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40 Random Bits of Trivia to Nibble Upon While You’re Procrastinating a More Important Task

Deadline shmeadline. Let these facts consume you!

40 Random Bits of Trivia to Nibble Upon While You’re Procrastinating a More Important Task

November 06, 2024

If this is your little break between (or during) some pretty mind-numbing tasks, then we better make it great, huh? After all, you’re here! You could’ve procrastinated with anything else, but you’ve chosen to be here for the facts. Us on the other hand, we’re just trying to bang this out so we can procrastinate for like an hour before writing our next little blurb.

But hey, a short-and-sweet blurb gets you to the facts quicker, so it’s kind of a win-win. We’ll make the next blurb exhilarating, we promise!

40

Chess

Chess makes you violent! CRACKED COM That was one 19th-century objection. Others said it hurt children by offering no physical exercise-and what mental exercise it offered was wasted on something wholly unproductive. — Scientific American

39

Brazil

There is a never-ending wave in Brazil called a pororoca. This of course attracts surf competitors from all over the world. The lon- gest record for surfing a single wave is 37 minutes and was for a distance of 7.7 miles. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

38

A Lack of Sleep

You might be tired and not notice it. I sleep five hours a night and I'm OK, you might say. But research has shown that sleeping only six hours a — More: Weird Ways Sleep BS Royally Messes Up Our Programs

37

Jim Carrey

That was Jim Carrey's real chipped tooth in Dumb and Dumber. 27% It got chipped in grade school, and he had a cap put on it t - - he just took it off for the movie. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

36

Bars

If you want to get ahead, it just makes sense that you should avoid hanging out in bars. But a study by the Journal of Labor Research found that regular drinkers make 10% to 14% more money than those who don't drink. The study also concluded that men who visit a bar at least once a month earn an additional 7% more than those who don't. CRACKED.COM — Source

35

The Shining

Stephen King absolutely loathes Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining. In the book, there's an actual arc where you see this guy, Jack Torrance, trying to be good, and little by little he moves over to this place where he's crazy. And as far as I was concerned, when I saw the movie, Jack was crazy from the first scene. I had to keep my mouth shut at the time, said King. CRACKED. GOM — Source: 13 Writers Who Hate Movie Adaptations Of Their Work

34

Parasite

BEHIND- THE-SCENESFACTS CRACKED.COM THERE WOULD BE NO PARASITE WITHOUT SONG KANG-HO. coln Film at Lincoln Center ter Film Lin Ce PARASITE Bong Joon-ho says that Song was the only option to play Kim and that he would've abandoned the project entirely if the actor didn't like the script for the movie. — Source: 15 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Bong Joon-ho Films

33

The Big Bang Theory

the BANG BiG THEORY GRAGKED.COM According to Reddit, Penny is a CIA agent. Leonard used to date a North Korean spy who was after the DARPA jet fuel he was working on. Penny is an agent sent in to monitor his activities, so he won't leak government secrets again. This is why she can sustain her spacious apartment with a waitress' salary. We also never got to know her last name, because she is using a codename all along. — Source: 21 Pretty Legit Fan Theories

32

World War II

A German Panzer unit surrendered to a single US Army Captain during WWII. CRACKED.COM US Army Captain Moffatt Burriss, along with just two others, came across a Pan- zer Corps of 15,000 men. Burriss went straight to the unit's leader and informed him that they were there to accept his surrender. — Source

31

9/11

On 9/11, Walt Disney World employees escorted guests out as a human wall. At all 4 WDW parks, once the rides were shut down, employees held hands and walked out, basically forcing the guests to walk out of the park too. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Random Facts to Stack On Your Brainshelves

30

Pigs

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

29

Chipotle

Chipotle rolls out a new robot chip maker named Chippy. CHIPOTLE GRACKED COM The company is learning from workers and guests before deciding whether it should move ahead with a national rollout - also, whether or not Chippy becomes sentient and begins cooking people. — CNBC / Wikipedia

28

The Civil War

The U.S. was still paying a Civil War pension in 2016. Irene Triplett in 2016 The sum was $73.13 per month, paid to one Irene Triplett (b. 1929), the daughter of a soldier who fought on both sides of the Civil War. When she was born, her father Mose was a spry 83. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

Richard Kiel

Richard Kiel, who played Jaws in Bond movies, spent 25 years researching and co-writing a book. The True Story of GassiusGlay: KENTUCKY ION RICHARD WALLACE The True Story of Cassius Clay: Kentucky Lion tells the story of Cassius Clay, a Kentucky abolitionist who lost his friends, his wife, and his — Source: Reuters

26

Cold Hard Cash

Some Australian and British notes are so thin and rigid, people figured out they could actually produce sound from vinyl records. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

25

Dirty Harry

CRACKED Do punk? feel lucky, - DIRTY HARRY Clint Eastwood's line in the movie is actually, You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk? — Warner Bros.
Movieclips/YouTube

24

Metropolis

Amazing effects made without CGI Metropolis How do you have a real throng walking through a huge futuristic city in 1927? Easy - you film the people through a narrow slit, with the rest of the shot taken up by a mirror reflecting a painting of the city. BAVISSAN Mirror Real people CRACKED.COM — Source: Melanie76Mo/YouTube

23

Audi

15 Of The Most Shameful Cases Of False Reporting From The Media - A bunch of drivers were pressing the Audi 5000’s gas instead of the brake, causing c — Source: Wall Street Journal

22

The Wizard of Oz

CRACKED.COM DOROTHY'S SLIPPERS WERE RESCUED IN AN FBI STING. The iconic shoes from The Wizard of Oz were stolen in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids. The FBI managed to recover the slippers 12 years later, after a year-long investigation that involved agents going undercover. — Source

21

Beauty and the Beast

The original 'Beauty and the Beast' was meant to help girls accept arranged marriages. CRACKED.COM It was written in 1740 to encourage girls into forced marriages, for an alliance that required ef- facing their own desires and submitting to the will of a monster. — Source

20

Body Cameras

Complaints dropped by 88% after Rialto, California police were required to wear body cameras. POLICE SPATROLMAN CRACKED.COM Use of force also dropped by 60%. The chief of police said, When you put a camera on a police officer, they tend to behave a little better, follow the rules a little better... — The Guardian

19

The Wayans Brothers

THE WAYANS BROTHERS CRACKED.COM A former assistant pitched a you know you're a gold digger... joke book to the Wayans boys. The brothers rejected the pitch before publishing 101 Ways to Know You're A Gold Digger on their own. A lawsuit was settled out of court. — Source

18

Phil Collins

PHIL COLLIINS COLLECTS ALAMO ARTIFACTS Collins must have taken Remember the Alamo! to heart, as he might own the largest collection of Alamo artifacts in the world. CRACKED.COM — Texas Monthly

17

Tuesday the 13th

TUESDAY THE 13TH In Greece, Tuesday the 13th is the real date to fear. TUESDAY 13 It marks the day that saw the fall of Constantinople. The number 13 also has negative connotations both in mythology (it follows the perfect number 12) and in religion (the 13th chapter in Revelation is about the coming of the Antichrist), and Tuesday in Greek is Triti that comes from tritos meaning third - bad things come in threes. CRACKED.COM — Greek Reporter

16

SpongeBob SquarePants

COMEDY NERD SpongeBob Squarepants wasn't always SpongeBob - he was SpongeBoy. But they had to change the name for the dumbest reason ever: a mop company had already copyrighted it. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

McDonald’s

Mashed Potato Beef Burger MCDONALD'S 100% Manly Man CRACKED.COM For a while, McDonald's China was on a big masculinity kick. Lots of their commercials highlighted the manliness of meat eaters - none moreso than this burger that dared to include a layer of potato salad. — Source

14

The First Horror Movie Ever

18 Horror Movies That Did It First - The first moving picture of the horror genre is said to be The Execution of Mary Stuart (1895).
It’s only 18 seco — Source: The History of Horror

13

The Real Alien Poison

John Hurt and Veronica Cartwright thought they were being poisoned when their Alien spacesuits malfunctioned. While filming the exterior shots of the planetoid, the tubes on their suits broke, causing an aerosol leak into their helmets. CRACKED.COM — Source: 16 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About 'Alien'

12

Little Richard

Little Richard became a preacher after seeing a sign in the sky. VS On a 1957 Australian tour, he saw a fireball in the sky (which was the satellite Sputnik 1) and interpreted as God telling him he should change his ways. Не became a preacher a year later, and went back to making regular music after four years of preaching. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Bali

CRACKED BALI OPY Tourists keep going viral for the worst reasons. Locals in Bali got angry after two tourists went viral on community news sites in separate events. In the first event, a tourist is seen spraying graffiti on a wall along Jalan Goad Gong in Uluwatu. The second event shows a different tourist urinating off the side of his moped while stopped at a traffic light. — The Bali Sun

10

Patrick Stewart

40 Random Bits of Trivia to Nibble Upon While You’re Procrastinating a More Important Task — EW

9

Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford's luck, like that of his characters, never seems to run out. He has survived 3 plane crashes, gotten crushed by the door of the Millenni

8

Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers got their name from a packing company sponsorship. a 12 INFLI L CRACKED.COM Thanks to just $500 in sponsorship from the Indi- an Packing Company in 1919, the Packers came to be. The future NFL team's co-founder, Earl Lambeau, worked for the packing company at the time. — Source

7

Hot Mics

Commentating at the 2016 Olympics, CBC commentator Byron MacDonald described a 14-year-old Chinese relay swimmer to a colleague, unaware he was being broadcast, in the bafflingly offensive manner she went out like stink and died like a pig. CRACKED — Source

6

World War I

In WWI, a random Russian got kidnapped by his own country's peace negotiators. 6281 The team negotiating Russia's withdrawal from WWI planed to bring a peasant (to represent the common people), but on the way to the train, they realized they forgot him. So they snatched a badly dressed guy off the street, and next thing he knew, he was talking to European princes. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Bed Bugs

REGINE GRIES LET THE BED BUGS BITE. To develop a chemical bed bug trap, Gries offered up her own arm to 200,000 of the critters. She'd previously done the same in mosquito research, so this woman might just have a weird fetish. CRACKED — Dmitrii Erekhinskii/Shutterstock
Wired

4

The Nobel Prize

CRACKED THE FIRST PERSON TO WIN TWO NOBEL PRIZES WAS A WOMAN. Marie Curie, born in Poland in 1867, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for her work on radioactivity, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for her discovery of two new elements, polonium and radium. — Source

3

Easter Eggs

Easter eggs come from egg surpluses. Christians abstained from eggs during Lent in medieval times. By the time the fast ended on Easter, villages wound up with egg surpluses that were only natural to use on a day of celebration. CRACKED.COM — 21 Holiday Traditions With Shockingly Bizarre Origins

2

Batman Begins

CRACKED.COM Humongous Movie sets Batman Begins They kept Gotham City in airport hangars that you could walk through. The massive sets were kept there until needed. — Source: GQ Magazine

1

Cabin in the Woods

Meta Movies R The Cabin in the Woods The marketing was deliberately misleading. Marketing campaigns for quirky, unusual movies often drop the ball, but that wasn't the case here. Trailers sold the movie as straightforward horror, so moviegoers went in totally unspoiled. CRACKED.COM — Source

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