The Best Interesting Random Facts
President John Quincy Adams, president from 1825 to 1829, got caught nude. He was an early riser. He was often up at 4 AM while it was still dark outside. He did this so he would have the time to write in his personal diary. However, on the mornings when it was very warm, the […]
It’s hard to tell from the evidence if Albert Einstein was absent minded, many of the stories told about Einstein could be fabrications to perpetuate that stereotype. What we know is that he was a daydreamer as a schoolboy, so much so that his headmaster informed young Albert’s father, “It doesn’t matter what field he […]
The city of New York Uses The Most Water. Sound like a lot of water, doesn’t it? In the 1980s, 10 million people used 500 million gallons of water a day. That works out to 50 gallons for every person. That is less than the average for the rest of the U.S.A. Throughout our country, […]
The Indians of the Southwest and Mexico live in a hot, dry region. It is the kind of land where few plants can grow. Corn won’t grow there, but these original Americans had “popcorn.” They had no rubber trees, but by chewing the ends of a short plant until the sap came out and then […]
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 […]
She was the wife of George III, king of England during the American Revolution. Queen Charlotte was so fond of sniffing the powdered tobacco called snuff, that “Snuffy Charlotte” became her nickname. Colombus discovered natives of the New World smoking tobacco during his first voyage, but it wasn’t until 1532, forty years later, that the […]
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. […]
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 […]
In 1911, nobody had ever flown across America in an airplane. A motorcycle driver named Calbraith P. Rodgers decided to try to make the trip even though he had had only 70 hours training as a pilot. His airplane was owned by the manufacturer of a popular soft drink and was called the Vin Fizz. […]
President Grant did when he visited Central City, Colorado. It was 1873, and Central City was in the middle of a gold and silver mining boom. Throughout Colorado and elsewhere, the town was known as the “richest square mile on earth.” That claim may or may not have been true, but for awhile the town […]
No, but those who wanted William Henry Harrison to become president did. During the campaign of 1840, Harrison’s friends made a large paper ball and rolled it all the way from Kentucky to Baltimore, Maryland, where the convention was to be held. They carried a sign that read, “Keep the Ball Rolling.” All this might […]
Fred Astaire’s shoe size was a pretty average, 10 1/2. His height, however, sometimes caused problems. He looks tall on screen because he was very thin and angular. In reality, however, he was quite short, 5′ 8″, and sometimes needed his dancing partners to take off their high heels for dialogue scenes. Ginger Rogers, at […]
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 […]
It doesn’t get very cold in the winter in the Indian city of Calcutta. Even had they heard of ice in 1833, most of the city’s people had never seen it. So, when Frederick Tudor’s ship arrived in Calcutta harbor with a shipment of ice from the ponds of New England, it caused a great […]
When this great Sioux warrior died, he was secretly buried, and only his parents knew the location of his grave. They kept the secret, and it died with them. Chief Crazy Horse was the greatest of the Oglala Sioux and after he and Sitting Bull defeated General Custer, the U. S. Army decided that Crazy […]
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 […]
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 […]
Three of America’s Founding Fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe, died on the Fourth of July. Of the three, James Monroe was the only one who fought in the American Revolution. He fought in many battles and was wounded twice, once at the Battle of Harlem Heights and once at the Battle of […]
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 many parts of the world, man is losing his battle against the desert. Iran is one place where he is winning. Iran’s desert is twice the size of the state of Vermont. Parts of it are being sprayed with oil. The oil dries to a gray crust that works like a mulch, protecting the […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Queen of England has the tiny stove, and she has a working refrigerator six inches high, a one inch-high kitchen scale that actually weighs things, a five-inch vacuum cleaner that sucks up dust, and a golden, carved piano eight inches from front to back on which every black and white key plays its own […]
The present queen of England was born on April 21, 1926, but her official birthday is in June. In fact, whether England has a king or a queen in charge, and no matter what month they are really born, their official birthday is always celebrated in June. The reason is to give everybody a good […]
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 […]
There is no proof that such a thing is possible, but there have been people who seemed to be able to foresee the future. One such person was David Goodman Croly, a successful journalist who lived between 1829 and 1889. One of the things he foresaw long before it happened was World War I. He […]
He was sure his enemies would try to kill him if they knew where he would spend the night. To keep them guessing, he moved from palace to palace, never spending more than one night at a time in any one. They were always kept stocked with food, and each had servants ready to provide […]
There are a lot of crazy automobile drivers in this world, but it is the Japanese who take the cake. They have more accidents than anybody else, based on the size of their population. Not many people get killed in these accidents. Not many people even get injured. They just keep bumping into one another, […]
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 […]
Long before Grover Cleveland became president, he was a sheriff in Erie County, New York. As a law officer, one of his duties was to be in charge of hangings. While he was a sheriff, he had to hang two criminals. Cleveland was always a very busy man. In the course of three and a […]
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 […]
Many people believe that Harry Houdini was the greatest escape artist of all time. And perhaps he was. He performed escapes all over the world while tied, chained, and weighted. He managed to escape from nearly every type of container. Many of his most exciting performances were escapes made while he was imprisoned underwater. Houdini […]
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 […]
The book “The Catcher in the Rye” was written by J. D. Salinger and published in 1951. The novel has become a classic with over 64 million copies sold to date. Even today, 250 thousand copies are sold each year and it has been translated into all major languages. Walk into any decent bookstore, and […]
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 […]
What this great American president hated was his nickname, Abe. He even disliked the nickname “Honest Abe.” Lincoln was honest, but he wasn’t above trickery. While serving as a state lawmaker, he had a very cunning trick. If he didn’t think his side was going to win a vote and knew that if he wasn’t […]
