12 Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Friday, September 20, 2024

In 1980, a handful of people in the middle of Texas witnessed a diamond-shaped UFO being chased by a flock of military helicopters. It’s still never been adequately explained.

“Avere gli occhi foderati di prosciutto” is an Italian idiom that means someone is blind to what’s right in front of them.

A statue of the Queen was unveiled in Northern Ireland, and what the local government is describing as “a dignified pose reflecting her grace,” locals are saying “looks more like Mrs. Doubtfire than our late Queen.”

The Frying Pan Tower is an old Coast Guard lighthouse that’s surrounded by nothing but open ocean, sharks and weird fish. The guy who bought it from the government is still in the process of refurbishing it, so guests can buy a discounted Volunteer package for $900, where they’ll help clean and weld stuff.

Kazakhstan’s fifth annual World Nomad Games included events like horseback wrestling and sheep carcass rugby.

The amount of coins produced each year varies pretty widely. In 2023, they made 4.5 billion of them. Production peaked in 1982 at 16.7 billion.

Someone made a map of mispronounced names using search data from Forvo, an online pronunciation tool. In America, people searched the name Emory the most. Worldwide, the most-searched names were Victoria, Xuxa and Sean.

A nine-day-long bout of global seismic activity has been traced to a tsunami inside a fjord in Greenland. The enormous energy of the tsunami was trapped inside the tall walls of the fjord, causing vibrations to jostle the entire globe for over a week.

The product so good at marketing that people forget it’s a proper noun has finally been forced to drastically change its business model. It’s now undergoing a “transformation into a digital-first, technology-led company,” whatever that means for a bowl company.

Marmosets are the first non-human primates found to use unique calls for individuals in their communities.

A guy planning a camping trip to Quebec noticed a big ol’ crater in the mountains that geophysicists have now agreed is “very suggestive of impact.”

The CDC has awarded the watercress a perfect Nutrient Density Score of 100/100. Chinese cabbage came in second with 98/100.