Fact Cards

7131. Kenya Monkey Causes Nationwide Blackout-In June 2016, a monkey climbed onto the roof of the Gitaru hydroelectric power station in Kenya and fell onto a high-voltage transformer. The fall caused the transformer to trip and triggered a cascade that shut down the entire national grid. Most of Kenya lost power for around four hours while engineers worked to restore electricity across the country. Despite causing a nationwide blackout, the monkey survived the incident and was handed over to wildlife officials.

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7132. Anna Wintour Scares Fashion Cameos-During the mid-2000s production of the film The Devil Wears Prada, producers invited real fashion industry designers and executives to appear as themselves in cameo roles. Many of them declined because they feared upsetting Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who many believed inspired Meryl Streep’s character, Miranda Priestly. As a result, the movie relied more on fictionalized portrayals than real-life fashion power players.

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7133. HIV Origins In Belgian Congo-In 2014, researchers analyzing old samples and records traced the main HIV pandemic back to King Leopold’s former Belgian Congo, centering on what is now Kinshasa in the early 20th century. Genetic evidence suggests the virus jumped from chimpanzees to humans as early as 1909, probably through the handling or butchering of bushmeat. Scientists believe the first person to be infected likely acquired the virus in the 1920s. From there, HIV spread silently for decades until doctors recognized AIDS in the late 20th century.

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7134. Storage Wars Safe Holds Millions-In 2018, a man who bought a storage unit for $500 from auctioneer Dan Dotson of Storage Wars opened a safe inside and found $7.5 million in cash. After the sale, the original owners quickly contacted the buyer through an attorney. They first offered $600,000 to get the money back, but negotiations ended with a deal in which the buyer returned the cash for a $1.2 million reward.

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7135. Daniel Schorr Reads Nixon Enemies-In the 1970s, American journalist Daniel Schorr covered the unfolding scandals around President Richard Nixon. During a live television broadcast, Schorr began reading Nixon’s infamous political enemies list aloud to viewers. As he worked his way down the names, he suddenly discovered that his own name appeared on the list. He kept reading despite the shock.

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7136. Fahrenheit Sets Zero With Salt-In the early 18th century, physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit developed the mercury thermometer and needed fixed points to build his temperature scale. In his laboratory, he dissolved salt in water. He then marked 0°F at that salt–water minimum, anchoring the lower end of the Fahrenheit scale to a simple mixture he could maintain in his lab instead of a natural freezing point.

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7137. Kangaroo Rat Lives Without Water-The kangaroo rat, found in the deserts of North America, can survive its entire life without consuming liquid water. Instead, it gets almost all of its moisture from the seeds it eats and from metabolic water produced as it breaks down food. Its kidneys concentrate urine extremely well, and it loses very little water through breathing or waste.

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7138. Maze Heart Surgery Cures Fibrillation-The maze procedure is a type of heart surgery for patients with atrial fibrillation where surgeons create a precise pattern of scars in the upper chambers of the heart. These scars form a kind of electrical maze that blocks the abnormal signals while allowing normal impulses to travel through and control the heartbeat. By trapping and redirecting the faulty rhythms, the surgery helps restore a regular heart rhythm. The procedure cures atrial fibrillation in about 80% to 90% of patients.

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7139. George Wilsons Riotous London Walk-In 1815, English race walker George Wilson attempted to walk 1,000 miles around London in just 20 days. After newspapers covered his feat, huge crowds began to follow him, including circus performers, prostitutes, rowdy troublemakers, and alcohol sellers who turned the route into a chaotic spectacle. The disorder grew so disruptive that authorities stepped in. One mile into his 16th day of walking, Wilson was arrested for disturbing the peace, cutting his ambitious challenge short.

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7140. Life Of Brian Banned Internationally-In 1979, Monty Python released Life of Brian, a religious satire film that immediately stirred controversy over its treatment of faith and biblical themes. In the United Kingdom, 11 local councils banned the film, while Norway and Ireland imposed nationwide bans. The backlash turned into a marketing opportunity in neighboring Sweden, where distributors promoted it with the tagline,

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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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