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β¨ General 68
β¨ Dinosaur 10
The world's fastest elevator is in the Shanghai Tower β ascending 20.5 meters per second.
The first permanent photograph required 8 hours of exposure β modern cameras expose for 1/8000th of a second.
The highest parachute jump without a suit was from the International Space Station β hypothetically lethal.
The deepest lake in the world, Baikal, contains more water than all five US Great Lakes combined.
The world's largest organ, the Great Organ at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, has 33,112 pipes.
Climbing all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters has been achieved by fewer than 50 people.
The longest suspension bridge by main span is the 1915 Γanakkale Bridge in Turkey at 2,023 meters.
The first open-heart surgery was performed in 1893 by Daniel Hale Williams β without gloves, masks, or antibiotics.
The world's highest road is the Marsimik La pass in India β at 5,582 meters above sea level.
The fastest human-made object is the Parker Solar Probe β reaching 692,000 km/h as it approaches the Sun.
The world's largest particle accelerator, the LHC, consumes enough electricity to power 120,000 homes.
The first live transatlantic television broadcast occurred in 1962 via the Telstar satellite.
The fastest spoken language is Japanese β measured at 7.84 syllables per second on average.
The world's strongest material by tensile strength is graphene β 200 times stronger than structural steel.
The Apollo 11 mission computer had 4 kilobytes of RAM β less than a single modern webpage.
The world's largest aircraft is the Antonov An-225 Mriya β with a wingspan of 88 meters.
The most productive scientist in history was Paul ErdΕs β he published 1,525 papers with 511 collaborators.
The world's fastest train is China's Shanghai Maglev β reaching 431 km/h in commercial operation.
The first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971 β he doesn't remember what it said.
The longest unassisted walk on Earth is from Cape Town to Moscow β about 14,000 km.
The highest recorded wave ever surfed was a 26.2-meter giant at NazarΓ©, Portugal in 2020.
The International Space Station has been continuously inhabited since November 2, 2000.
The world record for memorizing a deck of cards is 12.74 seconds, set by Zou Lujian in 2017.
The first human spacewalk was performed by Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov in 1965 β he nearly couldn't get back in.
The fastest human nerve signal travels at 120 m/s β a human hand can react to a signal in 25 milliseconds.
The Voyager probes are the only human-made objects to have entered interstellar space.
The world's longest sea bridge is the Hong KongβZhuhaiβMacau Bridge at 55 km.
The largest man-made hole in the world is the Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah β 4 km wide and 1.2 km deep.
The oldest operating company in the world is Kongo Gumi, a Japanese construction firm founded in 578 AD.
The first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest was Junko Tabei of Japan in 1975.
The CERN Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest machine β a 27 km ring straddling the Swiss-French border.
The deepest mine in the world is Mponeng Gold Mine in South Africa β reaching 4 km below the surface.
The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest rail line β 9,289 km from Moscow to Vladivostok.
The Burj Khalifa is so tall that observers at the top see the sunset 1β2 minutes later than those at the base.
The highest bridge in the world is the Duge Beipan River Bridge in China β standing 565 meters above the valley floor.
The world's longest tunnel is the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland β 57.1 km long, opened in 2016.
The fastest land speed record is 1,228 km/h β set by Andy Green in the jet-powered car Thrust SSC in 1997.
The record for most languages spoken by one person is held by Ziad Fazah β he claims fluency in 58 languages.
The first solo Atlantic flight was by Charles Lindbergh in 1927 β 33.5 hours nonstop from New York to Paris.
The deepest cave ever explored is Veryovkina Cave in Georgia β descending 2,212 meters below ground.
The highest altitude reached without supplemental oxygen was 8,848 m β the summit of Everest, climbed by Reinhold Messner in 1978.
Diana Nyad swam from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage in 2013 β at age 64 β covering 177 km in 53 hours.
The longest recorded flight by a bird is the bar-tailed godwit β 11,000 km nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand.
The youngest Nobel Prize winner in history was Malala Yousafzai, who won the Peace Prize at age 17.
The first person to run a sub-2-hour marathon was Eliud Kipchoge in 2019 β in a specially arranged time trial.
The tallest building ever proposed, the Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid, would house 1 million people β but materials to build it don't yet exist.
The oldest person ever verified was Jeanne Calment of France, who lived to 122 years and 164 days.
Felix Baumgartner broke the sound barrier in freefall in 2012, jumping from 39 km altitude.
The fastest circumnavigation of the globe by any human was 80 days β Jules Verne's fictional record has long been surpassed.
The Paris Agreement was ratified by 195 countries β the fastest ratification of any international treaty in history.