People Share Niche Facts They Can't Help Sprinkling Into Unrelated Conversations

Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor

Jul 23, 2023 1:30 PM EDT

Everybody has at least one "fun fact" that they hold dear. It might've been something you learned during childhood or a weird true story you picked up in a college course. The fact I'm currently passionate about has to do with life expectancy throughout time. It's come to my attention that a large portion of the population believes that when life expectancy was much lower, people would regularly die in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. That is simply untrue. Lower life expectancy is caused by high rates of infant and child mortality. Back in the day, if you lived past childhood, you had a good chance of living until you were old like many people do today. The average life expectancy (which often did skew younger) does not paint an accurate picture of how death worked in the pre-medical era. If you love weird and quirky facts like that, these nuggets of knowledge are sure to scratch your brain.