Fact Cards

8241. Thirty Years' War Fed Itself-During the Thirty Years' War, the phrase bellum se ipsum alet, meaning

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8242. Qing Officials Misidentified Russian Envoys-The first diplomatic contacts between the Russian Tsar and the Chinese emperor in the 17th century were plagued by mutual ignorance and the lack of a common language. A Central Asian envoy in Russian service named Setkul Ablin traveled to Beijing in 1655, 1658, and 1668, but only on his third trip did the Manchu authorities apparently realize that these western visitors represented the same Russians who had been raiding and settling around the Amur River. Early relations were further complicated because Qing officials expected the Russians to follow a tributary diplomatic system that the Russians neither accepted nor fully understood. The language barrier eased only after Russia began sending Latin-speaking Westerners who could communicate through Jesuit missionaries in Beijing.

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8244. Wolves Can Outread Domestic Dogs-Wolves can outperform dogs at following human social cues when both are raised closely alongside humans.

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8245. Victoria Needed One Perfect Take-The 2015 German thriller Victoria became one of the few feature films shot in a single continuous take, but its budget allowed director Sebastian Schipper only three attempts to capture the entire film that way. The first attempt felt too cautious, while Schipper said the cast went too far in the opposite direction during the second, leaving him with just one chance. Before the final attempt, he gave the cast what he called a furious

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8246. Whiteclay Beer Sales Fueled Crisis-In 2010, just four beer stores in Whiteclay, Nebraska, sold approximately 4.9 million 12-ounce cans of beer, much of it to members of the nearby Oglala Lakota Tribe living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. That worked out to roughly 13,000 cans every day in a village with only a tiny permanent population. The sales became especially controversial because alcohol was prohibited on the reservation at the time, making Whiteclay a major source of alcohol just across the Nebraska border.

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8247. Roman Nomenclators Remembered Everyone's Names-Wealthy Romans sometimes employed a slave called a nomenclator, whose job included reminding his master of the names of people he encountered. Nomenclators were especially useful during political campaigns, when they helped politicians greet citizens by name and appear personally familiar with potential supporters.

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8248. Barbary Pirates Drained American Budget-By 1797, the United States was paying nearly one-fifth of its entire federal budget in tribute to the Barbary pirates to protect American merchant ships from capture by them. After independence, American vessels no longer enjoyed British naval protection, leaving crews vulnerable to seizure, enslavement, and ransom demands in the Mediterranean. The enormous cost of tribute and continued attacks eventually helped push the United States toward military action, leading to the First Barbary War in 1801.

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8249. Fifty Shades Began As Fanfiction-British author E.L. James began what became

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8250. Nixon Practiced Chopsticks For Months-Before his historic February 1972 visit to the People's Republic of China, US President Richard Nixon spent months learning how to use chopsticks so he would be prepared for official dinner banquets. First Lady Pat Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger also took lessons, and the group continued practicing on the flight to China. The preparation paid off during a televised banquet in Beijing, where cameras prominently showed Nixon confidently eating with chopsticks.

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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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