Fact Cards

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8151. Hurricane King’s Dry Ice Turn-In October 1947, an Air Force B-17 flew into Hurricane King about 415 miles east of Jacksonville and dumped crushed dry ice into the storm just to see what would happen. The Project Cirrus team seeded the outer clouds because the hurricane had moved away from land and seemed unlikely to hit anyone. The next day, scientists found the storm nearly 100 miles west of its predicted position after it made a 135-degree left turn, strengthened, and later struck Savannah, Georgia. The storm killed one person, caused $2 million in damage, and sparked public outrage and threats of lawsuits before Weather Bureau researchers showed that hurricanes could make similar turns without dry ice.

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8152. Macaulay Culkin’s Real Bee Swarm-For the bee sting death scene in My Girl (1991), production used thousands of real bees on American actor Macaulay Culkin, who was only 10 at the time. A bee handler coated his fingertips with a substance that smelled like a queen bee, which drew the insects toward his hands and face while the cameras rolled. Culkin said he had to wave his hands near his face for the shot, then wash them in hot water and run into the woods after filming stopped.

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8153. Frederic Tudor’s Tropical Ice Empire-In 1806, American merchant Frederic Tudor, later known as Boston’s “Ice King,” began shipping New England ice to warmer markets, even as newspapers mocked the idea of selling frozen water to the tropics. Tudor packed ice with sawdust, wood shavings, or rice chaff to slow melting, then built ice houses in tropical ports to create demand for cold drinks. His most profitable market came in 1833, when the brig Tuscany carried 180 tons of ice from Boston to Calcutta and still delivered 100 tons after the long voyage. Over the next 20 years, Calcutta became his most lucrative destination and brought him an estimated $220,000 in profits.

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8154. Focker Surname Saved Movie Rating-For Meet the Fockers (2004), the MPAA nearly pushed the comedy toward an R rating because the surname “Focker” sounded too close to an expletive. Ben Stiller later said the filmmakers had to find a real person with the last name Focker to prove that the title used an actual surname, not just dirty wordplay.

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8155. Anne Hathaway’s Painful Stage Role-In 2015, actress Anne Hathaway suffered a miscarriage during the six-week run of her solo off-Broadway play Grounded. She played a fighter pilot whose pregnancy ended her career in the sky, and the role required her to simulate giving birth on stage every night. Hathaway said the loss overwhelmed her so much that she told friends the truth when they visited her backstage. She later had two sons with her husband, Adam Shulman.

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8156. Marvin Pipkin’s Impossible Bulb Task-In 1919, General Electric gave new recruit and young chemist Marvin Pipkin the “impossible” task of making a light bulb with a frosted inner surface. Managers had used the problem as an induction ritual for new researchers because earlier attempts made the glass too brittle to handle. Pipkin did not know the task had already defeated others, and while experimenting with acids and cleaning solution, he accidentally found a way to frost the bulb without making it shatter.

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8157. America’s Cheap Whiskey Drinking Peak-By 1830, alcohol use in America had likely reached its peak, with the average American over 15 drinking nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year. Midwestern corn farmers often converted grain into whiskey because distilling helped preserve crops that could otherwise spoil before reaching market. A gallon of whiskey cost about 25 cents, so many Americans averaged the equivalent of four shots a day at a cost of less than a penny per drink.

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8158. Pope Clement’s Costly Political Hesitation-Pope Clement VII, born Giulio de’ Medici, led the Catholic Church from 1523 to 1534 and earned praise for his intelligence, learning, and political insight. Contemporaries and historians also criticized him for hesitating when major decisions required speed and force. Historian Francesco Guicciardini wrote that Clement understood world affairs but lacked the resolution to act on what he had already foreseen. His habit of seeing every side of an argument weakened his leadership during crises such as the Sack of Rome in 1527 and England’s break with the Catholic Church.

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8159. Ruby Elephant’s Secret Painting Talent-At the Phoenix Zoo, an elephant named Ruby caught her keepers’ attention when she scratched lines in the dirt with a stick. The keepers gave her brushes and paints, but the zoo kept her painting ability quiet for three years. After the public learned about Ruby’s unusual skill, her paintings sold for money that supported conservation work.

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8160. Bosch’s Charity-Controlled Corporate Structure-German company Bosch is not owned like a typical corporation, because the charitable Robert Bosch Stiftung holds about 94 percent of its share capital. The foundation receives dividends from that stake, but it does not control Bosch’s business direction because it transferred the voting rights to Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG. In 2024, the charity invested about €219 million across health, education, and global issues, including a major share for the Bosch Health Campus in Stuttgart. Since its creation in 1964, it has spent more than €2.7 billion on charitable work.

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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.

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    • 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.

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  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.

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  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.

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  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!

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    • 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.

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