The Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto brought the first swine to the New World in 1539.

If given sufficient space, they will be careful not to soil the area where they sleep or eat. Pigs don’t “sweat like pigs”; they are actually unable to sweat.

Winston Churchill famously said that “Dogs look up to man. Cats look down to man. Pigs look us straight in the eye and see an equal.”

Pigs can pass on a variety of diseases to humans.

Relative to their body size, pigs have small lungs

They like to bathe in water or mud to keep cool, and they actually prefer water to mud. 

A pig's squeal can range from 110 to 115 decibels. By comparison, noise from a motorcycle reaches about 100 decibels.

Pigs are very clean, keeping their toilet area far away from where they lie down and eat. Even newborn piglets will leave the nest to go to the toilet within hours of birth.

People who run animal sanctuaries for farmed animals often report that pigs, like humans, enjoy listening to music, playing with soccer balls, and getting massages.

A pig can run a seven-minute mile.

There are around 2 billion pigs in the world.

They snuggle close to one another and prefer to sleep nose to nose.

"A pig in the poke" comes from a common trick in 17th-century England of trying to give away a cat to an unsuspecting "shopper" for a suckling pig (a young pig). When the buyer opened the poke (sack), he "let the cat out of the bag," and the trick was revealed.

Pigs are very peaceful animals, rarely showing aggression. The exception, as with many animals, is when a mother (sow) with her young offspring is provoked or threatened.

Pigs have a tremendous sense of smell. The large round disk of cartilage at the tip of the snout is connected to muscle that gives it extra flexibility and strength for rooting in the ground.