Fact Cards

8021. Libraries Scrapped Punishing Late Fees-Many public libraries eliminated late fees after finding that fines discouraged people from returning at all. Instead of pushing overdue books back through penalties, the fees often kept patrons away, especially people who could least afford them.

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8022. Octopus Reproduction Triggers Death Spiral-All octopuses are programmed to die after reproducing, as hormones from the optic gland trigger a rapid physical decline. Males usually deteriorate within days or weeks after mating, while females stop eating and spend their final stretch guarding their eggs. Even in ideal conditions, no octopus lives longer than about 5 years, making reproduction the beginning of the end for the entire animal.

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8023. Hebrew Returned As Spoken Language-Hebrew is the only successful large-scale revival of a language that had largely fallen out of everyday use. Between the 2nd and 4th centuries, other languages gradually replaced it as a spoken daily language among Jewish communities. In the late 19th century, revivalists began bringing Hebrew back into regular speech, and it eventually became the modern spoken language of Israel.

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8024. Madoff Fund Recovered Victim Losses-The Bernie Madoff victim compensation fund recovered almost 94% of victims' proven losses, a rare outcome after one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history. In December 2024, the U.S. Justice Department announced the fund's 10th and final distribution, sending more than $131 million to victims around the world. In total, the Madoff Victim Fund paid over $4.3 billion to 40,930 victims in 127 countries, bringing their recovery to 93.71% of fraud losses.

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8025. Family Feud’s Secret Phone Surveys-The

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8026. Scurvy Cases Hit Autistic People-In 2020, the overall incidence of scurvy in the US reached about 1 in 4,000 people, and about two-thirds of all scurvy cases were found in autistic people. The condition develops when people do not get enough vitamin C, and children and young people with autism can face higher risk when they eat only a limited range of foods, such as rice or pasta. For some, that restricted diet overlaps with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, or ARFID.

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8027. Tim Horton’s Fatal Impaired Crash-Canadian hockey player and Tim Hortons co-founder Tim Horton died in 1974 after driving at high speed while impaired by alcohol and drugs. He crashed his sports car on the Queen Elizabeth Way in St. Catharines, Ontario, after a police pursuit. Tests later found his blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit, and authorities also found evidence of drugs in his system.

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8028. Wasaburo Oishi’s Esperanto Jet Streams-Japanese meteorologist Wasaburo Oishi became the first person to discover jet streams in the atmosphere during the 1920s. He tracked strong high-altitude winds over Japan, but his work gained little recognition outside his home country. Oishi published his findings in Esperanto, a constructed international language, which meant most of the scientific world missed one of the most important weather discoveries of the century.

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8029. NYC Mesh Built Free Internet-Since 2014, activists have slowly expanded NYC Mesh, a decentralized network of routers that lets residents of New York City access the internet for free. The group built the network as a community-run alternative to traditional internet service providers, using connected nodes placed across homes, rooftops, and buildings.

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8030. Caligula’s Little Boot Nickname-Roman emperor Caligula’s real name was Gaius, but he picked up his famous nickname as a small child. When he was about 2 or 3 years old, he accompanied his father Germanicus on a military campaign while wearing a miniature uniform made by his mother, Agrippina the Elder. The outfit included tiny army boots, so the soldiers nicknamed him

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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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