The Best Interesting Random Facts
Reading is a very human activity. The act of reading is so complicated that even the most advanced computer can’t do it as well as you can. When you read, you take shortcuts, play hunches, figure things out in advance, and you make all these calculations almost instantly. You see letters in groups and the […]
Every joint in your body is slicker than a skate on ice. As a matter of fact, your body is so well lubricated at its joints that they have only one-third the friction of a sharp skate slicing its way over a hard-frozen pond. The human body is truly amazing. Did you know that a […]
Ludwig Van Beethoven, one of the greatest composers of all time, believed that having cold water poured over his head helped him to dream up beautiful music. Many people called “creative geniuses” have had strange ideas of what helps them create. The famous writer Charles Dickens said his bed always had to face the North […]
Mel Blanc was very allergic to carrots. He says he tried apples and celery and all sorts of alternatives to get the sound just right, but nothing worked as well as carrots did. So he chewed carrots when he needed to, spitting them out and watching for signs of anaphylactic shock.
After fifteen years of spectacular robberies, the Wild West’s most notorious outlaw, Jesse James, was shot in the back by two members of his gang. They were out to collect a $10,000 reward for his capture, “dead or alive.” The strange thing was that when they brought his body in, they were arrested for murder […]
His name was Robert Todd Lincoln. He was the oldest son of Abraham Lincoln, and he thought he was a jinx. He had the terrible bad luck to be present at the assassinations of three US presidents. Young Lincoln was away at college during most of the years his father was president. He returned to […]
Men with four-inch fingernails? During the late 1800s and even during the early 1900s, it was the custom among the ruling classes and the very wealthy of China for men to allow one fingernail to grow to a length of four or five inches. Because such a fingernail could not possibly remain on the hand […]
Petalesharo was the son of a Skidi Pawnee Chief whose tribe had captured a young and beautiful Comanche girl in the year 1817. For an entire year she was treated like a royal princess, unaware that she was soon to die as part of a human sacrifice ritual. At the appointed time, she was given […]
Queen Elizabeth I got in a lot of trouble when she first ate with a fork. The leaders of the Church of England said that she had insulted God when she didn’t use her fingers to eat meat. Of course, all of this happened back in the 1600’s, right after the fork was invented. Before […]
SmokeJumpers jump just where you’d guess they might, into smoke. The name smoke jumper is given to a very special group of 350 forest firefighters. These man are trained to parachute from low-flying planes into parts of the forest that are hard to reach. Their job is to try to stop a forest fire before […]
Because the great pitcher Charles Albert Bender, better known as “Chief Bender,” was a Chippewa Indian, and the fans thought that making the “war whoops” would upset him and make him lose his pitching control. It didn’t. Bender would just call these fans “foreigners” and keep right on pitching his magical brand of baseball. Bender […]
Two of the most famous sharpshooters of all time were Annie Oakley and Daniel Boone. Annie toured with Bufffalo Bill’s Wild West show for 17 years during the late 1800’s. She was such a crack shot that the emperor of Germany performed in her act when the show came to his country. He would put […]
In the mid 1920s, Clarence Birdseye went on a hunting trip to Labrador, Canada. It was winter, the weather was bitter cold, and Birdseye was fascinated by what he saw and tasted. He saw Eskimos catch fish and hang them outside in the sub-zero temperatures to freeze them solid. Birdseye found that when this fish […]
His name was Big Nose George Parrott, and he was one of the Old West’s meanest outlaws. He would just as soon murder you’ as shake your hand. When Big Nose Parrott held up a stagecoach, passengers and driver were lucky to come out alive. Big Nose’s luck finally ran out one day in Rawlins, […]
Delivering fresh milk was a problem in the days before refrigeration. In small towns and cities around the world, a farmer often delivered milk to his customers in the freshest way he knew. He brought the cow with him. The customer bought what he or she needed. The cow delivered the milk right into the […]
The most famous case is that of Sgt. Roger Reynolds of the U. S. Army’s crack parachute team, the Golden Knights. On April 24,1974, he fell 2,000 feet when both of his parachutes failed to open during an army exhibition at Charlottesville, Virginia. He hit the ground at 85 miles an hour, broke many bones, […]
President Theodore Roosevelt and his family had the most pets. Many were kept at the White House, but most lived at the “Summer White House” in Long Island, New York. If you made a trip to the summer place, you might see a lion, hyena, wildcat, coyote, five bears, an eagle, an owl, a zebra, […]
In the nation of Malaysia. The people of Malaysia have always been fascinated by tops, and not long ago they decided to celebrate with the “Festival of the Tops.” All sorts of top contests are played. In one, there is a fighter top, and it has to knock over all the others. The winner is […]
You’d be pretty rich, right? After all, Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, and he became very rich. Unlike Mickey, Superman did not make his creators rich. As a matter of fact, in 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who created the Red-Caped Crusader, sold all their rights to the cartoon character to Detective Comics for […]
One of our most famous presidents was a smuggler. He was never caught, but he only smuggled once. In 1784, congress asked Thomas Jefferson to travel to Europe to make treaties of friendship and to see if the European nations were interested in buying such American products as tobacco, whale oil, and furs. The European […]
The Continental army, the American forces of the Revolutionary War, had its share of great athletes. George Washington was himself a fine wrestler and took on all corners. He was also a champion broad jumper. The title of “strongest” probably belongs to Peter Francisco, who at age 16, stood six feet six inches and weighed […]
Mathew Brady was a photographer, and he became famous because he was the first American to shoot and document a war. Brady’s 3,500 photographs taken during the Civil War provided the very first such record of any American war. The pictures he took brought the real meaning of the fighting to the families at home. […]
R. H. Macy & Co. at 34th St. and Seventh Ave. in New York City was the world’s largest Department store in 2008. It is more commonly known to the American public as Macy’s. This giant department store didn’t appear overnight. It started as a tiny “hole in the wall” store on New York’s 14th […]
Alfred Hitchcock had several nicknames. His folks called him Fred. His schoolmates and friends called him kooky. He referred to himself as Hitch. Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 and he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller film genres. Hitchcock directed over fifty feature films in a career […]
For 2,000 years, people made bottles by blowing air into a glob of molten glass through a long, thin pipe. The hot glass expanded the same way a balloon does. It was slow, difficult work. Then, in 1903, a glassblower from West Virginia named Michael J. Owens invented a machine that could do the same […]
If birds and flowers can have inner clocks that tell them when to fly south or when to bloom, why can’t humans? Why can’t all animals? Scientists at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts are certain that they have found this special clock in the human brain. It tells us when to sleep and when to […]
Men can hit baseballs harder than women can. They can pick up heavier objects and run faster than women. But are men stronger than women? Their muscles are stronger, that’s all. Women are much stronger than men when it comes to pushing away disease and staying healthy. They are stronger when it comes to living […]
The Macaroni Club was formed in England around 1770 by a group of wealthy young Londoners. It started as a joke. The members wanted to make fun of the stuck-up clubs that their elders all belonged to. The group of young men had just come back from a trip to Italy, so they called their […]
Throughout most of the world during the 1600s, most men wore hats all the time. They would wear them inside their own home, at meals, in bed, outside, and on any important occasion. There is no exact record of the date when it began to be thought impolite to do some of these things. Ever […]
Humpback Whales are indeed social animals among humans. They are easily approachable, curious, and display many behaviors such as breaching the water. This makes the animal ideal for whale watching. The humpback whales that come to the ocean waters off the Hawaiian Islands swim alongside people and have never been known to harm anyone. They […]
It happened in 1914, during the early days of movies. Movie makers wanted real-life pictures for a war movie. They knew that Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary leader was about to go to war against the dictator of Mexico. The movie company signed a contract with Villa. Villa agreed to fight his war the way […]
John II was king of France during one of the nation’s wars with England. He was captured by the English in 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers. Since he was a king, the English didn’t want to keep him in jail, they wanted to exchange him for money. They released him when he promised he […]
Amelia Earhart was one of America’s greatest airplane pilots. In 1937, when she and her navigator, Frederick J. Noonan, were attempting to fly 27,000 miles around the world, their plane suddenly disappeared without a trace. A radio message was received that said the gas supply was running low, but they didn’t sound worried. The last […]
Shortly before he became king of France in 1830, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, spent some time traveling in the United States. He and his two younger brothers stopped one night at an inn in Winchester, Virginia. The innkeeper, Mr. Bush, was delighted to have such an important guests, and he gave them the best […]
They didn’t carry guns or, at least, they weren’t supposed to. But 9-year-olds served in the army during the American Revolution. They were drummer boys. Often, the sounds of their drums were used to send signals from one part of an army to another. More often, the drummer boys beat out the rhythm of a […]
Fire walkers can, and few people know how they do it. These amazing people, who live in Hawaii, India, and on certain islands of the South Pacific, actually walk on fire. A big trench is dug in the ground and is filled with fire. Eventually, it burns down to a bed of glowing, red-hot coals. […]
