The Best Interesting Random Facts
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
The man who sells more big diamonds than any other dealer in the world is forbidden to have a picture taken of his face. His name is Harry Winston, and because the police and insurance companies are afraid he will be kidnapped or robbed, what he looks like remains a mystery. In a picture, his […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
President Reagan liked to take a few weeks off to spend time at his ranch in California, but he worked at being president even while he is there. President Eisenhower loved to play golf and could be found on the golf course two or three times a week. But the man who liked to escape […]
They were a gang of Old West bank robbers and stagecoach hold-up men. They stashed fresh horses, provisions, and ammunition at hiding places along a trail that led from where they were going to pull a hold-up to where they wanted to hide out. This method was similar to the one used by the Pony […]
Such a man was Kuda Bux. Bux was a Pakistani who made his living displaying his amazing talent to paying viewers. Doctors all over the world examined and tested him, and none could ever call his remarkable ability a trick. Through the heaviest bandages, he could read books and newspapers. The bandages were often applied […]
Did a king ever give his Toenails as gifts? Yes. One king did, and he did it more than once. King Victor Emmanuel II was the first man to rule over a united Italy and was probably also the first to give away his toenails as presents. Every year while he was king, he allowed […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
To make them look old, of course. Sounds silly, but it is true. If a cowboy wore a new hat, he might be taken for a “tenderfoot,” a newcomer. Even if an old-time Westerner wore a new hat, he was teased about it. The men of the Old West wanted their hats to look old […]
A stewardess, Vesna Vulovic, flying for a Yugoslav airline, fell from a height of over 31,000 feet and lived to fly again and again. On January 26, 1972, the DC-9 on which she was working blew up at 33,330 feet while flying over Czechoslovakia. When she was found, she was strapped to an airline seat […]
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 […]
Do you hear a lot of griping and complaining around you? Are your friends always saying this is wrong, that is terrible, and that other thing ought to be changed? Well, if you hear a lot of that here in the US, you ought to hear what’s going on in Italy and Japan. More people […]
Dwight David Eisenhower, the thirty-fourth president of the United States, played semi-pro baseball for a short time between graduating from high school and attending West Point. Known by his nickname, “Ike,” he was born in Denison, Texas, but two years later his family moved to Abilene, Kansas. His family was too poor for him to […]
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 […]
Some of us are short or tall and it all has to do with the climate in which hundreds of generations of their people have spent their lives. People who have lived in the cold climate of the Arctic need to save every bit of heat their bodies can produce. The more skin they have, […]
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, […]
According to a recent Gallup poll, the kids who hate school the most come from that most polite of all nations, Japan. Why do Japanese children dislike school? Psychologists reason that it is because great pressure it put on Japanese children to get high marks in school. It is said that unless you have very […]
It was President Lyndon B. Johnson. He served marvelous steaks, baked potatoes, corn pudding, and pecan pie. President Johnson was a very good and fast walker. Because he didn’t like to waste time, he often called press conferences at the last minute and had the reporters ask questions while he was taking one of his […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Except for his boots, an Eskimo’s complete winter outfit weighed only 10 pounds, yet he was able to stay warm in the very coldest weather. How? He knew the secret of using air as insulation. His cold-weather clothes consisted of two suits of trousers and shirts worn over each other, a hooded parka, and a […]
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 […]
