31 Random Bits of Trivia Better Than Anything at the Bottom of a Cereal Box

Since the Cracked higher-ups don’t let us anywhere near their offices, we’ll use this little blurb to pitch our genius ideas, as they’ll be forced to read them in the editing process. Stuff like “Cracked Fact Cereal”! Each piece is like a fortune cookie, but instead of a dumb fortune, we’ll have facts printed on little pieces of paper. Kids crunch down on a milky cereal piece, pull out a soggy fact and learn!

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Whiskey distilleries sometimes keep cats around just to catch mice. Distilleries have been using cats for that for centuries and, despite the many alternatives that exist today, they still do. CRACKED.COM — Source

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There's an organization that sends out saplings and seeds that survived the A-bomb. Specifically, the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima - Green Legacy Hiroshima is spreading them worldwide. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Drinking alcohol used to be a regular part of participating in the Olympics. For example, runners drank it in the 1908 London olympics - i it was believed to be a performance enhancer. CRACKED.COM — Source

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In 1916, a New York construction worker was literally shot up on a geyser. Just like in a cartoon - he was working on a subway tunnel, and got shot through a hole in the tunnel. Miraculously, and also just like in a cartoon, he survived. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Brazil has the country with the most Japanese people outside Japan itself. There's a total of 1.5 million Japanese living in Brazil - this is partly due to the Japanese government promoting emigration until the '60s. CRACKED.COM — Source

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There's a fruit fly gene that's named after Kenny from South Park. TRASH Fruit flies that have a bad version of it die two days after they've gotten a specific bacteria. CRACKED.COM — Source

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The filming of 1971's A Bridge Too Far had a single million-dollar hour. They had an hour to shoot a scene with Robert Redford - if they didn't, they'd have to pay him a million dollars and try again in a week. Luckily for the budget, they made it. CRACKED.COM — Source

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They asked Benedict Cumberbatch to use an English accent in 2018's Grinch. But he pushed back, because the Grinch was already so different from the other characters, and Cumberbatch didn't think he should be English as well, but I thought just not thematically a bad guy. CRACKED.COM — Source

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Richard the Lionheart took over an island because he felt offended. On his way to a crusade, some of his ships were wrecked near Cyprus, and Isaac Comnenos, the self-styled Emperor of Cyprus, pillaged them. Не also insulted Richard's favorite sister and his bride-to-be, which enraged Richard and led him to conquer Cyprus and overthrow Comnenos. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

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The WAP music video spent $100,000 just on Covid testing. Every single person on the shoot had to get tested. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

21

The Andean condor glides 99% of the time it's airborne. It flaps its wings only 1% of the time, and it's the heaviest soaring bird in the world. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

20

Mark Hamill's phone number is in A New Hope. In the trash compactor scene, he was supposed to just say a long serial number, so he wanted it to be his own phone number. But Harrison Ford got the line instead, and he started saying his own number. Hamill nagged him to say his, Hamill's, so Ford did that and told him Happy now, you big baby? NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

19

It looks like sharks and swordfish fight brutal undersea duels. In the Mediterranean, since September 2016, at least seven dead sharks have washed up with a swordfish's sword broken off in their body. Scientists theorize they might be fighting for dwindling food in the overfished Mediterranean waters. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

18

The bathrooms at the Super Bowl use more water than passes over Niagara Falls every second. MEN WOMEN IN OUT I ST: n It's almost a million gallons. That's used, among other things, for flushing the 8,000 gallons of urine produced. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

17

Step Brothers showcases Will Ferrell's and John C. Reilly's musical talents. UPTOWN GiRL In the scene at the Catalina Wine Mixer where Reilly's character plays drums and Ferrell's sings, the actors are really doing that. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

16

In Sierra Leone, playing a board game is part of getting your driver's license. TRAFFIC POLICE VEHICLE EXAMINATION CENTRE STATION CHECK ROSE Alt GAS TRAFFIC GAS CHECK R CHECK pows VEHICLE A CHECK C DIRECTION CHECK I 40 CHOICE CHOICE VEHICLE N PARKING LOT NAGUEST CROSSING ALLOW TRAIS MALZS-LASE TO CROSS CHOICE Applicants have to play Driver's Way (which involves rolling dice, moving car models on a board, and answering questions about road laws) at least once before their actual driving test. CRACKED.COM NOW YOU KNOW — Source

15

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ralph Fiennes' nephew Hero Fiennes Tiffin played young Tom Riddle. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

14

In October 1958, MIT students measured the Massachusetts Avenue bridge using another student. His name was Oliver Smoot, and the bridge turned out to be 364.4 Smoots long (+/-1 ear). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

13

In Malaysia, suicide attempts are punishable by a fine or up to one year in jail. This is because the Malaysian penal code was based on British law back when it still included holdover laws from the Middle Ages (in medieval times, suicide was a criminal offence because St. Augustine had declared it a sin). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Horseshoe crabs are vital to human health. Horseshoe crab blood is used to test people for bacterial contamination, which is why we capture 250,000 horseshoe crabs a year and drain their blood (when we're done, we put them back into the sea). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Henry David Thoreau was a significant pencil innovator. After graduating from Harvard, he got a job at his dad's pencil factory, and eventually started trying to make better pencils. Не came up with a really good pencil production method, allowing the factory to make some of the best pencils in the U.S. at that time. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

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31 Random Bits of Trivia Better Than Anything at the Bottom of a Cereal Box — Source

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Many clumping cat litters are made of BENTONITE CLAY, a material made from aged volcanic ash mined from the earth. GRACKED.COM — Source

8

Films used in X-rays and negatives contain gelatin derived from ossein to ensure that the chemicals are evenly spread. Ossein is just a fancy name for bone collagen. Another reason to go digital. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

GRAGKED.COM Play-Don Play-Do Pidy-Don Play-Don Play-Doh is basically a meal. It primarily consists of water, flour and salt. — Source

6

If your makeup is pearlescent, it very likely contains fish scales. Pearlescence comes from a silvery substance primarily sourced from herring. It's a common ingredient in lipsticks and nail polish. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

THE PLATES USED TO PRINT MONEY ARE HAND-MADE. The dots and lines you see on your money are engraved by hand using very small tools. An engraver can take up to one year to complete a bill plate. RES STAY 1 K 6 FW E LOR fam WASHINGTON Secretary of the GRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM YOU HAVE UNZIPPED A YKK LATELY. YKK If you're wearing anything with a zipper right now, it's very likely the letters YKK are stamped on it. The Japan-based YKK Group makes about half the zippers in the world. — Source

2

MYSTERY FLAVOR DUM DUMS EXIST TO AVOID CLEANING THE MACHINES. When a flavor is running out, they just plop the next one on top and a batch ? ? you of lollipops has two flavors combined. 10RTM BUMS DUM ARTIFICIAL ANDY DUMA MYSTER CO swna CRACKED.COM — Source

1

GRAGKED.COM THE FIRST NIKE SHOES WERE MADE WITH A WAFFLE IRON. Bill Bowerman noticed over breakfast that a waffle pattern was just right to make light soles with a good grip. — Source

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31 Random Bits of Trivia Better Than Anything at the Bottom of a Cereal Box

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