Fact Cards

37 Comments
8211. Eccleston Says BBC Blacklisted Him-In 2005, British actor Christopher Eccleston left Doctor Who after one series as the Ninth Doctor. The BBC falsely attributed a statement to him claiming that he quit because of the demanding schedule and fears of typecasting, then publicly apologized for releasing it without his consent. Eccleston later said the statement damaged his career and claimed that the BBC blacklisted him, forcing him to pursue more American productions. In 2023, he said he would return to the televised role only if producers Russell T Davies, Jane Tranter, Phil Collinson, and Julie Gardner were sacked.

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8212. Celestine V Resigned After Election-After the cardinals spent more than two years failing to elect a pope, a hermit monk named Pietro da Morrone sent the Church a furious warning demanding that it choose one. The cardinals responded by electing him pope in 1294, but Pietro refused and reportedly tried to flee into the woods before becoming Pope Celestine V. His brief papacy became chiefly notable for establishing rules that allowed popes to resign. He then used those rules himself, stepping down after only five months. He then hid in the woods while trying to resume his solitary life, but his successor, Pope Boniface VIII, eventually captured and imprisoned him.

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8213. Shirley Temple Lost Her Fortune-When actress Shirley Temple retired from movies at age 22 in 1950, she discovered that her father had drastically mismanaged her money through poor investments. Temple had earned about $3.2 million during her career, but only $44,000 remained in her trust account. She later described her reaction simply:

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8214. Pay Toilets Faced Organized Revolt-Most public restrooms in the United States became free partly because of the 1970s activism of the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America. A 19-year-old man named Ira Gessel founded the group in Dayton, Ohio, in 1970, charging members $0.25 and sending them a newsletter called The Free Toilet Paper. The committee grew to as many as 1,500 members and pressured governments to ban coin-operated toilet locks, with Chicago approving a ban in 1973. By June 1976, twelve states had enacted bans, and the committee disbanded after declaring that it had largely achieved its mission.

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8215. Teflon Diet Won Ig Nobel-In 2025, an anesthesiologist named Rotem Naftalovich, a materials scientist named Daniel Naftalovich, and an obesity specialist named Frank Greenway won the Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize for proposing Teflon as a zero-calorie food additive. They cited 1960s DuPont research in which rats ate a diet containing 25% polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE, for 90 days and lost weight without showing signs of toxicity. The Naftalovich brothers patented PTFE as an indigestible meal additive intended to increase fullness without adding calories. They abandoned the idea after the US Food and Drug Administration refused to approve PTFE as a food additive and their attempts to organize human clinical trials failed.

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8216. Halle Berry Got Fake Script-Halle Berry was reportedly given a fake script for the 2006 film X-Men: The Last Stand that expanded the role of her character, Storm, to persuade her to sign on. British director Matthew Vaughn, who was originally set to direct the film, found the alternate script and read an opening scene in which Storm created a thunderstorm over Africa to save starving children. According to Vaughn, a Fox executive admitted that the studio planned to discard the material once Berry signed her contract. Vaughn quit immediately after discovering the deception, and American director Brett Ratner later replaced him.

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8217. Brett Archibald Survived Ocean Ordeal-In 2013, a 50-year-old South African man named Brett Archibald became ill with food poisoning aboard a boat in Indonesia's Mentawai Strait, blacked out, and fell into the Indian Ocean. He woke in the water with the boat already 10 to 15 meters ahead and survived alone for more than 28 hours by keeping his head above the waves. During the ordeal, jellyfish stung him, gulls repeatedly attacked his face, and a blacktip reef shark bumped and circled him before swimming away. A Sydney couple eventually found Archibald about 20 kilometers from where he had fallen, and rescuers discovered that he had lost nearly 6 kilograms.

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8218. Optimus Prime Voice Honored Brother-Canadian voice actor Peter Cullen based the voice of Optimus Prime on his older brother Larry, a Marine who served in the Vietnam War. Before Cullen auditioned for the role, Larry advised him,

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8219. Lionel Messi Needed Growth Hormones-Argentine footballer Lionel Messi was diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency at age 11 and required daily human growth hormone injections until around age 14 to help him reach a normal adult height. At the time of his diagnosis in Rosario, Argentina, Messi stood about 4 feet 4 inches tall, and doctors predicted he might reach only about 4 feet 7 inches without treatment. The injections reportedly cost about $1,500 per month, placing a heavy burden on his family until FC Barcelona agreed to help pay for his treatment after signing him as a teenager.

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8220. Greek Xenia Protected Unknown Strangers-Ancient Greeks treated strangers with extraordinary care because any guest could potentially be a god in disguise. Their hospitality code, known as xenia, required hosts to offer food, drink, shelter, and often a bath before even asking a guest's name, since mistreating a stranger risked offending Zeus Xenios, protector of guests. Greek mythology repeatedly reinforced this idea by having gods test mortals through disguised visits. The Iliad even frames the Trojan War as the consequence of Paris violating xenia by abducting Helen while he was a guest in her husband Menelaus's home.

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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.

      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.

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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).

      7

  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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