14 Exoplanet Superlatives That Sound Like Passive Aggressive Celebrity Awards

Lorne Michaels Has Really U-Turned on That Idea That ‘SNL’ Characters Shouldn’t Be in Commercials

52 Hilarious Tweets About Shopping That Are Worth Every Penny

‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Fans Are Convinced That French Charlie Kelly Is the Ultimate Charlie Kelly

22 Movie Franchises That Forgot What They Were About

28 Vital Bits of Trivia to Get You Caught Up on Everything That’s Happened Since the Big Bang

Pull up a chair. We’ve got 13.8 billion years of facts

28 Vital Bits of Trivia to Get You Caught Up on Everything That’s Happened Since the Big Bang

December 27, 2023

This Time Oreo has a thin Big Bang cookie — a present-day cookie, and 13.8 billion years of cream, baby! What would an Oreo like that even be called? They have Double Stuf and Mega Stuf (those aren’t typos, there’s only one F for some weird reason), but 13.8 billion years of cream would be something like Colossal Stuf! With all kinds of little fact sprinkles in there. Mmm, this is quite the tasty analogy.

28

Millard Fillmore had a society dedicated to how totally boring he was. Не was one of the most forgettable US presidents, and in 1963, a society formed to celebrate his being so very boring. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

Two paleontologists fought the so-called Bone Wars in the late 19th century. It was just two very angry nerds going at each other, and it included stuff like fossils being destroyed so the other guy wouldn't find them. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

There's a species of bird in Africa that can sort of understand human communication. Hunters use the Greater Honeyguide to find bee hives, and they tell the bird to start hunting with a brrr-hm sound. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

Buzz Aldrin wasn't a big fan at all of the Ryan Gosling movie First Man. Не flat-out said he didn't like the movie (he appears in it as a supporting character, played by Corey Stoll). CRACKED.COM — Source

24

Kirk Douglas and Stanley Kubrick actually went to therapy together. They fought all the time on the Spartacus set, so Kirk Douglas' wife suggested they see a therapist together, and they did. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

Billy Crystal and Robin Williams

Robin Williams' and Billy Crystal's cameo on Friends was totally unplanned. They were working on a nearby set, and just wandered over to the Friends set one day, and it snowballed from there. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

Black widow spiders don't usually eat their mate. The one thing that gives black widows their name isn't actually something they do more often than other spiders. The cannibalistic behavior tends to only be observed in caged spiders, and it rarely happens in the wild, where the male can easily get away. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

A 12-year-old fought in World War II. When a tween boy lies to his mom about what he's doing, it's usually not to pretend to be older and enlist in the Navy, but that's exactly what Calvin Graham did. His military career ended when his mom spotted him in a newsreel. By then, he had a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. GRACKED.COM — Source

20

CRACKED.COM Great Britain got rid of their Soviet spies because one of them got drunk. You cannot beat me, Oleg Lyalin rebuked the cop who arrested him for drunk driving in 1971. I am a KGB КГБ C officer. MI5 eventually took him into custody, and got him to defect and rat out over 100 of his comrades. — Source

19

CRACKED.COM Rock, papers, scissors was a sex game at one point. In the 1600s, an early form of the hand game was (somehow) used as foreplay in Japanese brothels. According to scholarly research, it seems that it especially fulfilled this role in homosexual relations. — Source

18

CRACKED.COM Stan Lee tried to do smut for decades. Lee pitched a dirty comic to Playboy in the '70s, and didn't let that project's failure discourage him. Не kept pushing raunchy ideas for years, until he succeeded in the early 2000s with the cartoon Stripperella, starring Pamela Anderson. — Source

17

The water in Titanic contains traces of actors' pee. If you're shooting a James Cameron film, get ready to hold it in, because he doesn't believe in bathroom breaks. While filming Titanic, many extras just let it go in the water (also Kate Winslet, reportedly). CRACKED.COM — Source

16

The death of Robin was inspired by Saturday Night Live. Batman: A Death in the Family famously let readers decide Jason Todd's fate - a move DC lifted from an SNL sketch, where Eddie Murphy asked viewers to vote on whether a lobster would be boiled or spared. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

Scotty kicked ass during D-Day. While you rarely notice it in Star Trek, James Doohan was missing a finger - according to him, he gave it to Hitler. Lt. Doohan led an infantry unit as they stormed Juno beach, and the German couldn't stop him-it was friendly fire that wounded him. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

West Virginia

CRACKED.COM A random taxi driver turned out to be the former governor of West Virginia. William С. Marland's forward-thinking policies couldn't overcome his failings as a politician or his alcoholism, and by 1960 he disappeared from public view. A couple years later, a Chicago journalist thought of fact-checking this cabbie's joke about being a former governor - and it turned out, it was Marland. — Source

13

A guy challenged his ex- wife to trial by combat. As it wasn't explicitly outlawed, in 2020 Kansas resident David Ostrom challenged his ex-wife and her lawyer to decide the custody of the couple's child on the field of battle, wherein he would rend their souls from their corporal bodies. With a katana, because of freakin' course. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Breast Cancer

A company patented the breast cancer genes. For 15 years, Myriad Genetics had a patent over two genes that can increase your risk of cancer, and wouldn't let anyone else test for them. This monopoly ended in 2013, when the Supreme Court ruled, WTF, you can't own human genes. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

CRACKED.COM A German tycoon tried to claim his own kidnapping as tax-deductible. As the founder of the discount supermarket Aldi, Theo Albrecht knew how to pinch a penny - and that included the time he was kidnapped in 1971. First he haggled with the kidnappers over his ransom - and after he was set free, he went to court to get a tax write-off for the money he paid. — Source

10

ELSTRONG CIRO GIRO MYS Lance Armstrong made an ad mocking his critics (before they were proven right). Everybody wants to know what I'm on, Armstrong said in a 2001 ad for Nike. I'm on my bike, busting my ass six hours a day, he answered. Yeah, his bike and a shit-ton of human growth hormone, as it turned out - let's just say, the piece hasn't exactly aged gracefully. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Homicide detectives work way fewer cases than you think. Put on a cop show, and you'll see detectives solving a different murder every week. But in real life, the average homicide cop works maybe five cases in a year. Even in such a stab-happy place as Detroit, the number barely goes up to eight. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

CRACKED.COM An Australian serial killer refused to eat to get a PlayStation. Ivan Milat, convicted for killing seven hitchhikers, went on a hunger strike in 2011 to protest a heinous injustice committed against him: Не wasn't given a PlayStation to exercise his mind. Не lasted nine days before deciding he liked food better than video games, and gave up. — Source

7

CRACKED.COM Ben Schwartz was almost Dave the Cop in Parks and Recreation. Before becoming Jean-Ralphio, Schwartz auditioned for Dave Sanderson, Leslie Knope's cop boyfriend. The casting directors reportedly loved his energy, but ended up deciding he was too young to play Amy Poehler's paramour. — Source

6

16th-century Belgians built porn snowmen. The Miracle of 1511 was a huge winter festival held in Brussels, when lots of elaborate snow figures were made - more than half of them of a sexual or scatological nature. People were mad (at the government and the harsh winter), and the snow things gave them an outlet to vent. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

CRACKED.COM There's a collector's market for royal underwear. Queen undies are a hotter commodity than the underwear of living celebrities. Pairs of Queen Victoria's bloomers have sold for over $15,000, and Queen Elizabeth I's (dirty) panties fetched $18,000 on eBay in 2012. — Source

4

CRACKED.COM Six men survived 9/11 thanks to a squeegee. All six were stuck in an elevator after the plane struck - among them veteran window washer Jan Demczur. Demczur used his squeegee to jimmy the door open and then cut through the brittle plasterboard wall. They managed to get out of the building minutes before it collapsed. — Source

3

Oneida flatware was created by a sex cult. The Oneida Community started as an agrarian utopia in the 1800s, before switching to metallurgic industrialism and creating the fancy silverware still sold today. Their success was their downfall, as the government started to look closely into their free-loving, commie ways. CRACKED.COM — Source

2

CRACKED.COM The first flying saucers weren't flying saucers. Pilot Kenneth Arnold, the first person who reported seeing UFOs, said they were flying like a saucer if you skip it across the water. Не was very annoyed when he was misreported as saying they were saucer-shaped - an image that was then cemented by hoaxes. — Source

1

Mindfulness can help with your depression- or make it worse. While meditation can be helpful, it's far from the safe, easy cure-all that it's often claimed to be. Researchers at Coventry University found that in one out of 12 people, meditation and mindfulness can worsen (or even outright cause) depression and anxiety. CRACKED.COM — Source

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

Movies & TV

40 Bits of Trivia About TV and Movie CGI, SFX and ETC

Movies & TV

We’ll Never Hear Clancy Brown’s All-Time Best ‘SpongeBob’ Ad-Libs Because They’re Way Too Obscene

Movies & TV

Police Are Patrolling the ‘Home Alone’ House for No Good Reason

Science & History

40 Random Bits of United States Trivia That Get the Rest of the World Shaking Their Heads

Science & History

5 Questionable Inductees to the National Toy Hall of Fame

Trivia & Jokes

37 of the Funniest Burns from the Week of November 25, 2024

VIRAL ON CRACKED

1

10 of the Absolute Worst Movies to Watch With Your Parents While You’re Home for the Holidays

2

The 6 Best Towns To Live in (If You Have a Death Wish)

3

19 Actors' Fav Behind The Scenes Stories

4

40 Hidden Truths and Closely Guarded Secrets From Around the World

5

11 Are-You-Kidding-Me Revelations From Celebrity Tell-Alls