Fact Cards

7821. Herzog Heard Treadwell’s Tape-After grizzly bears killed Timothy Treadwell in 2003, investigators recovered an audio tape that reportedly captured the attack, but it has never been released publicly. The secrecy did not stop people from circulating fake “death tapes” online, even though the real recording stayed locked away. Filmmaker Werner Herzog listened to the tape while making Grizzly Man and then told Treadwell’s friend Jewel Palovak to destroy it instead of letting it spread. The recording still remains unreleased.

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7822. William Perkin Made Purple Cheap-Before 1856, purple dye stayed rare and expensive, so only the wealthy could afford it. In 1856, an 18-year-old English chemist named William Henry Perkin tried to synthesize quinine as a malaria treatment, but he instead produced a vivid purple residue from coal tar. Perkin realized he had created the first major synthetic dye, patented it that same year, and started manufacturing it as “mauve.” This breakthrough made purple suddenly affordable and turned the color into a mass-market fashion craze.

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7823. Lenin Wanted Stalin Replaced-In 1923, as his health collapsed, Vladimir Lenin began clashing with Joseph Stalin, who had become general secretary of the Communist Party. Lenin argued that Stalin acted too crude and treated comrades in ways he considered unacceptable for such a powerful post. In his notes from that period, Lenin pushed for a plan to remove Stalin and replace him with someone “more tolerant, more polite, and more attentive towards comrades and less capricious.” Lenin’s warning did not carry, and Stalin kept the position that later let him consolidate control.

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7824. John Liotine’s Ignored Jackscrew-In 1997, an Alaska Airlines maintenance worker named John Liotine recommended replacing an aging jackscrew on an MD-83 airplane during routine maintenance, but the company overruled him. The same aircraft kept flying until January 31, 2000, when it operated as Alaska Airlines Flight 261. During the flight over the Pacific Ocean, the jackscrew failed, and the aircraft crashed. Investigators later tied the disaster to the failed jackscrew assembly.

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7825. William Colenso Found Tamil Bell-In the 1830s, a British missionary named William Colenso visited a Māori village in New Zealand and noticed women boiling potatoes in a heavy

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7826. Canada Made 👍 a Contract-In 2023, a court in Saskatchewan, Canada, ruled that a simple thumbs-up emoji could count as acceptance of a contract in the right context. In South West Terminal Ltd v Achter Land and Cattle Ltd, the parties had an established business habit of confirming deals by text, and one side replied with 👍 after receiving the contract photo and a prompt to confirm.

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7827. Vince McMahon Banned “Wrestling”-When WWE chairman Vince McMahon ran the company, he pushed strict language rules on its TV product. He banned the word

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7828. Mahmood Iskandar Killed His Caddie-In 1987, Malaysia’s king, Mahmood Iskandar, was playing golf at a club when a caddie laughed after he missed a putt. Iskandar proceeded to beat the man to death with a golf club. The story did not blow up at the time because the news was suppressed and Malaysia’s royals still had legal immunity then.

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7829. Doug Ingle’s 17-Minute Soundcheck-During a studio soundcheck, the rock band Iron Butterfly recorded

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7830. Margrethe II Left Zero Queens-Many monarchies now allow women to inherit the throne, but the list of reigning queens regnant has hit an unusual zero as of April 2026. After Queen Margrethe II of Denmark abdicated on January 14, 2024, there are no ruling queens at this point. This is the first time this has happened in over 200 years.

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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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