Fact Cards

37 Comments
7791. Smithson Funded America Afar-James Smithson, the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution, never visited the United States and had no known personal tie to the country. When he died in 1829, the British scientist left his fortune to his nephew, with the condition that if the nephew died without heirs, the money would go to the United States to found an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.

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7792. Eschatian First Contact Theory-The Eschatian Hypothesis argues that humanity’s first confirmed detection of intelligent extraterrestrial life will probably not come from a typical alien civilization. Instead, astronomer David Kipping suggests we are most likely to detect a civilization producing an unusually strong technosignature because it is in a transitory, unstable, or even terminal phase. The idea follows a broader pattern in astronomy, where first detections often come from rare, extreme, and unusually “loud” examples rather than normal ones. In that view, humanity’s first alien signal may come not from a thriving civilization, but from one close to the end of its existence.

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7793. Buda and Pest United-In 1873, the cities of Buda and Pest were merged to form Budapest, the capital of Hungary. The unification also included Óbuda and Margaret Island, after a law passed in 1872 set the process in motion.

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7794. Sophia Urista’s Onstage Scandal-In November 2021, Sophia Urista, the lead singer of Brass Against, pulled a man from the crowd onto the stage during a show in Daytona Beach, Florida, and urinated on him with his consent. Brass Against later apologized on social media, saying Urista got

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7795. Eumastas Lifted Volcanic Boulder-An ancient Greek named Eumastas was credited with lifting a black volcanic boulder weighing more than 920 pounds off the ground. The claim survives because the stone itself bears the inscription,

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7796. Michael Fortier Traded Testimony-Michael Fortier, a key accomplice in the Oklahoma City bombing, knew about the plot in advance and helped Timothy McVeigh scout the Murrah Federal Building, while his wife Lori helped laminate the fake driver’s license used to rent the Ryder truck. Fortier agreed to testify for the government against McVeigh and Terry Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence and immunity for Lori. He received a 12-year prison sentence in 1998 but was released in January 2006 after serving less than eight years and was placed in the Witness Protection Program.

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7797. Bill Benter Beat Horse Racing-After American gambler Bill Benter read an academic paper arguing that a racehorse’s success could be broken into measurable variables and modeled with probability, he decided to test the idea himself. He taught himself advanced statistics, learned how to code betting software, and spent months feeding past race data into his system before heading to Hong Kong in 1985. After early losses and a split with his partner Alan Woods, Benter kept refining the model until it used about 120 variables and started producing huge profits. Guinness World Records says his career winnings and net worth are estimated at nearly $1 billion, making him widely regarded as the most successful horse-racing gambler ever.

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7798. San Marino Inside Italy-Vatican City is not the only landlocked sovereign state surrounded by Italy. The other is San Marino, a separate independent republic enclosed within Italian territory. San Marino also claims a much older distinction, because it is widely regarded as the oldest surviving sovereign constitutional republic in the world.

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7799. Spillings Hoard Filming Discovery-In 1999, archaeologists on the Swedish island of Gotland were filming a television segment about looting at archaeological sites when they made an unexpected discovery of their own. During the work, they uncovered the Spillings Hoard, which turned out to be the largest Viking silver hoard ever found. The treasure included thousands of silver coins, jewelry, and other valuables buried on a farm in Spillings.

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7800. Bobby Bonilla Day Lives-Every July 1, baseball fans celebrate the unofficial holiday known as Bobby Bonilla Day. That is when the New York Mets send former player Bobby Bonilla a check for $1,193,248.20, part of a deferred-payment deal that runs every year from 2011 through 2035. The arrangement came after the Mets agreed in 2000 to buy out the remaining $5.9 million on his contract and stretch the payments with 8% interest.

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37 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.

    1094

  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…

    1096

  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.

    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

  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.

    18

  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.

      6

  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!

    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).

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  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.

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  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.

    1270

  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!

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  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

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  26. 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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