Fact Cards

1271. Isla Fisher-Isla Fisher almost drowned during the filming of the piranha tank scene in the movie “Now You See Me.” She had to give the impression of being in distress but when Isla's chains became entangled for real, she began to genuinely panic and everyone thought it was just very good acting.

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1272. Robin Williams Hagrid-Robin Williams wanted to play Hagrid in the Harry Potter films but was turned down because J.K. Rowling and director Chris Columbus wanted only British and Irish actors to act in the films.

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1273. Salon Kitty-In 1930, the Nazis took over a high-end Berlin brothel named Salon Kitty which was commonly used by prominent Germans and foreign dignitaries. They then replaced all the prostitutes with spies and continued business until a British air raid demolished the building in 1942.

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1274. Bob Ebeling Challenger-Bob Ebeling, The Challenger Engineer who warned of the Challenger Disaster, died in 2016 at the age of 89, blaming himself his whole life for the death of Challenger astronauts.

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1275. Richie Ashburn-Philadelphia outfielder Richie Ashburn once fouled off 14 pitches in a row. One foul bowl struck a woman, breaking her nose. While being carried off the field, she was struck by another foul ball hit by Richie during the same at-bat.

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1276. Howard Florey Penicillin-Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin but was unsuccessful at making an antibiotic out of it. After he gave up Howard Florey was able to refine an antibiotic with an incredibly inefficient method. He had to make barrels of the stuff just to treat one patient. His lab bought moldy fruit from fruit stands to find a fungus that was efficient in producing penicillin, and a lab worker brought in a sample mold that she found on a cantaloupe, which was 200× more effective at creating penicillin. That cantaloupe ended up saving millions of people.

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1277. Carl Linnaeus-The remains of Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, are considered a standard specimen for Homo Sapiens. If any human evolves to such a point where they can no longer be described as being the same species as Carl’s remains, they will no longer be considered as Homo Sapiens. They will be considered a new species.

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1278. Lilian Lepere-Lilian Lepere, the survivor of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris sued French media after they gave away his location, on live TV, during the shooting.

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1279. Bamboo Flowering-Some species of bamboo flower only once in decades, and do so simultaneously across the entire planet, regardless of location or climate. This happens every 40-80 years and it is seen as a curse in East Asia because it is immediately followed by a rat infestation and the spread of famine.

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1280. Vince Coleman Halifax Explosion-Vince Coleman, a railway dispatcher, sacrificed his life in order to warn an incoming train of the imminent Halifax explosion. His telegraph said “Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys.” The Halifax explosion was the largest man-made explosion before the development of nuclear weapons, releasing the equivalent energy of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT. He saved 300 lives.

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36 COMMENTS

  2. Would you mind if I started to post these facts on iFunny? I really think people would love them and I would of course credit and link your website.

    796

  4. Your page (re)numbering makes it almost impossible to find something on your site. The search option doesn’t seem very helpful.. I tried to search for Harris Rosen or Fact #62 after seeing it on Bored Panda, but had to do a brute force search to find this page…

    838

  6. I just went through all the facts pages. A few things I’ve noticed:
    1. #451-#470 (pgs 46 & 47) have images that are broken.
    2. #841-#1140 (pgs 85-114) are complete duplicates of earlier pages.

    9

    • Thank you for your valuable feedback. Last night we implemented a new page numbering system for our fact cards. I really messed up with facts #451-#470 which I have fixed now. I have fixed the other problem too.

      8

  7. Just stumbled onto your site via an Imgur post. Cool stuff.

    Re. one of the citations above: “The oldest D20 dice was uncovered in Egypt…”

    One “die,” many “dice.” The headline in the source given had it right; “Ancient d20 die emerges from the ashes of time.”

    Credibility is always enhanced by proper grammar.

    16

  10. I really enjoy your site. I visit it regularly at this period of my life to use up time, while entertaining myself, and increase my awareness of life through the amazing insights into stories behind what we often overlook. It is almost therapeutic I would think! For one thing, I feel grateful not to be one of the warped personalities you often report on, but on the other hand, I feel sorry for the suffering that is really behind so many people you note through our shared history, who have the apparency of many successes, but are in fact imperfect and suffering souls like all of us, on the road to something better we hope eh?

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    • History gives us an opportunity to look into the mistake our ancestors made, but also the feats they achieved. The lives they suffered, so that the future generations could have the freedom. I am happy to have been part of such an important part of your life, Stuart.

      3

  13. I’m sure it’s like asking a magician how his tricks are done, but I would love to know the workings of the research you have to go through to find/verify everything I’ve read on your site. To say they are entertaining would be an insult. I read several pages daily. I have found them to be fascinating, educational, informative, and downright important.

    When I was a child and went on long road trips with my parents, my Mom would would bring a box of Trivial Pursuit cards to read and ask questions to pass the time for everyone in the car…My Wife now reads these to our kids on our vacations.

    Do you take fact submissions, or do you rely on your own people to research and present them to your team/site? The only thing I can say about your site, is some click ads could be modified or even done away with. Political opinion polls, etc…I would sooner see and ad for shaving cream that some of those useless and probably biased ads (not you, just the people conducting them) But, I love what you do and am so glad that your site exists!

    989

    • Thank you Ryan. It’s the readers like you who keep us going. It gives us immense pleasure to know that you love reading facts on our site. We do take submissions. About 10% of our facts come from submissions. You too can submit facts by filling out this form Contact Us. The ads are what keeps the servers running. We don’t take any donations, use patreon or sell merch on our site so ads are how we generate income. Though, we will take your advice to tone down the ads (we can’t really see what kind of ad our readers see as it’s decided by Google).

      2

  17. 1454: She wasn’t found “shortly” after, which might imply that 911 had tried to help and just didn’t arrive in time; she was found HOURS after.

    920

  19. Each of these pages of facts should have its own page for commenting instead of many fact pages and only one place to comment. I’d also delete my post about each fact having its own page since the aforementioned idea is better, but I can’t.

    1008

  23. I love this website I use it all the time and it allows me to attain info that I have been able to use irl all the time. Keep up the great work!

    4

  24. Also Rickinator for 610 killing bears is not a good thing due to most species of bears being endangered it is just a fact/statistic

    841

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