Fact Cards

5411. Forty Elephants Gang-In the 20th century there was a female criminal gang called the Forty Elephants. Due to conventional ideas of femininity that women were weaker than men, courts believed it was impossible for women to be orchestrators of crime. Most of the women in the gang were assumed to have played supporting roles and received lesser sentences.

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5412. 16th Century English Lottery-If you bought a lottery ticket in 16th century England it came with the added bonus of getting a 'get out of jail free card.' Every participant was granted immunity from one arrest, as long as the crime wasn't extremely serious, like murder or treason.

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5413. Saif ad-Din Qutuz-Saif ad-Din Qutuz was a child prince from the Khwarezmian Empire who was sold as a slave after the Mongols invaded their land and killed his family. He arrived in Egypt and rose among the ranks until he became Sultan. He then served the Mongols one of their first major defeats, which became a historical turning point for the Mongols.

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5414. Jean-Bédel Bokassa-In 1977, Jean-Bédel Bokassa declared himself as the emperor of Central Africa. He then orchestrated an opulent coronation ceremony, which was almost an exact copy of Napoleon's coronation. The ceremony cost nearly $20 million ($90 million today) and almost bankrupted the country. He was overthrown less than 2 years later.

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5415. Lal Bahadur Shastri-The second Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died in mysterious circumstances in 1966. No autopsy was ever performed, the Indian Government released no information about his death, and the media was kept silent. His death is considered to be one of India's biggest unsolved mysteries.

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5416. Charles Darwin's Tree of Life-Charles Darwin's Tree of Life sketch was anonymously returned to Cambridge University Library in a pink gift bag - two decades after being stolen.

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5417. Erasmus Darwin's Speaking Machine-Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) built a speaking machine out of bellows. It had leather lips that could generate sounds similar to 'ma' and 'pa.' He made it in a failed bid to win a bet with Matthew Boulton that he could build a machine that could speak the lord’s prayer.

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5418. Sebastianism-Sebastianism was a cult that believes Portuguese King Sebastião I was never killed in battle and will return when Portugal needs him the most. The last Sebastianists are found on a Brazilian island where the locals say he's been reincarnated as a bull.

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5419. Locker Loops-The little loops on the back of men's dress shirts have an official name and use. They're called 'locker loops' and were earlier tailored on sailors' shirts so that they could hang their shirts anywhere on hooks on their ship. Universities later followed this trend to keep their button-down uniforms wrinkle-free.

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5420. Andrea Bocelli-Although born vision impaired, singer Andrea Bocelli was officially made completely blind by a soccer ball at the age of 12 while playing goalie. Doctors even,

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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!

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  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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