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Top notch facts. Just don’t ask where they came from

28 Random Bits of Trivia Left on Our Doorstep Like a Dead Rodent by a Friendly Cat

June 01, 2024

When we send our fact-finders out into the world, we trust that they’ll retrieve grade A facts. They haven’t disappointed us yet, so we stopped questioning where some of the grittier, grimier facts came from. We know they’re true, and that’s all that matters. Sure, we might have to hose some of them off before adding them to a list, but it’s the least we can do.

Put your feet up, little fact finders. You have 10 minutes before you have to get back out there!

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28

Mice don't really love cheese at all - it's just a pop culture myth, basically. And it's much older than, say, Tom & Jerry, for that matter -- scholars actually think it probably dates all the way back to medieval times. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

As a rehearsal for the very first atomic bomb test, they stacked 100 tons of TNT. Trinity Well, 108 tons, to be exact - and they detonated them simultaneously in May, 1945, two months before the real thing: Trinity, the first nuclear explosion. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

One of the finest delicacies you could eat in ancient Rome was a dormouse. Romans thought they were so delicious, they kept dormice in cages to fatten them like geese - and they'd be stuffed with pork before being served. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

In the country of Kosovo, you can hire a professional Hitler impersonator. Emin Gjinovci is a 55-year-old military vet who calls himself Kosovo's own reincarnation of Adolf Hitler and partly relies on playing Hitler to make a living. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

You can thank WWI for introducing the fashion of wearing a watch on your wrist. X XI 2 IV D XII de B VIII FOSSIL Ф 6 ٠٥٠ VII - Vt F V III 1 Before that, men usually wore watches in their pockets - but soldiers had to wear them on their wrists, so they could coordinate instantly. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

Singer Chubby Checker sued HP over the app called, uh, Chubby Checker. SI KUS WS LAWS The app did exactly what you thought it does: it estimated the size of your dong (based on your shoe size), and Chubby wasn't happy about it. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

The country with the greatest number of time zones isn't, say, Russia or China. It's France - because of its many overseas territories, scattered from South America to the Indian Ocean, France spreads over 12 time zones. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

The world's tallest cat-scratching tree is about as big as someone's house. It's over 32 feet high, and its bottom layer - shaped like a square - is 31.59 feet by 31.59 feet. The whole structure has a total of 15 layers. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

In the Sahara, there's a 30-mile-wide feature that was useful to astronauts. Early astronauts used the Richat Structure, which is shaped like a bull's-eye, as a landmark when they crossed the sky over the Sahara. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

There's a documented (and filmed) case of a spider eating an opossum. It happened in the Amazon rainforest, when some researchers spotted it - the spider was, of course, a tarantula the size of a dinner plate. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

The guy who played Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather actually killed a person. Gianni Russo owned a restaurant in Las Vegas for a while, and he shot a guy there in 1988 - the court ruled it justifiable homicide. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

The massive, 25-pound apple pie in La La Land has kind of a weird inspiration. Ryan Gosling brought a 25-pound apple pie to a dinner party in real life, and that inspired the massive pie stuck in the oven during Mia and Sebastian's dinner. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

There's a biblical Easter egg of sorts hidden on The Matrix' Nebuchadnezzar. MARKMI NOKI NEBUCHADNEZZ A plaque on the ship says Mark III, No. 11 - and Mark 3:11 mentions spirits crying You are the son of God, a likely reference to Neo. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

There's a deleted Hoth scene with wampas in The Empire Strikes Back. In the scene, wampas attack the Rebels' Echo Base before the Empire even shows up, and one wampa breaks through and gets inside the base. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

The bottom of the Mariana Trench is the deepest location on earth, at 36,201 feet underwater. You could stack 24 empire state buildings on top of each other, and the uppermost spire still wouldn't reach air. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

If you were a drummer in the 1920s who needed a job, you might end up at the movie theater. Drummers were hired to provide sound effects for silent movies... at least until their jazz quartet made it. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

In the Great Depression, newspapers used by the homeless for warmth were called Hoover Blankets. It wasn't the only jab at the President, including calling empty, turned-out pockets Hoover flags. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

You may know lettuce as short bundles of salad-to-be, but it can actually grow to over 3 feet tall. Called bolting, lettuce cán sprout tall stalks with yellow flowers. However, this makes the leaves inedible. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

The first oil paintings ever made are attributed to Masolino da Panicale, created in the 1420s. Up until recently, this honor belonged to the painter Jan van Eyck, but earlier oil works by Masolino were found. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Investing in Uber is what enabled Lance Armstrong to survive financially. Although he'd lost millions, his investment in Uber ballooned - when he invested, Uber's valuation was $3.7 million, and it later went to $120 billion. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

Eating dark chocolate can make some people sneeze, and it's due to genetics. About 25-30% of people are affected, and all those people carry a variant of a specific gene on Chromosome 11 that causes them to sneeze. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

Melatonin might be a legacy of our ancestors who roamed the oceans millions of years ago. They'd go to the surface of the sea at sunset, then fall throughout the night, and this cycle might have led to the evolution of melatonin. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Ben & Jerry's was originally supposed to make bagels and not ice cream. Partly to kind of commemorate that, Ben&Jerry's launched limited-edition ice cream bagel sandwiches decades later (called Ice Ice Bagels). CRACKED.COM — Source

5

A French soldier in WWI was saved thanks to the book he had in his pocket. Kipling It was Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and the bullet stopped at the last 20 pages. Не wrote to Kipling about it, and they began a correspondence. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Eagle nests are extremely wide - about 6 feet across at the very top. They're also pretty deep, because eagles just keep building them up for years. The largest eagle nest ever found was 10 feet wide and 20 feet tall. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

There was a small group of WWII spies that were kind of real-life Inglorious Basterds. Two Brooklyn Jews were parachuted behind German lines to gather intel, and they were soon joined by a disillusioned ex-Nazi lieutenant. CRACKED.COM — Source

2

Dogs and cats in the US contribute fairly significantly to global warming. The diet fed to dogs and cats creates 25-30% of the total environmental impact (in terms of fossil fuel use, biocide use, and so on) from animal production. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

In the 1700s, it was fashionable in Britain to get a hermit for your estate. Landowners even put ads for hermits in newspapers, offering food, lodging and money (but, of course, there were conditions). CRACKED.COM — Source

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