135 Amazing Facts for People Who Like Amazing Facts
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Store these away for future trivia nights.
1. Mister Rogers always mentioned out loud that he was feeding his fish because a young blind viewer once asked him to do so. She wanted to know the fish were OK.
Getty Images
2. Boring, Oregon and Dull, Scotland have been sister cities since 2012. In 2017, they added Bland Shire, Australia to their "League of Extraordinary Communities."
iStock
3. Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt once sneaked out of a White House event, commandeered an airplane, and went on a joyride to Baltimore.
Getty Images
4. If you have the feeling you’ve experienced an event before in real life, call it déjà vu. If you feel like you’ve previously experienced an event in a dream instead, there’s a different term for it: déjà rêvé.
iStock
5. During Prohibition, moonshiners would wear "cow shoes." The fancy footwear left hoofprints instead of footprints, helping distillers and smugglers evade police.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
6. Since founding the Imagination Library in 1995, Dolly Parton has donated 100 million books to children.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
7. The 100 folds in a chef's toque are said to represent 100 ways to cook an egg.
iStock
8. In curling, good sportsmanship and politeness are essential. Congratulating opponents and abstaining from trash talk are part of what's known as the "Spirit of Curling."
Ronald Martinez, Getty Images
9. In 1974, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis published a paper titled "The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of 'Writer's Block.'" It contained a total of zero words.
iStock
10. Guinness estimates that 93,000 liters of beer are lost in facial hair each year in the UK alone.
iStock
11. George Washington served an eggnog-like drink to visitors at Mount Vernon. His recipe included rye whiskey, rum, and sherry.
Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain
12. Some cats are allergic to humans.
13. Queen Elizabeth II is a trained mechanic.
Getty Images
14. Volvo gave away the 1962 patent for their revolutionary three-point seat belt for free, in order to save lives.
OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images
15. Tsundoku is the act of acquiring books and not reading them.
16. Ravens in captivity can learn to talk better than parrots.
iStock
17. Bela Lugosi was buried in full Dracula costume—cape and all.
18. Central Park's lampposts contain a set of four numbers that can help you navigate. The first two tell you the nearest street, and the next two tell you whether you're closer to the east or west side of the park (even numbers signal east, odd signals west).
iStock
19. A teacher wrote of a young Roald Dahl on his school report card: "I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended."
Getty Images
20. The only Blockbuster store in the world that is still operating is in Bend, Oregon.
21. Blood donors in Sweden receive a thank you text when their blood is used.
iStock
22. Kea parrots warble together when they're in a good mood, making them the first known non-mammal species to communicate with infectious laughter.
iStock
23. Long before rap battles, there was "flyting": the exchange of witty, insulting verses. The verbal throwdowns were popular in England and Scotland from the 5th to 16th centuries.
iStock
24. Melbourne gave some of its trees email addresses so residents could report problems. Instead, the trees received love letters.
iStock
25. An estimated 1 million dogs in the U.S. have been named primary beneficiary in their owners' wills.
iStock
26. At Petrified Forest National Park, visitors sometimes break the rules (and the law) by taking rocks home with them. According to rangers, they often end up returning the stolen goods in the mail—along with an apology note.
iStock
27. The Russians showed up 12 days late to the 1908 Olympics in London because they were using the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar.
LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images
28. Maya Angelou was the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images
29. In Japan, letting a sumo wrestler make your baby cry is considered good luck.
Junko Kimura/Getty Images
30. J.K. Simmons has been the voice of the Yellow Peanut M&M since the late 1990s.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
31. Count von Count's love of numbers isn't just a quirky character trait—in traditional vampire folklore, the bloodsuckers have arithmomania, a compulsion to count.
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
32. In Great Britain and Japan, black cats are perceived as auspicious. In the English Midlands, new brides are given black cats to bless their marriage, and the Japanese believe that black cats are good luck—particularly for single women.
iStock
33. Portland was named by a coin flip. Had the coin landed the other way, the city would be Boston, Oregon.
iStock
34. During World War I, a Canadian soldier made a black bear his pet and named her Winnipeg. “Winnie” was later a resident of the London Zoological Gardens where she was an adored attraction, especially to a boy named Christopher Robin, son of author A.A. Milne. The boy even named his teddy bear after her.
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
35. Sleep literally cleans your brain. During slumber, more cerebrospinal fluid flushes through the brain to wash away harmful proteins and toxins that build up during the day.
iStock
36. Neil Armstrong's astronaut application arrived a week past the deadline. A friend slipped the tardy form in with the others.
37. Due to the restaurant's reputation for staying open in extreme weather, the so-called “Waffle House Index” is informally used by FEMA to gauge storm severity.
Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images
38. The first sales pitch for the Nerf ball was “Nerf: You can’t hurt babies or old people!”
Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images
39. The manchineel tree is nicknamed the "Tree of Death" for good reason: Touching it can leave chemical burns on your skin, its fruit is toxic, and its bark—when burned—can cause blindness.
Jason English/Mustique
40. If drivers adhere to the 45 mph speed limit on a stretch of Route 66 in New Mexico, the road's rumble strips will play a rendition of "America the Beautiful."
iStock
41. Russian cosmonauts used to pack a shotgun in case they landed in Siberia and had to fend off bears.
Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images
42. Space has a distinct smell: a bouquet of diesel fumes, gunpowder, and barbecue. The aroma is mostly produced by dying stars.
NASA/ESA via Getty Images
43. Before settling on the Seven Dwarfs we know today, Disney considered Chesty, Tubby, Burpy, Deafy, Hickey, Wheezy, and Awful.
Ryan Wendler/Disney Parks via Getty Images
44. The annual number of worldwide shark bites is 10 times less than the number of people bitten by other people in New York.
iStock
45. In 1997 a Louisville woman left actor Charles Bronson all of her money in a handwritten will—a total of about $300,000. She'd never met him; she was just a fan.
ISTOCK
46. Carly Simon's dad is the Simon of Simon and Schuster. He co-founded the company.
MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
47. Ben & Jerry learned how to make ice cream by taking a $5 correspondence course offered by Penn State. (They decided to split one course.)
ADE JOHNSON/AFP/Getty Images
48. After an online vote in 2011, Toyota announced that the official plural of Prius was Prii.
TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images
49. At the 1905 wedding of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, President Teddy Roosevelt gave away the bride.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
50. Tootsie Rolls were added to soldiers' rations in World War II for their durability in all weather conditions.
iStock
51. When Canada's Northwest Territories considered renaming itself in the 1990s, one name that gained support was "Bob."
iStock
52. After OutKast sang "Shake it like a Polaroid picture," Polaroid released a statement: "Shaking or waving can actually damage the image."
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
53. Marie Curie remains the only person to earn Nobel prizes in two different sciences.
Keystone/Getty Images
54. The Starry Night depicts Vincent van Gogh's view from the Saint-Paul de Mausole asylum.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
55. The ampersand symbol is formed from the letters in et—the Latin word for "and."
iStock
56. Army ants that misinterpret the scent trails left by other ants will sometimes break from the crowd and march in circles. If enough ants join, they can form massive "death spirals."
iStock
57. A solar eclipse helped end a six-year war in 585 BCE. When the sky suddenly darkened during a battle between the Lydians and the Medes in modern Turkey, soldiers took it as a sign to cease fighting.
ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
58. Wendy's founder Dave Thomas dropped out of high school but earned his GED in 1993. His GED class voted him Most Likely to Succeed.
Mike Simons/Getty Images
59. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826—exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
Chris Hondros/Newsmakers
60. Dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures. The average dog is as intelligent as a two-year-old child.
iStock
61. Bubbles keep your bath water warmer longer.
iStock
62. Scientists have found evidence of take-out restaurants in the remains of Pompeii.
iStock
63. Fried chicken was brought to America by Scottish immigrants.
iStock
64. Peter Durand patented the tin can in 1810. Ezra Warner patented a can opener in 1858. In between, people used chisels and hammers.
iStock
65. There are 71 streets in Atlanta with "Peachtree" in their name.
iStock
66. Goats have rectangular pupils.
iStock
67. The bend in a flamingo's leg isn't a knee—it's an ankle.
iStock
68. In 1946, Boston owner Walter Brown chose the nickname Celtics over Whirlwinds, Olympians, and Unicorns.
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
69. After It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown aired, Charles Schulz was overwhelmed with candy shipments sent from kids who were concerned for Charlie, who got rocks instead of treats in his Halloween sack.
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for DIFF
70. One of the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons—a U.S. Navy base near Seattle—is partially defended by trained dolphins.
iStock
71. It's illegal for supermarkets in France to waste food. Supermarkets must either compost it or donate unsold or nearly expired goods to charity.
iStock
72. Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
73. A new baby can cost new parents 750 hours of sleep in the first year.
iStock
74. In 1965, a Senate subcommittee predicted that by 2000, Americans would only be working 20 hours a week with seven weeks vacation.
iStock
75. For one day in 1998, Topeka, Kansas, renamed itself "ToPikachu" to mark Pokemon's U.S. debut.
STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images
76. Truman Capote said he was the only person who'd met John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Sirhan Sirhan.
Evening Standard/Getty Images
77. Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for voting in the 1872 election. She never paid the fine.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
78. Canned pumpkin isn't actually pumpkin. Even purees that advertise as "100 percent pumpkin" are actually made of a range of different winter squashes.
iStock
79. When Gene Wilder accepted the role of Willy Wonka, he had one condition: In his first appearance, Wilder wanted Wonka to limp toward the crowd with a cane in hand before falling into a perfect somersault and jumping back up. The reason? “Because from that time on, no one will know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”
Cindy Ord/Getty Images
80. Dr. Seuss said he expected to spend "a week or so" writing The Cat in the Hat. It actually took a year and a half.
Vince Bucci/Getty Images
81. The Reese in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups is Harry Burnett Reese, a former Hershey employee who created his famous candy in the 1920s.
STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images
82. The plural of cul-de-sac is culs-de-sac.
iStock
83. Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt was allergic to moon dust.
AFP/Getty Images
84. At the Gettysburg reunion in 1913, two men purchased a hatchet, walked to the site where their regiments had fought, and buried it.
Library of Congress
85. "Bloodcurdling" isn't just an expression: Research shows that watching horror movies can increase a certain clotting protein in our bloodstreams.
iStock
86. An episode of Peppa Pig was pulled from Australian television for teaching children not to fear spiders.
Rob Stothard/Getty Images
87. A group of pugs is called a grumble.
iStock
88. Before he wrote Goosebumps, R.L. Stine wrote the jokes for Bazooka Joe wrappers.
Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
89. In 1998, the U.S. Army tried developing a telepathic ray gun "where words could be transmitted to be heard like the spoken word, except that it could only be heard within a person’s head."
iStock
90. In 1967, the Nigerian Civil War ground to a halt for two days because both sides wanted to watch Pelé play in an exhibition soccer match.
STAFF/AFP/Getty Images
91. Winston Churchill's mother was born in Brooklyn.
iStock
92. Jim Cummings is the voice of Winnie the Pooh. He calls sick kids in hospitals and chats with them in character.
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
93. Before Google launched Gmail, "G-Mail" was the name of a free email service offered by Garfield's website.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images
94. Before the Nazis invaded Paris, H.A. and Margret Rey fled on bicycles. They were carrying the manuscript for Curious George.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
95. In colonial America, lobster wasn't exactly a delicacy. It was so cheap and plentiful it was often served to prisoners.
iStock
96. Crayola means "oily chalk." The name combines craie (French for "chalk") and ola (short for "oleaginous," or "oily").
William Thomas Cain/Getty Images
97. Truman Show Delusion is a mental condition marked by a patient's belief that he or she is the star of an imaginary reality show.
Getty Images
98. Cookie Monster is not changing his name. In a 2012 episode he said, "We've got to stop this Veggie Monster rumor before me reputation ruined."
Gail Oskin/Getty Images
99. Google's founders were willing to sell to Excite for under $1 million in 1999—but Excite turned them down.
David McNew/Newsmakers
100. The medical term for ice cream headaches is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.
iStock
101. Although Dr. James Naismith invented basketball, he’s the only Kansas Jayhawks basketball coach with a losing record.
Andy Lyons/Getty Images
102. Wisconsin is the Badger State because the area's lead miners used to spend winters in tunnels burrowed into hills. Like badgers.
Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
103. In 1999, the U.S. government paid the Zapruder family $16 million for the film of JFK's assassination.
Keystone/Getty Images
104. Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln was wrestling champion of his county. He fought in nearly 300 matches and lost only one.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
105. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know. But on average, a Licking Machine made at Purdue needed 364.
Mental Floss
106. Barcelona is home to hundreds of playgrounds for seniors. The spaces are meant to promote fitness and combat loneliness in elderly citizens.
iStock
107. In Switzerland, it's illegal to own only one guinea pig.
iStock
108. After leaving office, Ronald Reagan was offered the role of Hill Valley's mayor in Back to the Future III.
The White House/Getty Images
109. Foreign Accent Syndrome is a rare side effect of brain trauma. Patients speak their native language in a foreign accent.
iStock
110. Queen Elizabeth II has had over 30 corgis in her lifetime.
STF/AFP/Getty Images
111. Relative to their bodies, Chihuahuas have the biggest brain in the dog world.
iStock
112. The "mystery" flavor of Dum Dums is a combination of the end of one batch of candy and the beginning of another.
iStock
113. A banana is a berry.
iStock
114. In 1971, a Dallas man named Mariano Martinez invented the frozen margarita machine. The 26-year-old was inspired by the Slurpee machine at 7-Eleven.
115. In 2016, a rogue bloodhound named Ludvine joined a half-marathon in Alabama. She ran the entire 13.1 miles and finished in 7th place.
iStock
116. The Library of Congress regularly receives requests for books that don't exist. The most common is the President's Book of Secrets, from the 2007 movie, National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images
117. In 2014, Tinder made its first match on the continent of Antarctica. Not surprisingly, both parties involved were research scientists.
VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images
118. When times get tough, elephants will comfort each other by stroking loved ones with their trunks and emitting small chirps.
iStock
119. A double rainbow occurs when sunlight is reflected twice inside a raindrop. If you look closely, you can see that the colors of the secondary rainbow appear in reverse order.
iStock
120. There's a Nikola Tesla statue in Palo Alto that provides free Wi-Fi.
Mental Floss
121. The Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships are held in Finland. One winner (not pictured) said he prepared for the event by "mainly drinking."
VILLE MYLLYNEN/AFP/Getty Images
122. In the '50s, Marilyn Monroe promised nightclub owner Charlie Morrison she'd be in the front row every night if he booked Ella Fitzgerald. He agreed, and she was true to her word. "After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again," Fitzgerald said. "She was an unusual woman—a little ahead of her times. And she didn't know it."
Baron/Getty Images
123. Frank Sinatra has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: one for film, one for music, and one for television.
AFP/AFP/Getty Images
124. One April day in 1930, the BBC reported, "There is no news." Instead they played piano music.
Keystone/Getty Images
125. Continental plates drift as fast as fingernails grow.
iStock
126. Elvis Presley's manager sold "I Hate Elvis" badges as a way to make money off of people who weren't buying his merchandise.
Mental Floss
127. LEGO has a temperature-controlled underground vault in Denmark with nearly every set they've ever made.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
128. A reindeer's eyes change color through the seasons. They’re gold during the summer and blue in the winter.
iStock
129. An avocado never ripens on the tree, so farmers can use trees as storage and keep avocados fresh for up to seven months.
iStock
130. At the Humane Society of Missouri, kid volunteers comfort anxious shelter dogs by reading to them.
iStock
131. In The Empire Strikes Back, an extra can be seen running with what appears to be an ice cream maker. The character became legendary among fans, and was eventually given a name (Willrow Hood) and a backstory.
Lucasfilm
132. Salvador Dali avoided paying restaurant tabs by using checks. He would draw on the back as the waiter watched, knowing no one would ever cash the art.
Wikimedia Commons
133. China owns all of the pandas in the world. They rent them out for about $1 million a year.
iStock
134. In season two of The Joy of Painting, Bob Ross created a monochromatic landscape for a viewer who was worried that his color blindness would prevent him from being able to paint.
Robin Marchant/Getty Images
135. Bones found at Seymour Island indicate that at one time, 37 to 40 million years ago, penguins stood at a formidable 6 feet tall and weighed 250 pounds.
iStock
Subscribe to our Newsletter!
SIGN UP NOW
