Fact Cards

3731. First Nuclear Reactor Shutdown-In 1942, a man standing nearby holding an axe tied a control rod to a rope, creating the first Scram button on a nuclear reactor. Cutting the rope would cause the rod to fall into the reactor core by gravity, thereby shutting down the reactor.

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3732. Elizabeth Báthory's Grisly Legend-According to legend, Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian noblewoman who lived in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, killed more than 600 young girls in order to drink their blood and bathe in it in the belief that it would prolong her youth. She was arrested in 1610, and though never tried, she was confined to a room in her castle until her death in 1614.

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3733. Lise Meitner’s Overlooked Nominations-Lise Meitner, the co-discoverer of nuclear fission, was nominated 48 times for the Nobel Prize in both physics and chemistry but never won.

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3734. Whales Mistaken for Submarines-During the Falklands War in 1982, the British mistakenly killed three whales, believing them to be enemy submarines.

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3735. Winnie the Pooh Testifies Silently-In April 1980, a family accused Robert Hill, a Disneyland actor portraying Winnie the Pooh, of striking their child in 1974, resulting in bruising and headaches. Hill testified in costume, only able to communicate through gestures like head nods and tummy swings, in accordance with Disney's strict rules for character actors.

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3736. Drapetomania: A Racist Fabrication-Drapetomania was a falsely proposed mental illness based on the belief that slavery improved the lives of slaves so much that only those suffering from mental illness would want to escape.

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3737. PlayStation Hack Exposes Millions-The 2011 PlayStation Network outage, in which hackers stole the personal information of 77 million users, partly occurred because Sony had removed Linux support from the PlayStation 3.

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3738. Quantum Computers Require Extreme Cold-Heat causes errors in qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, so quantum systems are typically kept in refrigerators that maintain temperatures just above absolute zero (-459 degrees Fahrenheit).

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3739. Sailors Drinking Torpedo Alcohol-During World War II, U.S. Navy sailors drank

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3740. Danger of Manchineel Tree Toxins-Never stand under a Manchineel tree when it's raining because its toxins are water-soluble. Even standing near it can expose you to airborne toxins. Every part of the Manchineel tree, also known as the

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37 COMMENTS

  1. 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.

    1094
  2. 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…

    1096
  3. 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.

    11
    • 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.

      10
  4. 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.

    18
  5. 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?

    5
    • 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.

      6
  6. 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!

    1224
    • 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).

      7
  7. 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.

    1182
  8. 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.

    1270
  9. 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!

    5
  10. 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

    1115
  11. Your fact card is WRONG! You state Queen Elizabeth II is related to George Washington (which is correct), however, then you all say “Their last living common ancestor is Augustine Warner, Sr. who died in XX.”

    That’s incorrect! i am related to both Col. Augustine Warner, Sr. and George Washington and I’m very much alive as are my family members and 1 uncle and his 2 sons.

    1

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