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42 Random Bits of Trivia to Snack on Before Your Mental Main Course

The amuse bouches of the knowledge feast

42 Random Bits of Trivia to Snack on Before Your Mental Main Course

December 03, 2024

When it comes to food, we’d tell you not to fill up on snacks before dinner. But this isn’t food, now is it? These little mental snacks are just too good to pass up. Like, what if the main course isn’t as knowledgeable as these snacks? Aunt Carol’s deviled eggs are a lot tastier than her bone-dry roast, so that might very well be the case here.

We’re laying them out now, so get your fill!

42

Cicadas

Some cicadas are so loud, they can almost cause physical pain to humans. Large cicada species have a call that's rated at over 120 decibels at a short distance, which is pretty close to how loud a sound has to be to cause pain in the ear. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — HowStuffWorks

41

Shirley Temple

SHIRLEY TEMPLE became a UN ambassador CRACKED.COM The world's most famous child actor gave up stardom to help the planet, and visited Czechoslovakia and Ghana frequently for The United Nations. — Source: Smithsonian Magazine

40

Cigarette Ads

Secondhand smoke is 100% not sexy. But Tipalet tried to convince people that it totally is. This 1969 print ad shows a man blowing cigarette smoke int

39

Subway

Subway has the most locations of any fast food chain. SUBWAY REGATER OPEN SUB DAT With 43,800 stores in 110 countries, it beats out McDonald's and Starbucks. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

38

Reno 911

CRACKED SHERI THE CITY OF RENO IS RENO 911'S BIGGEST FAN. They even petitioned that the show be brought back after it was canceled by Comedy Central. — Source

37

Al Franken

AI Franken was touring as a comic with the USO when he posed for an ill- advised funny picture with conservative talk show host Leeann Tweeden. While others also accused Franken of inappropriate behavior, the prank pic was the smoking gun that led to his Senate resignation. CRACKED.COM — New Yorker

36

The Baseball Hall of Fame

Homer Simpson got inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame a few years ago. 178 It was thanks to the 1992 episode Homer at the Bat, in which he played for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team. CRACKED.COM — Source: MLB

35

Morrissey

Morrissey won an award for how awful he is at writing sex. You know Morrissey for his music, and if you're lucky, you don't know him as a writer. His 2015 novel List of the Lost won the Literary Review's Bad Sex Award, for its hypothetically sexy run-on sentences. The book contains baffling word assortments like, the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement. CRACKED.COM — Source

34

Fish

CRACKED FISH COUGH. And burp. And yawn. — Sciencedirect / Pet Keen

33

Jurassic Park

Steven Spielberg earned college credit for Jurassic Park. RASSIK CRACKED COM' When Spielberg re-enrolled at California State, Long Beach to earn his BA more than 30 years after dropping out, he was given three course credits in paleontology for making Jurassic Park. — Source

32

Beer and the Pilgrims

A BEER SHORTAGE DECEMBER 1620 CRACKED After three months at sea, the Mayflower ran out of beer, So the Pilgrims went ashore at Plymouth. Had they sail — Source: Boston Herald

31

Hospitals

Hospitals share patient records through fax. Even when records are digitized, hospital computer systems aren't really made to communicate with one another. So pages are constantly printed out, faxed, and then scanned on arrival- a solution that frustrates everyone. 55554 EXPIRES 000 HEW STOP 8 MUTE FAX CRACKED.COM START — Source: 15 Old Technologies Still In Use Well Past Their Expiration Date

30

Dutch Cyclist Maarten de Jonge

Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jonge narrowly avoided two separate airplane disasters. malaysia CRACKED.COM Не was scheduled to fly on Malaysia Air flights MH17 (which was shot down over Ukraine) and MH370 (which disappeared). Both times, he changed his plans and booked a differ- ent flight — Telegraph / Wikipedia

29

The Last Jedi

The Last Jedi featured the remote island of Skellig Michael. After the film came out, tourism on the protected Irish island soared. And by soared, we mean thousands more visited every year than UNESCO said the island can safely sustain. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Famous Movie Locations With Killer Back Stories

28

Cow Butts

Fake butt-eyes protect cows from predators. In Botswana, lions often kill cattle, which leads to farmers killing the lions. To protect both cats and cows, conservationists had the idea of painting eyes on the cattle's rumps, taking inspiration from the eye-like designs on butterflies and other animals that keep predators at bay. — More: 5 Crazy Creative Simple Solutions To Global Problems

27

Keira Knightley

Keira Knightley's name is an accidental misspelling. Keira was meant to be named Kira, after the Russian ice skater, Kira Ivanova, but her mother misspelled the name when she went to register her. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Source

26

Princess Diana

Princess Diana's revenge dress was sold for $65,000 Diana put the stunning dress she wore after Prince Charles admitted adultery up for auction, with the money going up towards cancer and AIDS-related charities. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

Diamond Hailstones

Hailstones in Jupiter and saturn are diamonds. Thunderstorms turn atmospheric methane into pure carbon soot. As the soot falls and the pressure increa — Source: BBC

24

Stockbrokers

Want to invest some money? You'll probably want to pay a stockbroker to make smart investment decisions for you. 10-00 Except that 70% to 85% of fund

23

The Warriors

THE WARRIORS Warriors! Come out to play! The director alley-ooped the line to David Patrick Kelly on the spot, and Kelly delivered it like a weirdo

22

Ice Cube

Ice Cube geeks out over architecture. ICE CUBE CELEBRATES THE EAMES ART - 2045-2080 He's a Getty Museum expert on the subject. Before returning to Compton to revolutionize rap, Ice studied architectural drafting. So for their 2011 post-war exhibition, The Getty made him their resident expert on Hollywood architectural design legends Charles and Ray Eames. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

Danish Words

42 Random Bits of Trivia to Snack on Before Your Mental Main Course — Source: Fluent in 3 Months

20

The Human Brain

MYTH: A PeRSOn IS eITHeR LeFT- OR RIGHT-BRAINED. FACT: YOUR BRAIN ISN'T DIVIDED UP THAT WAY. The myth that right-brained people are creative and artistic and left-brained people are logical and mathematical is so pervasive that teachers are instructed to balance the brained-ness of their teachings. The brain does indeed have some specialized structures, but the idea that they cluster on opposite sides of the brain like rival gangs is ridiculous. CRACKED.COM http://www.livescience.com/655-lefty-myths-mysteries-persist.html — Source

19

Rio Grande

CRACKED A UFO OR A GHOST IN RIO GRANDE. In the 1950 movie, a strange light moves erratically behind John Wayne's head. Some fans say UFO (if it was shot on location), and some say ghost (if it was shot on a soundstage), because either way, no one can explain what moves like that. — Source

18

Slash

Guns'n'Roses guitarist Slash kept, basically, a gigantic ZOO at his home. Не had a pet mountain lion (named Curtis), numerous cats, lizards, and venomous snakes. I installed a full-on reptile zoo over there, he wrote. CRACKED.COM — Source: 15 Celebrities Who Keep Truly Weird Pets

17

Mark Cuban

WEIRD WORLD Mark Cuban bought a whole town in Texas and doesn't know what to do with it. I don't know what if anything I will do with it were the exact words of the billionaire about, well, buying an entire town. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Blondie

Blondie was a common catcall to Debbie Harry. You can thank uncreative, creepy truckers for this band name. CRACKED.COM

15

The Wolf of Wall Street

42 Random Bits of Trivia to Snack on Before Your Mental Main Course — Source: 16 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The Wolf of Wall Street

14

Squid Game

The 'Squid Game' doll was a real ornament used by a museum. The doll is named Young-Hee after a char- acter in Korean text- books. It is also a real or- nament used by a car- riage museum and was only borrowed for filming the series. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Elle Decor

13

Superman

On 1978's Superman, the producers refused to tell the director the budget. Whenever he wanted to do something, they'd just say You can't do this or You're going over budget, and that was all. CRACKED.COM — Source: 5 Iconic Movies With Idiotic Behind-The-Scenes Beefs

12

Owls

Screech owls bring live Texas blind snakes into their nests. The small snakes eat insect larvae that would otherwise be parasites on newly-hatched owl — Source: Audubon

11

Wasabi

You've probably never had wasabi. Most wasabi served outside of Japan is actually horseradish. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED COM — Source: Spiceography

10

Copepods

This critter is your friend (and you swallow it every day). Copepods are microscopic shrimp found in municipal water sources. They attack and eat mosquito larvae, so they actually help make your drinking water cleaner. CRACKED.COM — Tiny Horrors You (Thankfully) Can't See, That Are Everywhere

9

Museum Vrolik

Museum Vrolik, in the University of Amsterdam, displays anatomically abnormal human and animal specimens. Its collection of birth defects is of particular scientific value. GRACKED.COM — 23 Bone-Chillingly Creepy Real Places You Can Visit

8

Cop-Turned-Stripper

A cop retired at 51 to become a stripper. CRACKED.COM Michelle Walton used her knowledge of police procedure in a raunchy burlesque routine. I just love my body, she says, and love getting my kit off after 30 years of restrictions on what I could and couldn't do. — NY Post / Wikipedia

7

Los Angeles

Los Angeles was the first major city, ever, to synchronize its traffic lights. Nearly all of its 4,400 traffic lights (that cover 469 square miles) are synchronized through an automated, centralized control system. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Alaska

CRACKED.COM MYTH: State with the most serial killers? Must be Florida, or California. REALITY: It's Alaska. Proportional to its population, Alaska wins this one with around 15.65 serial killings per one million inhabitants. It's followed by Nevada, then Florida. Criminologists speculate that it might be due to the cover of darkness during those long Alaskan winter nights. The isolation of the state's remote locations might also play a part. — Source

5

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five was inspired by his time serving in WWII. CRACKED.COM After being captured by Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, he was a POW in Dresden and sur- vived the bombing of the city by hiding in a meat locker in a slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. — Source

4

Spam

In 1864, the first spam message was sent through the telegraph. ro MARCONY THEORAPO 45.Type AMERICA NEW WITH CRACKED.COM The messages were simple, asking wealthy Americans to part with their hard-earned money with dubious investment offers that promised massive returns on large investments. — Source

3

Jared Fogle

Superman and Jared Fogle had the most cringeworthy crossover. RASSHH By FATIN 4BIYO SANDWCES ACTIVE DC Comics teamed up in with Subway in 2011 to publ — More: 8 Ad Campaigns That Aged Like Garbage

2

Metallica

Metallica's only Top 10 charting single was off Load. CRACKED.COM The '90s transition from thrash metal to hard rock didn't delight all of their fans, but Until It Sleeps, with its Soundgarden-like quality, was Metallica's first and (as of yet) only song to hit the top ten of the US Billboard charts. — Ultimate Classic Rock

1

The Great Depression

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, a barrel of oil cost only 65 cents. CRACKED.COM Massive oil discover- ies in Texas, along- side falling global demand for energy, sent oil prices tum- bling downwards. — Source

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