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40 Random Bits of Trivia Masterfully Extracted From a Superspy Using State-of-the-Art Evil Technology

Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in

40 Random Bits of Trivia Masterfully Extracted From a Superspy Using State-of-the-Art Evil Technology

June 13, 2024

You should have seen us. Dropping puns left and right, smugly divulging our master plan, knowing that our greatest foe was neutralized and he could never foil us.

Okay, technically he did escape. And he did foil our evil scheme.

But we were able to get these valuable bits of trivia out of him! That’s gotta count for something!

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

40

Moscow only had six minutes of sunlight in December of 2017. CRACKED.COM They usually get a whop- ping 18 hours of sun for the month, but a wall of cloud that never moved sat over the city thanks to cyclone anomalies over the Atlantic and warmer tem- peratures. — Source

39

The cruise ship MS Oasis of the Seas gets the gas mileage of 12 feet per gallon. MSC CRACKED COM Completed in 2010, it has a total length of 361.8 me- ters, a height of 72 meters above the sea line, and room for 6,296 passen- gers. It burns 11361 gallons of fuel each hour. — Source

38

No one knows how seals originally came to Lake Baikal in Siberia. CRACKED.COM The Baikal Seal is the only true freshwater seal on Earth, and may have trav- eled hundreds of miles to Lake Baikal from another large body of water during the last ice age before be- ing stranded. — Source

37

Stevie Ray Vaughan had a dream about his own funeral a day before he died. CRACKED.COM On August 26, 1990, Stevie Ray Vaughan described a disturbing dream to his bandmates in which he witnessed his own funeral. The next day, he tragically died in a helicopter crash. — Source

36

The Dudley Dursley actor had to wear a fat suit after the third Harry Potter movie. CRACKED.COM Harry Melling had lost so much weight that his role was almost recast. Eventu- ally it was decided that Melling would continue to play Dudley and would wear a fat suit to make him look heavier. — Source

35

Sarah Thomas is the NFL's only female official. CRACKED.COM Thomas earned a basket- ball scholarship to the University of Mobile, ranking fifth in the school's history, and graduated with a degree in communications. — Source

34

There are 45 genes which the human species has likely 'stolen' from worms and bacteria. ATTACCGACGA TACGAGTTCTT TGTTGCEGCTGATACO AAAGA GCGCTCCG GTATGTTGGACCGAGT CRACKED.COM They have not simply been passed on from our primitive ancestors. In- stead, they have jumped directly into the human genome in the last couple of million years. — Source

33

French law forbids official surveys accounting for racial or ethnic origin. CRACKED CON Nobody knows the exact number of people of African de- scent living in France because it officially declares itself 'color blind.' — Source

32

Ants manage large-scale infrastructure projects with no coordination at all. CRACKED.COM Each ant acts alone, solving problems such as removing obstructions as they are en- countered. Research points to the simple, evolutionary energy-saving principle of: If you do not need to com- municate, don't! — Source

31

There is an indigenous Brazilian man believed to be the last member of his tribe. CRACKED.COM Officials call him The Man of the Hole, from the 6 feet deep holes that he digs in each home that he has abandoned. Не has sig- naled to government offi- cials before to warn them about his pitfalls. — Source

30

29

Every ball used in an MLB game is covered in mud that comes from a secret location in New Jersey. A OFFICIA ISHOR LEAGUE R - CRACKED COM A man skims through riv- erbanks to find the mud, then refines it before it's applied to balls. It is called the Lena Black- burne Original Baseball Rubbing Mud. — Source

28

Mummies were shipped to America in the 1800s to use their wrappings as paper. CRACKED.COM Several shiploads of Egyp- tian mummies were import- ed so that the linen rags could be used to make ра- per to accommodate news- paper printing - which was as much as England and France combined. — Source

27

The rules of chess were changed in the 15th-century to reflect the accomplishments of Queen Isabella. CRACKED.COM The Queen's arrival at the siege of Baza, in 1489, boosted morale and led to the Crusader's victory. In response, the unofficial Queen chess piece was given a stronger standing and more mobility. — Source

26

A teenager survived a plane crash still strapped to his seat after being ejected from the plane. TOP CRACKED COM In 1985, a 17-year old named George Lamson Jr. was ejected from Galaxy Airlines Flight 203 upon the crash, and landed up- right in his seat in the mid- dle of a street. Не was the only survivor. — Source

25

Napping after learning leads to a significantly better recall rate one week later. GRAGKED.COM When tested 30 minutes after learning, cramming and napping led to signifi- cantly better memory than taking a break. After a week, napping maintained this significant advantage, but cramming did not. — Source

24

The original author of the Forrest Gump novel wrote a sequel to the book. The Rollicking Sequel to the #1 New York Times Bestseller Forrest Gump GRACKED.COM It was titled Gump and Co, and in it Gump crashes the Exx- on Valdez, helps de- stroy the Berlin Wall, and fights in Opera- tion Desert Storm. — Source

23

It became Jewish law that any woman could divoce her husband if he became a dyer. CRACKED.COM Making a purple pigment used to dye clothes for royal- ty in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome involved harvest- ing the pigment from rotting snails, which smelled so bad that the divorce law was spe- cifically written. — Source

22

A sausage being called a banger comes from WWI food shortages. CRACKED.COM Meat shortages forced sausages to be made with high water content, causing them to burst when being cooked, hence the name. — Source

21

Consumers did not buy tater tots at first because they were too cheap. CRACKED.COM When Tater Tots first hit store shelves in 1956, they were so inexpensive that there was no perceived value. When the price was raised by stores, people began buying the product. — Source

20

The highest density of plastic trash in the world is found on the beaches of an uninhabited island. Henderson Island of the Pitcairn Islands is covered in litter because of the South Pacific Gyre cur- rents. The beaches con- tain 38 million pieces of plastic debris. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

19

Meth was invented in Japan to curb hunger and energize Japanese citizens. Later It was given to Kamikaze pilots, sol- diers, and wartime factory workers. It is now controlled and distributed by the Yakuza. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

18

New Zealand sent a tenth of their population to fight during WWI. From a population of just over a million people, New Zealand raised an army of 100,444. 16,697 New Zea- landers were killed and 41,317 were wounded during the war - a 58% ca- sualty rate. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

17

Rick Moranis was fired from his role in The Breakfast Club. As the janitor, he insisted on playing the part with a big set of gold teeth, a chain with a wad of keys hanging between his legs which he would play with provocatively and a thick Russian accent. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

16

The Aurora Ice Hotel in Alaska was made entirely of ice. Ice walls, ceiling, beds, bar, barstools, even martini glasses were made of ice. It was closed by the fire mar- shall for not having smoke detectors. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

15

Hippos can poop so much that they eliminate all the fish in their water supply. The sheer amount of river horse dookie creates a lay- er of ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, and oth- er chemicals. The bacteria that digests the poop also consumes all the oxygen, choking out the fish. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

14

A Red Lobster president lost her job after creating an endless crab promotion. Red Lobster Edna Morris tried to boost profits with a $22.99 din- ner promotion, but instead lost millions by bungling her calculations on how many times patrons would refill their plates with pric- ey crab. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

13

Nintendo created their own plastic building blocks to compete with LEGO. Released in Japan in the 1960s, the Ninten- do N&B Blocks looked and functioned much like LEGO but with some more variety in block shape. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

12

The Nazis tricked two Red Cross delegates with a fake concentration camp in 1944. + When the Red Cross got sus- picious and demanded to see what's happening inside the camps, the Nazis created a 'model' camp. They planted gardens, repainted buildings, and prisoners were forced to play happy workers. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

11

One co-founder of Uber was found on Twitter. Uber Travis Kalanick tweeted that he wanted an entre- preneurial partner for a venture in 2010, and Ryan Graves replied within a minute. Both were billion- aires just 16 months after this tweet. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

10

Abuse of the smoke signal led to the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty around the 8th century ВСЕ. AND 0$6 King You of Zhou had a habit of fooling his war- lords with false warning beacons in order to amuse his queen. When an actual rebellion occurred, no one came to the aid of the king. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

9

All pilots must learn and speak English, regardless of their country of origin. Pilots must also be able to understand English in- structions via radio, with no facial cues to prompt them. They also must learn to develop as benign an accent as possible. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

8

Musician Eldon Hoke claimed that he knew who killed Kurt Cobain. Eldon claimed he was asked by Courtney Love to whack Cobain for $50,000, and he knows who really went through with it. A week after that interview was filmed, he was hit by a train and killed. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

7

The Pennsylvania Dutch aren't actually Dutch, they are German. PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH MARKET Upon arrival, they were saying Deutsch which is German for German. Ger- many, in their native lan- guage, is Deutschland. English speaking Ameri- cans just assumed they were saying Dutch. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

6

Traveling ambassadors visiting Tsar Peter the Great brought a companion just for drinking. During his reign, it was cus- tomary for foreign dignitar- ies to drink from the Cup of the White Eagle, a chalice containing 1.5 liters of vodka. One ambassador would drink, while the other would discuss state issues. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

5

Christianity is increasingly popular among China's youth. As many as 100 million people, or 7% of the population, have con- verted to the religion. The city of Wenzhou alone has more than 1,100 churches. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

4

People who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen. In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the solution to a problem, and was acknowledged by others, it was now in the brain as a social reality, even if the solution hadn't actually been achieved. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

3

Our printers will snitch on us to the cops. Printers put information in every sheet that will allow authorities to track any printed page back to your printer. This hidden infor- mation survives scans and photos of your printed documents. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

2

1

Only humans, killer whales and pilot whales have menopause. Female killer whales repro- duce between the ages of 12 and 40 years but can survive into their 90s, while female short-finned pilot whales reproduce be- tween the ages of 7 and 35 and live past 60. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

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