Fact Cards

7851. Cholera Belts Outlived Cholera Science-Starting in the 1700s, travelers commonly wore fabric belts to keep their abdomens warm because they believed a cold stomach caused disease. People later called them “cholera belts,” and the idea spread through armies and travelers as a supposed defense against cholera. The habit persisted even after scientists identified cholera’s bacterial cause in the 1850s. It still showed up in World War I, long after the real risk came from contaminated water, not cold air.

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7852. Habsburgs Lost Their Swiss Castle-The House of Habsburg began in what is now Switzerland, not Austria, with its power centered around Habsburg Castle. As the dynasty expanded across Europe, it gradually lost control of its original Swiss lands. In 1415, the Swiss Confederacy conquered Habsburg Castle, severing the family from its birthplace. The Habsburgs kept rising elsewhere, but Switzerland took their original home off the map.

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7853. Mary Lynch Became Book Leather-Philadelphia’s first confirmed case of trichinosis appeared in an Irish immigrant woman named Mary Lynch. After she died, the doctor who performed her autopsy kept her skin and used it to bind at least three books, a practice known as anthropodermic bibliopegy.

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7854. Double-Barreled Questions Set Traps-A double-barreled question forces you to give a single answer to multiple premises at once. If you say

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7855. Human Chromosome 2 Was Fused-Great apes such as chimpanzees have 24 pairs of chromosomes, but humans have 23 pairs. Scientists link that difference to an ancient fusion event where two ape chromosomes joined into one, creating what humans now carry as chromosome 2. It left humans with one fewer chromosome pair than our closest relatives.

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7856. Gansu Ultramarathon Turned Deadly-On May 22, 2021, runners entered the 100 km Gansu ultramarathon in the Yellow River Stone Forest near Baiyin, China, expecting tough terrain, not a survival event. Mid-race, a sudden blast of hail, freezing rain, and strong winds crashed temperatures and visibility, leaving athletes exposed on high ground. Runners began collapsing from hypothermia, and rescuers scrambled to reach people scattered across the course. By the end, 21 runners, including elite competitors, had died.

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7857. Eric Carle Got Drafted Twice-American children’s author Eric Carle was born in New York City, but his family moved back to Germany before World War II. During the war, the German army drafted his father, and Carle, still a teenager, was conscripted to dig trenches. After the war he returned to the United States, only to face another draft, this time into the U.S. Army. The military then stationed him in Germany, sending him back to the same country he had just escaped.

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7858. Gus Grissom Offered “Titanic”-After NASA astronaut Gus Grissom barely survived the splashdown of Liberty Bell 7 in 1961, he decided his next capsule needed a joke. For his Gemini mission, he named the spacecraft “Molly Brown,” a nod to the Broadway show

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7859. Yogi Bear Ejected at Mach-On March 21, 1962, the U.S. Air Force strapped a two-year-old black bear named Yogi into a B-58 Hustler escape capsule to test the bomber’s ejection system at extreme speed. The crew fired the capsule out at about 35,000 feet while the aircraft flew at roughly 870 mph, putting the bear through a supersonic bailout. Yogi survived and landed, proving the capsule could bring a living occupant down safely. Doctors later euthanized the bear so they could examine his internal organs for signs of damage.

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7860. Daniel Sickles Won “Temporary Insanity”-In 1859, U.S. Congressman Daniel Sickles shot and killed Philip Barton Key II, his wife's lover, outside the White House in broad daylight. Authorities held Sickles in custody, but he still kept his personal gun, and the jailor even gave him keys to his apartment so he could host a stream of VIP visitors. Sickles then took his case to court and argued that the betrayal had shattered his mind. A jury acquitted him using the defense of

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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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