Some facts are useful because they change how you see the world, and others are just strange enough to stick in your head forever. This mix pulls together odd history, science, language, pop culture, and human behavior into one fast-moving collection of facts that are fun to know and even better to casually drop into conversation.
Record for Deepest Bird Dive
1. Emperor penguins have been recorded diving to 1,850 feet (565 meters), a depth greater than any other bird and beyond the operating depth of most naval submarines.
2. When Hurricane Harvey hit, the National Weather Service introduced two additional colors to its rainfall accumulation map because the previous color legend maxed out at a level of rain they had never before expected.
3. In North Korea, because the ruling party selects all candidates, ballots contain only a single name. A voter may cross out the candidate’s name to vote against him but must do so with a red pen next to the ballot box in sight of election officials.
4. As of 2015, 97% of the world’s uncontacted tribes were in South America, while Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, and Central America combined held less than 3%.
5. Facebook has trademarked words such as ‘face’, ‘book’, ‘wall’, ‘like’, ‘poke’, and other terms.
6. Up through the late 15th century the term ‘girl’ referred to a child of either sex. Male infants were called ‘knave girls’ and female infants were called ‘gay girls.’
7. At age 11 Stanley Burrell was a batboy for the Oakland A’s. He was nicknamed ‘Hammer’ because he resembled Hank Aaron, and the name stuck; he later took the rap name ‘MC Hammer.’
8. If stepped on or otherwise provoked, copperhead snakes will often give a ‘warning bite’ that uses little or no venom.
9. John Knoll was the visual effects supervisor on Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, won an Oscar for a Pirates of the Caribbean film, and also invented Photoshop.
10. A man named Michael Fiola nearly faced jail time after child pornography was found on his employer-issued laptop. He avoided conviction only after it was shown that the computer accessed as many as 40 child porn sites per minute even when he was not at the machine.
Guy Fieri review distinction
11. Since 2012, Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant, Guy’s American Kitchen, has been the only eatery to receive the New York Times’ lowest rating in a restaurant review.
12. Actor Clark Gable served in World War II and once nearly lost his life. When MGM learned of the incident, studio executives began pressuring the Army Air Forces to reassign him to noncombat duty. Also, Hitler was a fan and offered a substantial reward to anyone who could capture and bring Gable to him unharmed.
13. In 1968 teacher Jane Elliott separated her class by eye color to teach them about discrimination. The students began behaving in discriminatory ways very quickly.
14. Sham ran the Kentucky Derby, known as “The Fastest Two Minutes in Sports,” in under two minutes with a time of 1:59.90. That result would have won any other Kentucky Derby past or present, but in that race he finished about two and a half lengths behind the legendary Secretariat.
15. In baseball’s early years, players frequently ran from first base all the way to third.
16. Since the American Civil War, Eddie Slovik is the lone American serviceman to be court-martialed and executed for desertion. After repeatedly abandoning his unit during World War II, he was put to death in 1945.
17. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when Hagrid charges into Dumbledore’s office to defend Harry he is shown carrying a dead rooster. The extended cut includes Hagrid noting that someone has been killing the school’s roosters. In Harry Potter lore, the cry of a rooster is lethal to a basilisk, which explains why Ginny killed them while under Tom Riddle’s control. Rooster blood was also used to write on the walls.
18. In December 2005, a doctor in England published research suggesting that girls often go through a stage in which they dislike their Barbie dolls and subject them to various punishments, including decapitation and placing the doll inside a microwave oven.
19. Half of panda births produce twins, but mother pandas almost always abandon one cub. As a result, zookeepers rotate the cubs every few hours to trick the mother into caring for both.
20. Rock and Roll pioneer Ritchie Valens developed a fear of flying after a freak accident in which two airplanes collided above his school’s playground, killing or injuring many of his friends. He overcame that fear because his career required travel and later died in a plane crash at age 17.
Actor’s Hospital Costume Story
21. Chris Pratt took his Peter Quill/Star-Lord outfits, jacket included, from the Guardians of the Galaxy set so he could wear them when visiting sick children in hospitals if the film became a hit.
22. Equivalent expressions to the English saying ‘That’s Greek to me’ include: in German ‘This appears to be Spanish’; in Dutch ‘This is Russian to me’; in the Philippines ‘It’s German to me’; in Finnish ‘It’s Hebrew’; in Hebrew ‘It’s Chinese to me’; and in China phrases such as ‘Sounds like Mars language’ or ‘These are chicken intestines’.
23. After the Hale-Bopp comet was discovered in 1995, some amateur astronomers and UFO enthusiasts believed a spacecraft was following the comet, and that conviction led 39 Heaven’s Gate members to commit mass suicide in 1997 in an attempt to teleport to that spacecraft. They used phenobarbital to kill themselves, which is also the world’s oldest anti-seizure medication. Their bodies were found with a $5 bill and three quarters that they believed paid an interplanetary toll, and all were wearing Nike Decade sneakers; that model was discontinued because of the incident.
24. In Greek mythology the term ‘echo’ comes from the nymph Echo, whom Hera punished by restricting her speech so she could only repeat another person’s shouted words. Before the punishment Echo kept Hera distracted with constant chatter while Zeus pursued other lovers, and Hera retaliated by limiting her speech to mere repetition. Echo later fell in love with Narcissus but could only mimic his words, and after being rejected she wasted away until only her disembodied voice remained.
25. In 1971 Pink Floyd gave a concert without an audience in the amphitheater at Pompeii, Italy; it was the first performance to take place there since Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. in ancient Rome.
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