45 Strange Bits of Science That’ll Make You Wonder If Mother Nature Is Just Screwing With Us

‘Simpsons’ Fans Wonder If Disney Will Pull Neil Gaiman’s Episode

Original ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ Comedian Passes Away

40 Random Bits of Trivia We Rescued From the Trivia Shelter

Seth Meyers Took World's Longest Elevator Ride With Robert De Niro

27 Extra-Strength Bits of Trivia Guaranteed to Provide Fast, Safe, Proven Relief From Ignorance

Take at least 27 facts daily. Doctor’s orders

27 Extra-Strength Bits of Trivia Guaranteed to Provide Fast, Safe, Proven Relief From Ignorance

February 09, 2024

Be honest, once you try an extra-strength fact, are you ever going back to regular strength? When it comes to actual medication, the strength is based on your ailment at the time. But with factual medication, it’s full-strength, full-time, baby! And obviously please don’t take any medical advice from us.

Click right here to get the best of Cracked sent to your inbox.

27

Colleges received orphaned practice babies. CRACKED.COM In the early to mid-1900s, orphaned babies were lent out to college home eco- nomics programs where they were taken care of en- tirely by groups of stu- dents in order to learn child-rearing skills. — Source

26

Beethoven once received so much applause that the police had to break it up. CRACKED.COM At the premiere of Bee- thoven's 9th symphony, police had to break up the applause, as the amount he was receiving was con- sidered inappropriate for a private citizen. — Source

25

One of the earliest weapons of mass destruction was used during the Siege of Antwerp in 1585. CRACKED.COM A Dutch explosive fire ship containing 4 tons of explo- sive rammed a fortified Spanish bridge, killing 800 Spaniards, causing a small tsunami, and vibrating windows 22 miles away. — Source

24

Pink Floyd's album Atom Heart Mother doesn't end until you stop it. CRACKED.COM The final song, Alan's Psy- chedelic Breakfast, features a dripping sink at the end. The effect was cut into the vinyl's run-off groove, caus- ing the dripping noise to play on indefinitely until the sty- lus was removed. — Source

23

Florida's state gemstone does not naturally occur in Florida. NASA CRACKED COM The finest moonstones are found mainly in Sri Lanka and Southern India. The gem was chosen to commemorate as- tronaut-controlled space flights launched from the Kennedy Space Center. — Source

22

A Biotech firm managed to 3D print fake rhino horns that are genetically identical knockoffs. CRACKED.COM The company Pembient plans to flood the Chinese rhino horn market at one-eighth of the price of the original, undercutting the price poachers can get and forcing them out eventually. — Source

21

There are only 3 original citrus fruits, and most other citrus fruits are hybrids of these. GRACKED.COM In the beginning, there was only pomelo, cit- ron, and mandarin. The oranges we enjoy today are a combina- tion of pomelo and mandarin. — Source

20

The Hard Rock Café is entirely owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. CAFE بيسمهمد Hard Rock CAFE HONGIKONS They bought it back in 2007 - and that also means they in turn own the world's biggest music memorabilia collection, since that's owned by Hard Rock. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

Heinz mounted a campaign to get hot dog bun and wiener packages to match. They brought up outrage about the bun-to-hot-dog ratio issue, by which they meant the fact that buns are sold in packs of eight. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

The first man who freely walked in space got over 300 feet from his space shuttle. NAS Astronaut Bruce McCandless' untethered spacewalk (with just a jetpack) happened in 1984, and he says he wasn't nervous about doing at all. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

One Scottish town celebrates Halloween on the last Friday of October. In Kilmarnock, they hold Killieween celebrations on the last Friday for unclear reasons - it's a very old tradition, but nobody knows how it got started. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Visitors to a dinosaur park demanded refunds because the dinos weren't alive. The park was called Dinosaurs Live! and some people took it too literally - about six people asked for their $2.50 back, apparently. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

The Gulf War

The longest distance at which one tank destroyed another is about 3 miles. The record was made by a British Challenger tank in the Gulf War, in 1991 - kind of amazingly, it hasn't been beaten since. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

There's a decaying, abandoned WWII US army base in the landscape of Greenland. The abandoned equipment includes about 10,000 rusted and leaking fuel barrels, which the locals charmingly call American Flowers. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

Set competition

The shoot of There Will Be Blood got in the way of No Country For Old Men. Both movies shot in the same isolated area and, one day, No Country couldn't film because the other movie released too much smoke. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Batman Brotherhood

George Clooney would call out Brotherhood! to Michael Keaton on a movie set. It was on Out Of Sight, and Keaton only figured out later that, oh yeah, Clooney was talking about the fact that they both played Batman. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

They poured Coca-Cola on an Italian town's cobblestones for No Time to Die. They were filming a chase scene and the cobblestones didn't have enough grip, so they used Coke and it was incredible how well it was working. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

Glaciers are plundered for luxury ice cubes. Ice from glaciers is highly valued by whisky snobs, which makes it a valuable trade good - great for a time when glaciers are retreating. This has led to hijackings - in 2012, a man was arrested in Chile with about $6,000 worth of ice from a Patagonian glacier. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Daredevil almost got a dog. A 1980s cartoon which was never produced planned to give Matt Murdock a seeing-eye dog, which also helped him in his superhero forays as... Lightning, the Super- Dog! (Не wasn't actually super, though-just a regular good boy.) CRACKED.COM — Source

8

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

7

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

6

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

5

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

4

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

3

Titanic

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

2

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

1

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

Tags:

Visual

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

Movies & TV

Here’s Why Ben Stiller Quit ‘SNL’ After Four Episodes

Trivia & Jokes

12 Farm-Fresh Trivia Tidbits for Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Movies & TV

‘The New York Times’ Gets Ben Stiller to Confess That He Borrowed His ‘Dodgeball’ Villain From a Disney Movie

Movies & TV

Eddie Murphy Says This Is His Worst Movie

Trivia & Jokes

35 of the Funniest Tweets from Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Movies & TV

Here Are All the Fan-Spotted Easter Eggs and Callbacks From the ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’/‘Abbott Elementary’ Crossover

VIRAL ON CRACKED

1

40 Random Bits of Trivia to Shampoo Into Your Brain Folds

2

7 Huge Acts Of Generosity By Celebrities You'd Least Expect

3

40 Random Bits of Trivia We Rescued From the Trivia Shelter

4

Will Ferrell Said ‘Saturday Night Live’ Had to Cut A Sketch From Shaq’s Cameo Because He Was Funnier Than This Host

5

'Elite' Squads In Movies That Suck At Their Job