When reading about something, you might not fathom the vasty of it unless you throw a few numbers in. Stats give perspective to a situation and make you realise how much of a big deal something really is. The good people of Reddit have shared a few such stats that are sure to BLOW your mind! Check out!

1. The first cities started around 12,000 years ago. The first evidence of writing started 6,000 years ago. Humanity appeared 200,000 years ago in its current form. So 94% of the time we’ve been on the planet happened before we had cities and 97% before we had writing.

2. Earth’s population only became majority-urban in 2007.

– Momik

3. In the year 8000 B.C. there were 5 million humans on Earth.

– bukanir

4. 90% of people live in the northern hemisphere.

5. One million seconds is less than 11 days. One billion seconds is more than 31 years.

– clumaho

6. Over 800 people die from being strangled by their bedsheets.

– Byizo

7. The wars in [the Democratic Republic of Congo] have claimed nearly the same number of lives as having a 9/11 every single day for 360 days, the genocide that struck Rwanda in 1994, the ethnic cleansing that overwhelmed Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the genocide that took place in Darfur, the number of people killed in the great tsunami that struck Asia in 2004, and the number of people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki — all combined and then doubled.

8. It takes an individual photon several millennia to go from the centre to the surface of the sun. Then it takes only 8 minutes to reach Earth, and a couple of days at most to leave the solar system.

9. – 99.9% of the mass of the solar system is the sun 

– Jupiter is more than five times as far removed from the Sun as Earth on average. 

– You can fit all planets in the solar system between the Earth and the Moon 
Space is pretty fucking empty when you consider that solar systems are in general the most unempty places of space. It’s just unfathomable how empty space really is.

10. There is a fence in Australia that stretches the equivalent distance of London to New York.

– zangor

11. During the battle of the Somme in WW1, the British Army lost 20,000 men…on the first day. Whole generations and towns were wiped out in the space of hours.

12. CPR is only effective 5-8% of the time without immediate defibrillation. So if your heart stops and there isn’t an AED within about 3-5 mins of you you’re probably going to die.

Also Read | 15 Things That Sound Like Fiction But Are Actually A Real Historical Event