyo, the capital of distant and prosperous Japan, stuns tourists literally from the first moments, as soon as the traveler's footsteps on his land. Everything seems to be different here than in other cities: an incredibly complex layout of blocks, and intricate metro lines that are perceived as not connected to each other, and a solid jungle of city communications wires. During rush hours, people seem to merge into one river, and its flows fill the streets, underpasses, public transport. Here you need to always keep your eyes open, because it is very easy to get lost, getting completely different from where you hoped to be.

Tokyo is second in the world in terms of population density. The city of 37 million is not only the political, administrative and financial, but also the industrial and cultural center of the country. Located in the southeastern part of Japan's largest island of Honshu, this ultra-modern metropolis, where life does not stop day or night, is located on the Kanto Plain, in a cozy bay of Tokyo Bay. To truly feel its amazing atmosphere and get acquainted with at least half of the sights, one day or even a week is not enough - you need to live here for several months.

Huge and many-sided Tokyo, the capital of the only empire in the world, and even an island - Japan, cannot be described in a few words or limited to only a couple of epithets, even the most eloquent ones. And all because in this ancient city, modernity and ancient Japanese traditions harmoniously coexist, mutually penetrating each other. The Old City is worth mentioning separately. Having visited its numerous palaces, temples and shrines, it is as if you are plunging into the era of the shoguns, who for a long time were the sole rulers of the Land of the Rising Sun. Art lovers will quench their thirst for beauty in Tokyo's many museums.

1. Beneath Tokyo are five huge cylindrical shafts that will be filled with water in the event of a flood. This will prevent the destruction of the city.

2. There is an anime and manga in Japan called "Saint Young Men" in which Jesus and Buddha live in Tokyo as roommates. They rest on Earth and try to understand Japanese society.

3. When Tokyo officials went to congratulate the oldest man in the city on his 111th birthday in 2010, they found his remains on a bed. He had been dead for 30 years, and his family was taking away his pension, which was still accruing to him.

4. The Allied bombing of Tokyo killed more civilians than the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined.

5. During the Tokyo real estate bubble, the Imperial Palace (1.32 square miles) was valued more than all real estate in California.

6. Researchers in Tokyo have developed a mirror that changes a person's facial expression in real time. It gives a smile to the face. The application is intended for use in the bathrooms of the mall. The technology was adopted in the hope that happy shoppers would spend more.

7. The 2020 Olympic Games was held in Tokyo, Japan, as predicted in the 1982 Akira manga.

8. In 2013, a 39-story hotel in Tokyo literally "disappeared". It was demolished without the use of explosives or a special wrecking ball. All 39 floors were dismantled from the inside using a small crane, which gradually folded floor by floor.

9. You can pay a travel agency in Tokyo to send your plush toy on vacation without you.

10. One day, the Japanese government sent cherry tree seedlings to Washington as a gift. After the Second World War, cuttings from these cherry trees were sent back to Japan to restore the Tokyo collection, which was destroyed as a result of American bombing.

11. Tokyo Skytree is the tallest freestanding tower in the world. The height of the building is 634 meters. The tower's final height was chosen solely because of a play on words. The result is "Musashi": "mu" (in old Japanese means the number 6), "sa" (3) and "si" (4). This was the name of the historic district where modern Tokyo is located.

12. A Japanese scientist has created an exact copy of Tokyo. He used oatmeal to create nearby settlements, and bright light to simulate mountains, water sources and other natural features. When a scientist placed a living slime mold in the center of the mock-up, it created a network reminiscent of the Tokyo rail system as it tried to reach the treat (oatmeal).

13. Japan has almost twice as many 7-Elevens stores as the US. Only in Tokyo there are 2079 stores of this network.

14. There is a store in Tokyo called Whoopi Goldberg.

15. One of the Tokyo skyscrapers informs you with the help of colored lights whether to take an umbrella with you when you go outside.

16. In Tokyo, there is a building built in 1972, consisting of tiny 90-square-foot capsule apartments. If necessary, they can be replaced as Lego pieces.

17. There is a 12-story luxury stationery store in Tokyo. On the 12th floor they serve lettuce grown on the organic indoor farm located on the 11th floor of the same building.

18. Tokyo University is developing a tactile hologram. In other words, they create a hologram that can be touched and felt.

19. Tokyo has an anime-themed Butler cafe. According to the hostess, Japanese women “want to visit cafes where handsome male waiters will treat them like princesses.” This is the only cafe where only foreigners work.

20. 45 of the 51 busiest train stations in the world are in Japan. The busiest Shinjuku station, located in Tokyo, serves approximately 1.2 billion passengers a year.

21. At noon on September 1, 1923, a powerful earthquake occurred in Tokyo. Major fires broke out throughout the city because at the time of the earthquake, people were cooking dinner over an open fire. More than 100,000 people died.

22. Blue "anti-suicide" LED lights have been installed on all train platforms in Tokyo in an attempt to reduce the number of suicides committed here. It is believed that such lanterns have a calming effect. Studies have shown that blue-light stations have reduced suicide rates by 84%.

23. In 1923, a “fire tornado” swept through Tokyo and burned over 38,000 people.

24. Each Tokyo train station has its own unique theme songs.

25. The rock and roll culture of the 50s is still thriving in Tokyo.

26. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have created a robot arm that wins 100% of the time in a game of rock-paper-scissors. Using a high-speed camera, the robot recognizes within one millisecond the shape that the human hand is about to create, and then selects the winning combination.

27. A cafe has opened in Tokyo where visitors can hug hedgehogs.

28. On March 9-10, 1945, 300 B29 bombers dropped almost 500,000 cylinders of napalm and petroleum products on Tokyo, creating a 40-kilometer firestorm that killed over 100,000 people and maimed another million Japanese. It was the most destructive bombing in human history, including the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

29. Crows in Tokyo often steal steel wires to add to their nests. This often results in power outages when birds build nests on power lines.

30. Tokyo restaurants have more Michelin stars than Parisian establishments. In 2007, the editor of Michelin declared Tokyo to be the "Gastronomic Capital of the World".

31. Cat cafes are popular and quite common in Japan. Here, people pay to interact with cats, since most Tokyo apartments do not allow pets.

32. Only after 3 hours in Tokyo learned that Hiroshima had been bombed.

33. In 2011, the residents of Sendai received an earthquake warning 10-30 seconds before the main seismic waves hit. Residents of Tokyo, the Japanese Earthquake Early Warning System (EEW) notified of the impending wave in 60 seconds. Messages were relayed via mobile phones, TV shows and web pages across the country.

34. The Tokyo metropolitan area has a larger population than Canada.

35. More than 70 unexploded WWII bombs are found in Tokyo every year.

36. Tokyo Tower was built from steel, a third of which was scrap metal (American tanks damaged in the Korean War). Often this building is used in the Japanese kaiju film genre. It also became the site of the culminating "battles" of Godzilla, Mothra and King Kong.

37. Tokyo is by far the richest city on Earth. If it were a city-state, then Tokyo would still be among the ten richest countries in terms of GDP.

38. The former Tokyo governor claimed that the Nanjing Massacre (the mass rape and murder of Chinese civilians by the Japanese military) never happened.

39. Because of Tokyo's location on a tectonic fault, geologists call it the "city waiting for death."

40. There are rumors that a secret underground city is supposedly located under Tokyo, but officials vehemently deny this information.

41. The ancestors of modern Japanese inhabited these lands in the era of stone axes. Previously, this city was a military fortress and was called "Edo".

42. Tokyo became the capital of Japan only in 1868. Prior to that, for 1075 years, the capital was the city of Kyoto.

43. In 1923, a terrible earthquake destroyed almost half of Tokyo and killed more than 90,000 people (earthquake facts).

44. The cost of a square meter of real estate in the business center of the city here reaches 2 million dollars.

45. Due to the high price of real estate in Tokyo, capsule micro-apartments have become widespread. 

46. Some establishments here do not allow foreigners. A sign can hang right on the door, which means "foreigners are not served."

47. Despite the relative popularity of tattoos among Japanese youth, a person with a tattoo on exposed areas of the body will most likely not be allowed into any decent restaurant. In Japan, tattoos are strongly associated with the yakuza and the underworld.

48. In order to get rid of traffic jams in Tokyo, a huge number of high-speed highways were built, but the passage on them is paid.

49. The cost of parking here is fabulously high. 

50. Fruits and vegetables are expensive here. 

51. The most popular area for Tokyo youth looking for entertainment is Harajuku. It is here that you can meet the owners of the strangest outfits and hairstyles.

52. In Tokyo, there is a restaurant "Aragawa", which from year to year occupies one of the first places in the list of the most expensive establishments in the world.

53. An asteroid discovered in 1900 by a Tokyo astronomer was named after this city.

54. The zoo in Tokyo closes for two months each year so that its inhabitants can take a break from visitors.

55. “Cat cafes” are common here - establishments where you can play with these fluffy creatures. 

55. They have become popular because most Japanese people love cats, but in most households, the rules forbid keeping pets (cat facts).

56. The air temperature in Tokyo is usually 9-10 degrees higher than outside the city. The reason for this is a huge amount of infrastructure radiating into space, plus 13 million inhabitants, whose bodies also warm the air around.

57. There are about 150 earthquakes in Tokyo every year, but most of them are so weak that people don't even notice them. A similar situation is observed, by the way, in Santiago, the capital of Chile.

58. The capital occupies only 0.6% of the area of ​​Japan, but it provides a third of its total GDP.

59. The GDP of the city of Tokyo alone is higher than the GDP of all of Australia.

60. Twice as many people live in the suburbs of the Japanese capital than in the city itself. In total, more than 35 million people live in and near the city. This is about 60 times more than the population of Montenegro.

61. Based on the area of ​​​​the city and the population, there are about 4 square meters per inhabitant.

52. Tokyo's ubiquitous vending machines sell everything from chocolates and hamburgers to used women's underwear.

53. The dog Hachiko, famous all over the world due to his devotion, was waiting for his master right here, at Tokyo's Shibuya station, until his death.

54. In major Japanese cities, many homeowners ban pets, which is why "cat cafes" have appeared in Tokyo - for a low fee, visitors can choose a cat and pet it while drinking lemonade or tea.

55. The Tokyo subway system is the world's largest in terms of ridership, with 3.2 billion people a year. An interesting fact is that there is even a special position here - osiya, or pushers, whose duties include pushing passengers into overcrowded cars.

56. Public transport in Tokyo is the most reliable, affordable and fastest way to get around. But still, he's not cheap.

57. The asteroid Tokyo, discovered in this city in 1900, was named after the city. This is an irregularly shaped celestial body with a diameter of approximately 81 kilometers.

58. Tokyo Ueno Zoo is Japan's oldest zoo with over 2,600 pets. 

59. If you say at least a couple of phrases to the Japanese in Tokyo in their language, they will be very happy, because they believe that foreigners simply cannot learn Japanese because of its phenomenal complexity.

60. The population density in Tokyo is one of the highest among cities in the world, and there are only 4 square meters per person. In total, more than 35,000,000 people live in the Tokyo agglomeration.

61. There are a lot of single people in Tokyo who have never been in any kind of relationship with the opposite sex. Because of this, the suicide rate is extremely high.

62. If Tokyo were a separate country, it would be 15th place in the world in terms of GDP.

63. Tokyo is the safest metropolis in the world. Tokyo is so safe that young children use public transport on their own.

64. Tokyo's Shinjuku-Ni-Cheme area has the largest concentration of gay bars in the world.

65. Dressing up as your favorite manga or anime character and organizing a performance in Tokyo is a completely normal pastime.

66. Since the "Land of the Rising Sun" is located in a seismically active zone, earthquakes often occur here. In 1923, a powerful earthquake destroyed about half of Tokyo's infrastructure, killing more than 90,000 people in the process.

67. In the capital, real estate costs fabulous money. For 1 m 2 in the business center of Tokyo, the buyer will have to pay about $ 2 million!

68. Due to the high cost of housing, there are many micro-apartments in Tokyo. Their area varies within 10 m².

69. Parking in the city center for 1 hour is approximately $15.

70. Curiously, Harajuko is predominantly populated by young people. For this reason, in this region you can see many people with original hairstyles and outfits.

71. An interesting fact is that in the capital, rail transport is the most common type of public transport.

72. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is one of the three largest stock exchanges in the world.

73. Unlike some other megacities like Kuala Lumpur or Manila, Tokyo can be called a safe city with a clear conscience. True, foreigners are not welcome here everywhere. Some establishments here, as in the Korean capital of Seoul, put up a sign stating that "foreigners are not served."

74. Formally, Tokyo ceased to exist as a city in 1943 and was no longer displayed on maps. Officially, Tokyo refers to the 62 administrative divisions that make up the Tokyo Metropolitan Area. 

75. Moreover, the 23 special districts included in it, which made up Tokyo until 1943, are now equated in status with individual cities that have their own mayor and their own city council.

76. An indicator of the exceptional transparency of the air in Tokyo - if from it you can see the sacred Mount Fuji located 100 kilometers from it - the national symbol of Japan. But this happens very rarely.

77. Fujiyama, in fact, is not a mountain, but a volcano, although it is listed as weakly active. Its last eruption occurred in 1707. Then Edo was covered with a cloud of volcanic ash.

78. Tokyo is one of the few capitals in the world located in a seismically active zone. And at the same time - the only one, because the world's largest economy is located here. 

79. The earth on which it stands is shaken by earthquakes of various strengths about 150 times a year.

80. The Tokyo subway is also the largest in the world in terms of passenger traffic: more than 8.5 million passengers a day. Of these, 3 million are at Shinjuku Station alone, the busiest transport hub in the world. 

81. However, trains must still leave stations without delay. That is why passengers are helped by special employees - osiya ("pushers"): they push them into the cars and make sure that the doors do not jam anyone's luggage.

82. One of the main attractions of Tokyo is Ginza, the main street of Tokyo's administrative center and the main shopping street. Walking on it is a kind of ritual. The whole street is one continuous showcase of shops located on it. 

83. Buying here is not available to everyone, but it is prestigious. And also such a purchase means that you belong to the middle class - the basis of the entire Japanese economy.

84. From an architectural point of view, Tokyo is a gray and featureless city, devoid of frills and sights. 

85. After World War II, mass construction began in the rapidly developing city, and it was guided by only three principles: pragmatism, expediency, and economy. 

86. Tokyo can be amaze with an abundance of gray and inexpressive streets, many of which do not even have a name.

87. In Tokyo, as in other major cities in Japan, it is forbidden to keep any animals at home - the unanimous point of view of Japanese homeowners.

88. The onset of cherry blossom season, which is an important part of spring in Japan, marks the end of harsh winters. Cherry blossoms can be enjoyed for only two weeks during the whole year.

89. With a noodle shop and a beer garden on top, Takao-san is the world's most visited mountain on the western edge of Tokyo.

90. Tokyo Tower, modeled after the Eiffel Tower, is repainted with approximately 7,500 gallons of paint every 5 years.

91. Tokyo's Ritz Carlton has the most expensive room in the city, costing as much as $25,000.

92. The longest concert in Tokyo was the concert of the American band Guns N'Roses, which lasted three hours and thirty-seven minutes.

93. No matter how old people in Japan are, the Komagata Dozeu restaurant managed to survive the earthquakes and bombings, and managed to continue operating on the same piece of land for six generations (150 years).

94. Tokyo Skytree became the tallest tower in 2010. The official name was determined by a voting system. The current name received 30% of the votes and was announced on June 10, 2008 as "Tokyo Skytree".

95. Shinjuku Station has 36 platforms, including an underground entrance, an overhead entrance, and many corridors. Moreover, there are more than 200 different exits.

96. Tokyo in translation means the eastern capital. There are approximately 150 earthquakes in Tokyo every year.

97. In Japan, growing plants is an art.

98. The new generation of Japanese is not as small as Europeans think.

99. The Japanese tend to believe that all foreign countries, especially America, are dangerous to visit.

100. You can buy batteries, beer, wine, condoms, cigarettes, comics, hot dogs, light bulbs, and used women's underwear from Tokyo's vending machines.

On April 22, Earth Day will be celebrated all over the world - a holiday in which it is worth thinking about the future of our planet and what we can do for a common home. This tradition originated in 1970 at the initiative of US Senator Gaylord Nelson, whose goal was to draw public attention to the problems of environmental pollution. On the eve of the holiday, we will share with you the most interesting facts about the Earth.

Earth Day was founded by US Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970 to awaken the political class from its disinterest in the environment and was celebrated in its first year by about 20 million Americans, mostly young people. and very young. After 2 decades, in 1990, over 200 million people in 141 countries turned Earth Day into a major event in human history, by joining them in the desire to advocate for a better future for our planet, and in year 2009,

The United Nations (UN) has declared April 22 as the official holiday of planet Earth and a common expression of everyone's desire to build a stable society for a cleaner and greener future. The genesis of the Earth took place several billion years ago from a cloud of dust and gas that revolved around the sun and is the third planet from the sun with a particular constitution in the solar system.

Bemorepanda collected some interesting facts for you.

1. The core of the Earth contains so much gold, which will be enough to cover the entire surface of our planet by almost 45 centimeters.

2. The inner core of the Earth has a radius of about 1220 kilometers, which is comparable to 70% of the radius of the Moon. In addition, based on geophysical and geochemical methods, there is an assumption that the inner core of our planet is about the same temperature as the Sun.

3. Lightning strikes the earth on our planet more than 8.6 million times a day.

4. Prior to space travel, the Earth was often depicted as a green world. Science fiction writer Frank Paul is believed to be the first to depict a cloudless blue planet with well-defined land on the back of the July 1940 issue of Amazing Stories magazine.

5. Scientific evidence indicates that the Earth was formed from a solar nebula about 4.54 billion years ago. Life on the planet appeared about 4.25 billion years ago, that is, shortly after its origin.

6. The conditions for the existence of life on Earth preserve the ozone layer and the Earth's magnetic field, which weaken the solar radiation harmful to life.

7. The oceans occupy about 70.8% of the surface of our planet. Liquid water, which is essential for all known life forms, does not exist on the surface of any known planet in the solar system other than Earth.

8. The average speed of movement of lithospheric plates on Earth is approximately equal to the growth rate of nails on human hands. After 200-300 million years, hypothetically, all the continents of the planet will merge into the supercontinent Pangea Ultima.

9. The force of gravity at the poles of the Earth is greater than at the equator. A person who weighs 150.8 pounds (68.4 kg) at the North Pole will weigh 400 grams less while at the equator.

10. More than 68% of the Earth's freshwater is solid, including glaciers, snow cover and permafrost. 

11. The Earth was first photographed from space in 1959 by the Explorer-6 apparatus. The first ever image of the entire Earth was captured by the orbital station Lunar Orbiter V on August 8, 1967.

12. The most massive extinction in the entire history of the Earth occurred at the end of the Permian period (298.9 ± 0.15 million years ago), when more than 90% of living things on the planet died.

13. The highest point on the Earth's surface is Mount Everest (8,848 m above sea level), and the deepest is the Mariana Trench (10,994 m below sea level).

14. The deadliest tsunami known to have occurred on 26 December 2004 in Southeast Asia was triggered by a 9.3 magnitude submarine earthquake in the Indian Ocean. The total death toll exceeded 235 thousand people.

15. The most toxic plant on Earth is the yew, a genus of small conifers. Every part of this tree is poisonous, with the exception of its berries, however, their seeds are also poisonous.

16. If all the water of the World Ocean is evenly distributed over the surface, then a layer with a thickness of more than 2.7 kilometers would be obtained. Of all the water that is on Earth, only 2.5% is fresh, the rest is salty.

17. Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth's average temperature would be between -18 and -23 ° C, given that it is actually 14.8 ° C. Without this thermal insulation effect, life on our planet most likely would not exist.

18. The atmosphere passes into interplanetary space gradually, in the exosphere, starting at an altitude of 500-1000 kilometers from the Earth's surface. By definition, the boundary between the atmosphere and space is drawn along the Karman line, located at an altitude of about 100 kilometers, above which air flights become completely impossible.

19. Human breathing becomes impossible at an altitude of 9 kilometers, although the atmosphere contains oxygen up to about 115 kilometers.

20. At an altitude of about 19-20 kilometers, the pressure of the atmosphere decreases so much that it leads to the boiling of water and interstitial fluid in the human body. Outside the pressurized cockpit at these heights, death occurs almost instantly.

21. The seas lose more water due to evaporation than they receive with precipitation, on land - vice versa. Water circulates continuously around the globe, while its total amount remains unchanged.

22. The rotation of the Earth occurs from west to east. Due to tidal acceleration, each next day is longer than the previous ones by an average of 29 nanoseconds.

23. Due to tidal synchronization, the Moon is moving away from the Earth by about 38 millimeters per year. Millions of years from now, this tiny change, as well as an increase in Earth's day of 23 microseconds per year, will result in significant changes. So, for example, in the Devonian period (about 410 million years ago) there were 400 days a year, and a day lasted 21.8 hours.

24. The largest tidal waves on Earth are observed in the Bay of Fundy in Canada and are 18 meters.

25. Earth is the only name for the planet that was not taken from Greco-Roman mythology.

26. Lake Baikal in Russia accounts for about 20% of all world reserves of fresh lake water. It is the deepest and oldest lake in the world.

27. The ice sheet in Antarctica contains about 80% of all freshwater on the planet. If it melts completely, the level of the World Ocean will rise by almost 60 meters.

28. The Earth moves around the Sun at a distance of about 150 million kilometers at a speed of almost 30 kilometers per second.

29. The driest place on earth is the Atacama Desert in Chile. In some places of this desert, rain falls once every several decades.

30. If the history of the Earth were presented in the form of a 24-hour segment, then the dinosaurs would have died out at 23:41, and human existence would begin at 23:54 and 43 seconds of the same day.

Many would like to be part of the British royal family. The attention of the whole world, many servants, jewelry, palaces and other joys of aristocrats - isn't it a fairy tale? However, everyone forgets that being in the public eye of millions of people and constantly maintaining a brand can be incredibly difficult. The life of royals is subject to regulations and is filled with sometimes really strange requirements that they must certainly fulfill.

The British royal family is called one of the main attractions of Great Britain. The British are proud of their monarchy. They celebrate the Queen's Birthday along with other holidays. They follow with interest the relationship in the royal family. But not all Englishmen know about the origin of the dynasty, about the real names of its members and about other interesting facts.

The name of the ruling dynasty in Great Britain is Windsor. But until 1917 it was called Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which indicates its connection with the German rulers. During World War I, King George V decided to change the name of the dynasty in order to give up the German titles. He chose the surname Windsor after Windsor Castle, one of the royal residences. This surname became official to all members of the royal family. And after the wedding of the then Princess Elizabeth to Philip Mountbatten, the surname began to sound Mountbatten-Windsor.

Interestingly, none of the members of the royal family is required to use the surname. And when they go to school, serve or work, they can take a different surname. For example, Princes William and Harry were known in the army as Wales. And the two grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth from Princess Anne have their father's surname - Phillips.

Bemorepanda collected some more interesting facts about the royal family.

1. Princess Diana was supposed to play the main role in the 2nd part of "The Bodyguard" with Kevin Costner. A kissing scene was planned, but the film itself never came out due to the tragic death of Lady Dee in 1997 in a car accident in Paris. In the story, a romantic relationship between the protagonists begins when a bodyguard is tasked with protecting the princess from the paparazzi.

2. On their travels, Elizabeth II and her son Charles are accompanied by a doctor of the British Royal Navy, who must have a supply of their blood with him. This measure is necessary for an emergency transfusion in case of an emergency.

3. Shellfish, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, and garlic are banned in Buckingham Palace, as sea creatures are allergenic and garlic has an unpleasant odor. However, this rule is now adhered to only by the queen.

4. Six ravens (and one spare) must always dwell in the Tower of London. According to one of the versions, this rule is observed, since the prediction of the royal court astrologer-monk Charles II (1630-1685) says: "If the crows leave the Tower, the kingdom will fall." After the famous fire of 1666, almost all the birds were exterminated, but thanks to the prophecy of the ravens, they were left in the care of the crown. They are considered part of the royal family, they have servants and a special raven keeper who is chosen from 38 members of the Tower's ceremonial Yeomen guard ("beefeaters"). In addition, the birds are officially enlisted in the ranks of the royal army.

5. Long before becoming part of the royal family, Kate Middleton lived with her family in Amman, Jordan. The father of the future Duchess, Michael Middleton, worked as a manager for British Airways and ended up in the Middle East on duty. Then Kate was 2 years old, but she already went to kindergarten and, in addition to English, studied Arabic. The Middletons have lived in Jordan for almost 3 years.

6. During the opening of the new session of Parliament, the Queen must take a hostage - one of the Members of Parliament, who will be guarded by the staff of Buckingham Palace throughout the ceremony. This tradition appeared due to the fact that earlier monarchs and parliament, to put it mildly, did not get along. Now everything is peaceful, but no one is going to change anything.

7. Queen Elizabeth II, then 21-year-old Princess Elizabeth, married Prince Philip on 20 November 1947 in a coupon-purchased wedding dress. She deliberately did not take advantage of her opportunities, since in the post-war period the whole country was slowly getting out of the ruins.

8. The crown of Elizabeth II is nothing more than the diadem of King George IV, created in 1820 at the request of the king himself. It is set with 1,333 diamonds for a total of 320 carats (64 g), including a 4-carat yellow diamond. There are 2 strands of pearls along the base. Initially, the upper thread had 86 pearls and the lower one - 94, but in 1902 the number of pearls was changed to 81 and 88.

9. To avoid embarrassment in windy weather, all the hem of the skirts of Queen Elizabeth II are weighed down by small loads

10. Initially, princes William and Harry were supposed to be called Arthur and Albert, as their father Charles wanted, but Lady Diana insisted on William and Harry, although Arthur and Albert are the middle names of the princes.

11. Queen Elizabeth II is a godmother for 30 crowned godchildren and this is not the limit.

12. Kate Middleton is a relative of George Washington.

13. At Christmas in the royal family, it is customary to give funny gifts. For example, Meghan Markle gave the Queen a toy singing hamster. But besides the fun, the royal couple - Elizabeth II and Prince Philip - must remember their duty. They send about 750 Christmas cards to heads of state, top politicians, Commonwealth leaders and family members.

14. Before and after Christmas dinner, all members of the royal family must weigh themselves. This long tradition was introduced by King Edward VII around 1900. He was very worried that someone would go away hungry after a sumptuous reception.

15. The Queen has the right to dissolve the current parliament both in Britain and in Australia and Canada.

16. Princess Diana gave her son, Prince William, an incredible 13th birthday surprise. Since the boy was in love with supermodel Cindy Crawford, she invited her to a festive tea party.

17. The most unusual titles that Elizabeth II bears are Duke of Lancanster and Duke of Normandy.

18. Pearl necklace of three strands almost always adorns the queen's neck - this is a visiting card of her style. When Elizabeth was 10 years old, she received such a necklace as a gift from her grandfather George V, and it became her favorite piece of jewelry.

A little later, Queen Mary, Elizabeth's grandmother, gave her pearl earrings. To this day, they, complete with a necklace, form part of the image of a modern monarch.

19. Since ancient times, monarchs from different countries have adopted a throne name during their time in power, which is different from that which was given to them at birth. In Britain, this tradition was also maintained. So, Queen Victoria was Princess Alexandrina before her coronation, and King George was named Albert. Elizabeth II chose not to change her name, because this is only permissible, but not mandatory for the monarch.

20. Elizabeth is often called the queen of England, but this is not true. First, she is the monarch of the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and England is just a part of it.

21. Misconceptions about princesses are no less common. Lady Dee after her wedding with Prince Charles began to be called the princess. However, she was not a princess by birth, so by all the rules her title should have sounded like "Her Royal Highness Princess Charles of Wales", as strange as it may sound.

22. As for the chosen one of their eldest son William, Kate Middleton is also not a princess. She married the Duke of Cambridgeshire, and therefore her official title is Duchess of Cambridge.

23. According to official sources, different family members have their own privileges in addressing the Queen. So, the husband of Elizabeth II calls her Lilibet. The future queen called herself this name when she was very little and could not pronounce “Elizabeth”.

24. Elizabeth II is very economical and serves as an excellent example in this for her subjects. So, it is known that she always turns off the light when leaving the room, and requires this from all the inhabitants of the palace. The queen wears the same dresses for a long time.

25. Representatives of Buckingham Palace report that all of the Queen's overseas travel is in accordance with the recommendations of the British government. Therefore, most often Elizabeth visits those countries in which she needs to be present based on current state affairs.

During her 65 years on the throne, the Queen has made over 120 official visits. Most often, the queen visited Canada (27 times) and Australia (18 times).

26. Some people who were born shortly before or immediately after the New Year celebrate their birthday twice, but in general, usually a person has one birthday. But the Queen has two of them - on April 21, she was born for real, and in May or June, official celebrations are usually organized on her birthday.

27. Queen Elizabeth II currently rules Britain for the longest time in history: her term of reign is now 64 years. Queen Victoria, who ruled before her, remained on the throne for 63 years and 216 days. Nowadays, it is difficult for a person not to lose his job even for a year, let alone more than 60 years!

28. Only in 2013, Great Britain moved away from the concept of male succession, thus proclaiming that any member of the royal family, regardless of gender, can inherit the throne. You may ask: how then did Elizabeth II ascend to the throne? Elementary: her father had no sons.

29. What is the Queen's surname? I think many would like to know. But in fact, this is not so important: being on the throne, a person can take almost any surname for himself. Elizabeth II's father changed his surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor; later Windsor became Mountbatten-Windsor.

30. If you have ever seen Buckingham Palace up close, at least in a movie, you know that it is huge. It is located on an area of ​​77,000 square meters, it has 775 rooms and about 800 employees who keep it and the life of the royal family normal. There are cooks, maids, butlers, security guards and even watchmakers!