40 Random Bits of Trivia to Nourish Your Insatiable Hunger for Factoids

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

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

30 Bits of Secret Knowledge to Smuggle Into Your Brain

Hush-hush facts to burn after reading

30 Bits of Secret Knowledge to Smuggle Into Your Brain

April 11, 2024

There are some people who really don’t want you to know these facts. But doesn’t that make knowing them way more fun? We’re bursting with exhilaration right now! That probably reveals how little we touch grass, but secretive facts amp us right up, and we don’t care who knows it. Here, get some kicks out of them too before we have to delete them for security reasons.

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

30

Walt Disney World has a severe alligator infestation. The number of alligators caught within the premises of the resort increases every year, mainly because it is located at the center of water ways and canals commonly inhabited by alligators. GRACKED.COM — Source

29

There's a derelict water park, River Country, inside Disney's resort in Florida. Seph Lawless had to scale a twenty feet high, blacked-out fence to take these photos, after which he was banned from Disney World for life. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

After wasting 30 million dollars and causing an incredible amount of environmental damage... Disney had to completely abandon a fully built resort in the Bahamas. They didn't fully map out the logistics of ferrying the tourists to and from their cruise ships, and instead of salvaging what they could and relocating, they left it all in place to rot. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

UNTIL 2001, LAUNDERING OF COMPANY-ISSUED UNDERWEAR WAS SO SUB-PAR, DISNEY PARK EMPLOYEES WERE GIVEN STINKY, STAINED UNDIES-AS WELL AS PUBIC LICE AND SCABIES. IT TOOK THE TEAMSTERS UNION TWO MONTHS TO CONVINCE DISNEY TO ALLOW EMPLOYEES TO TAKE UNDERWEAR HOME TO WASH THEMSELVES. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

GRACKED COM Walt Disney World's River County was once responsible for the death of a boy in 1980, who died after contracting a brain-eating amoeba while swimming in the water park. However, this incident wasn't enough to shut it down. It was only shut down in 2001 due to lack of demand. — Source

25

SHADY TIES HARVEY MILK AND JIM JONES When Jones (who conducted the mass-suicide of 918 people) was getting bad publicity, Milk wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter, praising the cult leader and the work he was doing. They left that out of the Milk biopic. CRACKED — Source

24

The Breatharians

CRACKED SHADY TIES MICHELLE PFEIFFER AND THE BREATHARIANS The group claims to get all their nourishment from the sun. They were very controlling, Pfeiffer said. I had to pay for all the time I was there, so it was financially draining. When researching cults for a film, she realized she was in one, and left. — Source

23

CRACKED SHADY TIES THE BEACH BOYS so VENTURA CAL 47623 AND CHARLES MANSON 22 APR 1968 Manson supplied Dennis Wilson with girls and drugs, and was a frequent guest in his home. One of Manson's disciples even babysat Mike Love's children. — Source

22

SHADY TIES JOHN KERRY AND JEFFREY EPSTEIN 2004's Democratic Presidential nominee and current Presidential Envoy for Climate, Kerry was found in Epstein's private phone book and flight logs. CRACKED — Source

21

CRACKED SONY PIERRE BRASSARD In October 1995, Queen Elizabeth II was tricked into thinking she was talking to the Canadian Prime Minister... but really it was a radio host trolling her for 17 minutes. She agreed to give a speech on TV asking for everyone in Quebec to come together. — Source

20

CRACKED MARK PEDLEY CREATED A FAKE COUNTRY. The Dominion of Melchizedek pretty much only existed to perpetuate massive bank fraud. Even the former president of Portugal's brother was taken in by a loan scam based in the country, which was located in several different areas over the years. — Source

19

CRACKED THE FOX SISTERS HELD PHONY SEANCES. They swindled untold numbers of people during the 19th-century Spiritualism movement and were even authenticated by skeptics, none of whom could figure out that they were just cracking their joints to make otherworldly sounds. — Source

18

The Fake Lawyer to the Evil Stars

CRACKED GIOVANNI DI STEFANO WAS THE (FAKE) LAWYER TO THE (EVIL) STARS. Не presented himself as a lawyer to the likes of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević, earning himself the nickname the Devil's Advocate before it was revealed that he had zero legal credentials in addition to scruples. — Source

17

The FBI

CRACKED BREAKING INTO THE FBI (BY ASKING POLITELY) BT FBY FBI FBI FBI F In 1971, the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI managed to get into an FBI office by leaving a note on the door asking them not to lock it for the night. Man, the FBI is so much more badass in movies. — Source

16

ES UNION A 2850 OF IES 35926 WARRING 12 AGRICOTO Benjamin Ackerman scammed his way OF AMI into a number of famous people's houses, including Usher and Adam L3 Lambert, by pretending to be a realtor. After casing the houses, he came back and stole thousands of high-end stuff worth millions of dollars. 12 12 L05 L CRACKED COM in — Source

15

A luxury apartment sits at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Gustave Eiffel had it built for himself when the tower went up, and kept it secret for a long time. He'd get offered crazy sums for a night in it, but always said no. It didn't open to the public until 2015, 90 years after he died. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

There's a creepy secret chamber inside Mt. Rushmore. Its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, wanted Mt. Rushmore to have a Hall of Records, where historic American documents would be stored. When he died in 1941, it was unfinished. In 1998, the government put a sealed titanium vault with copies of important documents in there. So he kinda got his wish. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

There's a subway station under Grand Central Station. It led directly into the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, so the well-to-do wouldn't have to mingle with the masses. It was used from the '30s to the '60s, when it was abandoned (except for a 1965 party by Andy Warhol), and it was eventually totally closed off. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Under the Lincoln Memorial, there's a cavern with dirty graffiti. The Memorial is kept up by support beams, which are in a Moria-esque underground hall. And the construction workers must have been really bored, because they left it full of graffiti that's a mix of porn doodles and dirty words. One just says boobies. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

CRACKED.COM In 1814, British troops set fire to the White House. You can still see burn marks. — Source

10

GRAGKED.COM One of the grotesques on the Washington National Cathedral is Darth Vader's helmet. — Source

9

GRACKED.COM and but Gir adidas BY Pass AND STOP have BOGLAH The wide crack on the Liberty Bell was actually the repair job. In the early 1840s, a narrow crack appeared on the bell, so the workers decided to widen it in order to prevent it from spreading. It didn't work, though, as the crack spread even further, permanently damaging the bell in the process. — Source

8

There used to be a typo on the north wall of the Lincoln Memorial. The wall that was supposedly engraved with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address misspelled FUTURE as EUTURE. The bottom part of the E has since been filled in. mail THAN T EFLY MENT THE PUBLIC THE W TRUST REASON- AND ENCOURAGING TO WHIC IGH HOPE FOR THE ANTIC FUTURE NO IN REGARD TO IT IS VENTURED MIGH FLICT CCASION CORRESPONDING TO AN В ARS AGO ALL THOUGHTS WERE DAM DIRECTED TO AN IMPENDING SAM EAC ALL DREADED IT-ALL SOUGHT IT WHILE THE INAUGURAL AD- DA CRACKED.COM BEING DELIVERED — Source

7

CRACKED.COM George Washington was a huge whisky producer (for a short time). After retiring from politics in 1797, Washington set up a whisky distillery in his land. During its first year, the distillery sold nearly 11,000 gallons of booze, and was one of the biggest in the U.S. But Washington soon died, and his nephew couldn't successfully continue the operation. — Source

6

Slavery

White slaves helped end slavery. The American North wasn't much less racist than the South, and many weren't sold on the whole emancipation thing. To win them over, abolitionists started highlighting white slaves on popular magazines (who were enslaved because they had some black ancestor). Suddenly, owning people seemed inhumane. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Cain’s Jawbone

CRACKED COM cain's Jawbone is a puzzle that only four people have been able to solve. In 1934, puzzle writer Edward Mathers (a.k.a. Torquemada) published Cain's Jawbone, a novella of 100 cryptic, out-of- order pages. The challenge was to rearrange the pages in the correct sequence and solve the murders. The task proved so hard that only four people have ever completed it. — Source

4

MIT intentionally irradiated children (with Quaker's help). In the 1940s, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology decided to study how the body absorbs nutrients by feeding disabled and abandoned children radioactive oatmeal. The experiment was government-sanctioned and sponsored by Quaker Oats, who even supplied the tainted cereal. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

overeager investors bought shares for the wrong Twitter. Some time before Twitter went public in 2013, investors spotted some very cheap shares with the code TWTRQ, and snapped them up thinking they were out early. As it turned out, those were for a company called Tweeter Audio and Video - and were dirt cheap because the outfit had just gone bankrupt. CRACKED.COM — Source

2

INGREDIES THE Tomato Spice ge - STORA whete PROH 57 ketchup was a medicine. In 1834, Ohio physician John С. Bennet began selling tomato ketchup as a medicine for all kinds of ailments. The condiment was a medical fad until around 1850, when studies showed that its miraculous healing properties were (amazingly) not real. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

The discoverer of Halley's comet originated the Hollow Earth theory. Trying to explain shifts in the Earth's magnetic field, Edmund Halley speculated in 1692 that the planet contained three nested, smaller spheres, rotating in different directions. And for some reason he added that whole civilizations lived there, like in so many floors of a tenement building. CRACKED.COM — Source

Tags:

Visual

Scroll down for the next article

Must Read

Movies & TV

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

Movies & TV

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

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

Trivia & Jokes

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

VIRAL ON CRACKED

1

40 Random Bits of Trivia to Shampoo Into Your Brain Folds

2

13 Well Drawn Pieces Of Trivia About Tattoos

3

Characters That Sequels And Prequels Destroyed

4

22 Foods That Have Changed And Morphed Over Time

5

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