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40 Random Bits of Trivia We Spotted Scurrying Through A Field From 3,000 Feet in the Air

We spotted these scrumptious little brain snacks from a mile away

40 Random Bits of Trivia We Spotted Scurrying Through A Field From 3,000 Feet in the Air

December 16, 2024

It’s a sad reality, but nature can be pretty unforgiving — especially for facts that are lower on the brainfood chain. Entire books of knowledge might be too big for our jaws to handle, but tasty little facts are all over our menu. And hey, enough little brain snacks can add up to an entire meal.

We don’t know about you, but we’re salivating for these right now. Let’s get our fill!

40

The Pony Express

CRACKED.COM THE PONY EXPRESS WAS VERY SHORT-LIVED. Despite the huge role it plays PONY EXPRESS in the lore of the Old West, the Pony Express operated for only a year and a half, from DOLLAR, March 1860 to October 1861. WELLS/FARCO & CO — Source

39

Airplane! 2

Airplane! 2 predicted the use of full-body A CRIME scanners by airport security TO PO FEDERAL SAFETY PIES BEA As a throwaway gag, pervy airport security watch NSFW full-body scans in the 1982 sequel, hitting a little too close to home in a post-9/11 world. CRACKED.COM — Source

38

Minecraft

MINECRAFT PLAYERS ARE HELPING PRESERVE A DYING LANGUAGE. Elfdalian is a rare language with about 3,000 speakers in Sweden. To help keep it alive, a gr — From 6 Delightfully Wholesome Ways To Play Famous Video Games.

37

Lord Byron

Lord Byron drank wine from a skull. Byron's gardener unearthed an old, intact skull, which the British poet and proto-Goth had converted into a goblet. Then he founded the Order of the Skull, which was mostly about drinking claret from the thing with his friends while cracking dark jokes. — More: Lord Byron Had A Special Cup (Made From A Monk's Skull)

36

Soundgarden

Soundgarden: Badass ND GRACKED.C GOM In 2010, Chris Cornell meant to promote their revamped fan club, but his tweet, The 12 year break is over & school is back in session, had fans drooling. With no intention of reuniting, the positive fan reaction sparked a tour and their 2012 album King Animal. — The Guardian / Revolver Mag

35

Doom

Doom exists partly thanks to the U.S. Air Force. DOOM If Doom can run on anything today, it's because it was optimized for PCs not really intended for anything more graphics-intensive than a spreadsheet. To achieve this, John Carmack used software techniques developed by the USAF in the '60s for flight simulators. CRACKED.COM — Ars Technica

34

Zombies

Zombies act the way they do in Night of the Living Dead because the movie couldn't afford special effects. There was no money for effects showing dead people rising from graves, so the filmmakers came up with the ideas that only recently dead people could become zombies and that humans would turn into zombies by getting bitten. CRACKED.COM — Source

33

SMS Cap Trafalgar

In WWl, the German ship SMS Cap Trafalgar was disguised to look like British ocean liner RMS Carmania in order to raise hell behind enemy lines. But t — Source: War History Online

32

SNL

GEORGE STEINBRENER DAMN YANKEE SNL WHAT DOES A GUY DO WHEN HE'S SUSPENDED FROM MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL? PERFORM AWKWARD COMEDY! A SKETCH WHERE HE PLAYS A THOUGHTFUL, CARING BOSS IS A NICE LAMPOON OF HIS DESERVED A-HOLE REPUTATION. — Pinstripe Alley

31

Meet Cute

KEY& PEELE THE TWO HAD A COMEDY MEET CUTE AT SECOND CITY IN CHICAGO. Back in 2003, Jordan Peele first saw Keegan-Michael Key's Coach Hines character on stage. Later that night, Key then saw Peele play a female Eurovision presenter. It was love at first laugh. CRACKED.COM — Source: Entertain This! (via archive.org)

30

World War I

Peach Black is a deep blue-black pigment that saved lives During WW, Peach Black was used in gas masks to fight against chlorine gas NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED COM — Source: The Atlantic

29

Chubby Checker

Chubby Checker sued a lewd app called The Chubby Checker. Chubby Checker and Hewlett-Packard settled a lawsuit over a penis-measuring app (called The Chubby Checker), with Hewlett-Packard agreeing not to use the singer's stage name, related trademarks, or likeness on their products. Checker had claimed in 2013 that the app had violated the Communications Decency Act, a claim which was thrown out of federal court. CRACKED.COM — The Guardian

28

Shaving

CRACKED Shaved hair grows back thicker. Shaving doesn't change the color, thickness, or how fast the hair grows. It might feel a bit coarser or stubbly when it starts to grow back, which can make it seem darker or thicker, but it's not actually changing. — Source

27

Speaking Danish

Danish is SO hard, Danish kids learn their mother tongue slower than others. They know 30% fewer words by the time they're 15 months old than Norwegian kids, and learning the past tense takes them almost two years longer. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source: The Conversation

26

Birds

PETTING A BIRD AROUSES THEM. A bird's sexual hormones are stimulated when it gets pet on its back. Some vets advise you to only pet the head and feet of a bird in order to not sexually frustrate it. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Horrific Facts About Adorable Animals

25

In-Sink Garbage Disposals

CRACKED.COM Only the U.S. has widely adopted in-sink garbage disposals. insinkeraborg food waste disposer Because of how much water they use and the burden they put on sewage systems, in-sink garbage disposals are really unpopular outside the U.S. For example, nearly half of U.S. households have in-sink garbage disposals, but only 5% of U.K. ones do. They used to be banned in Japan and Australia, and still are in Austria, Portugal, and the Netherlands. — Source

24

Geico

THE GECKO GEICO CRAGKED COM The Geico Gecko has evolved over the years, both in looks and sound. His original erudite elocution was provided by Frasier's Kelsey Grammer, one of six actors to lend voice to the reptilian mascot. — Behind the Voice Actors

23

Kendall Jenner

Kendall Jenner has a total of 12 cups of detox tea a day, apparently. And her morning routine involves having one cup - presumably spacing the other 11 regularly throughout the day, or something, we guess. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

Claudia Schiffer

CLAUDIA SCHIFFER COLLECTS INSECTS. The German model loves the meticulous task of painting her little crawlers. CRACKED COM

21

Crepuscular Cats

CRACKED.COM Cats are crepuscular Cats are most active during dawn and dusk. Instead of calling this being fans of Twilight, which would be funnier, zoologists picked a harder to remember word. — Source: 14 Cat Facts That Get Our Purr Motor Running

20

The Fourth of July

MYTH The Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th. x FACT Congress approved the declaration on July 4th, but the document wasn't signed until August 2nd. CRACKED — John Trumbull/Wiki Commons
National Archives

19

Warner Bros.

CRACKED.COM WARNER BROS. WAS FOUNDED AS THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE WAS ENDING. The empire existed from the 14th century until the Republic of Turkey was established in October 1923. By then, Warner Bros. had been operating for several months. WARNER BROS. PI — Source

18

The Wizard of Oz

CRACKED.COM 1939's The Wizard of Oz wasn't the first big-deal Hollywood version of that story. The first one came out in 1925, and had a weird plot where all the male characters (including the Scarecrow and Tin Man) wanted to marry Dorothy. — Source: Pop Culture That's Older Than It Seems

17

Catfish

THE WELS CATFISH CAN GROW TO 12 FEET LONG. They have voracious appetites, and have been known to gobble up birds out of the air. CRACKED COM http :/ww

16

Mark Pedley

CRACKED MARK PEDLEY CREATED A FAKE COUNTRY. The Dominion of Melchizedek pretty much only existed to perpetuate massive bank fraud. Even the former president of Portugal's brother was taken in by a loan scam based in the country, which was located in several different areas over the years. — Source

15

Crows

CROWS HOLD GRUDGES AGAINST PEOPLE... AND PASS THEM ON. American crows remember faces of people who hurt them, and get other crows to attack the offenders. CRACKED.COM — Source: 14 Animals That Terrify Us (For Valid Reasons)

14

Return of the Jedi

In order to avoid price-gouging, fans, and journalists, Lucasfilm convinced everybody they were shootinga a CRAON horror film called Blue Harvest... HALVEST BLUE ARVES HORROR BEYOND IMAGINATION when they were really filming Return Of The Jedi. — Source: 18 Lies That Launched Beloved Pop Culture

13

Glow-in-the-Dark Pork

FOOD CONTROVERSIES GLOW-In-THE-DARK PORK In 2011, a person living in Shanghai, China found a piece of pork that was glowing blue in the dark. After some investigation, it was determined that the cause of this was phosphorescent bacteria. CRACKED — from my point of view/Shutterstock,
The Len/Shutterstock
chinaSMACK

12

Napoleon

21 People Who Get Unfairly Left Out Of The History Books - While Napoleon was out declaring war on everything he saw, his minister of foreign relation — For details, read 6 People Who Secretly Ruled The World

11

The Who

The Who drummer Keith Moon wrote A Quick One as a jab at The Beatles. THE WHO A Quick One Nun Somehow, he thought the Beatles talked behind his back about him using their own secret language, and he got back at them with A Quick One. CRACKED.COM — Source: TheWho.net

10

The Hollywood Sign

THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN ORIGINALLY READ HOLLYWOODLAND AND WAS LIT UP WITH 4000 LIGHTBULBS. HOLLYWOODLAND Its original purpose was to advertise for a segr

9

Basilosaurus

BASILOSAURUS Dead for 34 million years. 70', 132,000 LBS CRACKED.COM Although it looked as much like a sea monster that ate ships whole as any fantasy ocean dragon, the King Lizard was actually a whale. During its time, Basilosaurus was the top predator in the ocean, eating sharks and other whales with its large, serrated teeth. — Source: Scientific American

8

Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith

Don Johnson & Melanie Griffith 8 YEARS The Miami Vice actor was 22 when he met 14-year-old Griffith on the set of the movie The Harrad Experiment, starring her mom and Johnson. They moved in together when she was 15 years old. They got married when she was 18. They had one child, Dakota Johnson of 50 Shades of Grey fame. CRACKED.COM

7

Tennis

Conservationists recycle Wimbledon tennis balls as predator-proof shelters for Harvest Mice. CRACKED COM An adult mouse weighs as little as 4 grams. The mice normally weave their homes out of shred- ded grass and reeds, at- tached to stems well above the ground. — Source

6

Ice T

Characters that weren't supposed to last Odafin Fin Tutuola on Law & Order: SVU Ice T was only brought in as a replacement for four episodes, but tested so well that he became a series regular for over 20 years. CRACKED.COM — NBC
Ranker

5

Robert Wadlow

CRACKED THE TALLEST PERSON IN RECORDED HISTORY WAS OVER 8 FEET TALL. Robert Wadlow was born in Alton, Illinois, in 1918, and grew to a height of 8 feet 11.1 inches before his death at age 22. — Source

4

Pretty Woman

The original ending of Pretty Woman was much darker. CRACKED COM Originally titled 3,000, the movie ended with Julia Rob- erts' character being tossed out of a limo into a dirty alley and thrown $3,000 in cash. The screenplay changed when Disney took over pro- duction. — Source

3

Ron Howard

Ron Howard did Happy Days to avoid going to Vietnam. In the early '70s, Howard was no longer interested in being an actor - but he was even less interested in being sent to war. So he took the part of Richie Cunningham, after learning that he'd get a draft deferment if his job was related to the employment of many people. — More: 4 Bizarre Origins Of Famous Movies And TV Shows

2

Dumb and Dumber

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

1

The Golden Girls

She was supposed to play Blanche on The Golden Girls. Betty was up for the role of Blanche, and her co-star Rue McClanahan was going to play Rose, before the director realized the two actresses had already embodied those characters in previous shows. The roles were reversed and McClanahan took on the oversexed Blanche while Betty went against type to be the innocent, but dim, Rose. CRACKED.COM — Source: The List

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