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The bonfire will keep your hands warm, but these facts will keep that brain warm

30 Random Bits of Trivia to Fill Up Your Wineskin Before Your Great Trek North of the Wall

May 17, 2024

It’s a little too early for a formal reveal, but our Cracked scientists have been working on a way to liquify facts. The technology is new and a bit finicky, but we’re sure that it’ll revolutionize fact consumption. Think of how many more facts we can cram into each and everyone one of you!

In the not-so-distant future, you’ll be able to slurp this list down in no time.

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

30

The heir apparent of the Ottoman Empire fought in the Normandy landings. Не had studied at Princeton, and joined the US military, where he went on to have a 22-year career. CRACKED.COM — Source

29

Skiing

One guy spent seven hours skiing down from the world's second highest mountain peak. Не climbed for three and a half days to get up there - without any additional oxygen, which is pretty badass. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

The Germans nearly destroyed the Animal Farm manuscript before publication. ORWELL ANIMAL FARM Not on purpose, though - it's just that a Nazi bomb hit George Orwell's house, but he found the manuscript in the ruins. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

12 American POWs were being held in Hiroshima when the nuclear bomb went off. And 9 of them were crewmembers of the same plane, the B-24 bomber Lonesome Lady. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

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

25

The Bone Wars

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

24

The Greater Honeyguide

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

23

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

22

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

21

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

20

A game studio has been working for two decades with no bosses. Motion Twin, the French studio behind the successful Dead Cells, describes itself as an anarcho-syndical workers cooperative where there are no bosses and everyone gets paid the same. And they've been making games since 2001, so it's hard to shrug them off as some hippie experiment. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

CRACKED.COM Halifax, England was terrified of a criminal who didn't exist. For two weeks in 1938, Halifax was haunted by a knife-wielding maniac, and Scotland Yard offered a reward for the Halifax Slasher. Plot twist: the Slasher wasn't real. The whole thing was born from a few, unrelated incidents - and then people started faking attacks following the press coverage. — Source

18

17

CRACKED.COM Nut theft is big in California. Stealing electronics? Booze? Nope - the really high-yield crime in California is nut-napping. International crime rings run sophisticated operations, complete with false shipping papers. Nuts are notoriously hard to track, and a truckload can be worth as much as $500,000. — Source

16

An entire bank in Utah was sent by mail. In 1916, bank director William Horace Coltharp realized that bricks to build a new bank in Vernal, Utah were cheaper to ship by mail than by truck. Through a series of sneaky loopholes, he got 1,500 parcels (each containing 50 pounds of bricks) delivered all the way from Salt Lake City. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

College professors published a porn anatomy textbook. In 1971, three Duke University professors penned The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice, a textbook that featured, as the authors put it, female models as model females. Costal Posterior märgins and anterior axillary Not too surprising, really, considering that med schools at the time were bro-y sausage fests. Inguinal ligament Fig. III-56. Adult female, surface anatomy of the ab- domen. GRAGKED.COM — Source

14

People feared Comet Halley would kill everyone. When the comet visited us in 1910, many feared that its gases would poison the Earth's atmosphere. People donned gas masks and swallowed anti-comet pills, and hucksters sold protective umbrellas. There was much rejoicing when no one was hurt. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

Amazon's fast shipping is awful for the environment. Amazon's drivers drive more miles, and consequently burn more fuel, than any other courier service. That's because deliveries are prioritized by shipping deadline, forcing drivers to rush from place to place to deliver individual packages, instead of doing a single run. prime CRACKED.COM — Source

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12

Tarzan

11

The first recorded act of mooning caused a massacre. Jewish-Roman historian Titus Flavius Josephus recounts the time when a Roman soldier in Jerusalem mooned the Jewish population. During Passover. At the Temple. The locals were very pissed off, and an estimated 10,000- 30,000 people died in the ensuing riot. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

The original Kool-Aid drinkers didn't want to drink the Kool-Aid. You might already know that Jim Jones' cult members drank poisoned Flavor Aid, not Kool- Aid. The expression is also wrong in that it was not a voluntary act of uncritical submission. Many were forced at gunpoint by Jones loyalists, after being held against their will for months. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

CRACKED.COM A Thanos-like approach to population was seriously proposed in the '70s. Overpopulation was one of the great fears of past decades. Famine was thought to be inevitable, so some authors proposed triage- essentially, letting entire nations starve to feed the rest. Luckily, new agricultural techniques were developed that curbed food shortage before that happened. — Source

8

30 Random Bits of Trivia to Fill Up Your Wineskin Before Your Great Trek North of the Wall — Source

7

A Robert Rodriguez movie won't be released until 2115. The only copy of 100 Years, directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring John Malkovich, is currently sitting in a time-locked safe set to open in November 2115. The movie was made as a publicity stunt for an extra-fancy cognac that is aged 100 years. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Pigs can learn to play video games. Using food as reward, researchers at Purdue University trained pigs to operate a cursor on a screen with a joystick, and then make the cursor collide against targets. One day they'll learn they're the bad guys in Angry Birds and get mad at humans. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Wolverine was almost a literal wolverine. Marvel took their sweet time to come up with an origin story for Logan. One of the ideas writers tossed about was that he was an actual wolverine, mutated into human form. That never came to happen, as Stan Lee hated it. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

CRACKED.COM Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze is about alien planets, not drugs. The song's title comes from the purplish haze of sunspots mentioned in Philip José Farmer's Night of Light. Inspired by this science-fiction novel, Hendrix wrote a long poem about the history of Neptune, which he then pared down into his legendary song. — Source

3

Skittles

S S S All Skittles actually S taste the same. All the differently-colored candy pills are made of the same thing - sugar. The differences you experience come from fragrances and colors (yes, even colors can trick the tasting part of your brain). So you're smelling (and seeing) the rainbow, rather than actually tasting it. S S S SV S S CRACKED.COM — Source

2

Data security firms just pay hackers off. You can't pay off hackers who encrypt your data with ransomware - that'd only encourage them. That's why some companies hire recovery services, even if it's more expensive. Plot twist: Often these services just pay the ransom and pocket the difference. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Bitcoin

The first thing ever bought with Bitcoin was Papa John's pizza. Every May 22, cryptophiles celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day, the anniversary of the first ever crypto transaction. On that date in 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz plunked down 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas from Papa John's. Не could get a lot more pizza with that today, but Hanyecz has no regrets. CRACKED.COM — Source

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