The Big Book of Random Facts: 1000 Interesting Facts and Trivia (Interesting Trivia and Funny Facts) (Volume 4) (2016)

67 Pages·2016·0.53 MB·English

The Big Book of
Random Facts

1000 Interesting Facts and Trivia
Interesting Trivia and Funny Facts Vol.4

Bill O´Neill
Copyright © 2016 by Wiq Media
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Disclaimer
This book contain interesting facts and trivia about things you didn’t know, and likely don’t care about,
but it’s fun! These trivia facts are perfect for playing pub quizzes with your friends or just a night in
with random facts you didn’t know about. Funny facts goes a long way, enjoy the read!
1. When India was partitioned in 1947, the country now known as Bangladesh
was originally called East Pakistan.
2. Mary Poppins (1964) was the feature film debut for Julie Andrews in a role
for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.
3. A twin rotor helicopter has two main rotors spinning in opposite directions so
no tail rotor is required.
4. With about 260,000,000 speakers, Hindi is the fourth most-spoken first lan-
guage in the world.
5. In Greek and Roman mythology, the lotus tree bore a delicious fruit that
would cause its eaters to become lazy and disinterested in the world.
6. Margaret Bourke-White was the first woman war correspondent allowed to
travel in combat zones during WWII and also the only foreign photojournalist
in Moscow when the Nazis invaded.
7. The oldest goldfish on record was 43 years old.
8. The restriction that flight attendants could only be female was lifted after a
1971 court decision.
9. Shigetaka Kurita created the emoji while working with a team designing the
first mobile internet system.
10. The third rail is a charged rail with provides power to electric trains and sub-
ways and became a metaphor for political issues so charged that touching
them would bring about the death of a political career.
11. Stratigraphy is the study of layers of sedimentary rock.
12. Henry VII became the first Tudor king after the death of Richard III.
13. The U.S. Department of Justice was established in 1870 due to the growing
responsibilities of the Attorney General.
14. The Acme Thunderer is a loud whistle popular with sports referees.
15. Emperor penguins may go for up to two months without eating during
incubation.
16. Generally considered the first stoner comedy, the 1978 Cheech & Chong
movie Up in Smoke cost $2 million to make and earned more than $44 mil-
lion at the box office.
17. Triage is a system of sorting patients based on need from the French “to sort.”
18. In Greek myth the goddess Athena was said to have sprung directly from the
head of Zeus.
19. Mad cow disease is caused by a malformed protein known as a prion.
20. Upon its completion in 1930, the Eiffel Tower beat out the Chrysler Building
as the world’s tallest structure.
21. On average a car going five mph below that speed of surrounding traffic has a
greater chance of causing an accident than one going five mph above the
speed limit.
22. Catalan is the official language of Andorra and the second most spoken lan-
guage in Spain.
23. A traditional gin & tonic contains 2 ounces of gin, 5 ounces of tonic water,
and a lime wedge.
24. Mother Teresa was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Albania in 1910.
25. In the Old Testament, Jacob’s brother Esau sells his birthright in exchange for
a bowl of lentil stew.
26. In 1821 Thomas L. Jennings became the first African-American to be granted
a patent, for a dry cleaning process.
27. The USS Kearsarge was the only battleship in the U.S. Navy not named for a
state.
28. Founded by Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon in 1996, Ozzfest is a touring
music festival featuring a variety of hard rock and heavy metal acts.
29. In 1882 the city then known as “Pile O’ Bones” in Canada was renamed Regi-
na in honor of Queen Elizabeth.
30. Just shy of his 30th birthday, Adrien Brody is the youngest man ever to with
the Best Lead Actor Oscar for his role in The Pianist.
31. The 1968 album S.F. Sorrow by British rock group The Pretty Things is gen-
erally considered the first rock opera.
32. Quechua is the most widely surviving language of Native Americans with be-
tween 8 and 10 million speakers in the Andes of South America.
33. A croupier is the person who runs a casino roulette table.
34. “Say Hey Kid” was the most popular nickname for baseball great Willie
Mays.
35. In ancient Greek mythology, the chimera was a terrible fire-breathing monster
that was part lion, part goat, and part snake.
36. Founded in 1873 the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was
one of the first female-led social reform organizations in the United States.
37. Philip II of Spain moved the capital of his nation from Valladolid to Madrid
in 1561.
38. Brownstone was a local sedimentary stone in the New York City area from
which single-family homes were built.
39. The Dome of the Rock, also known as the Mosque of Omar, was home to the
Knights Templar for much of the Crusades.
40. The Juntas Provinciales organized Spanish resistance to the 1808 invasion of
Napoleon Bonaparte.
41. The creature known as a false scorpion has venomous pincers but no tail.
42. Michael was the czar that rule Russia from 1613 to 1645 and founded the Ro-
manov dynasty.
43. The Houston Comets have won by far the most championships of any WNBA
team.
44. Also known as halite, rock salt can be formed when a body of salt water dries
up.
45. Béchamel, velouté, espagnole, sauce tomat, and hollandaise are the five
“mother sauces” of French cooking.
46. Abscam was an FBI sting operation starting in the late-1970s that got its
name from the fictitious business Abdul Enterprises.
47. The Key Deer is an endangered species found only in Florida that can easily
swim between islands.
48. Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Richard III are the four plays by Shake-
speare in which ghosts appear on stage.
49. On October 5, 1877, Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph surrendered to general
Nelson Miles within 30 miles of the Canadian border.
50. Alabaster is a variety of the rock gypsum.
51. The NPR program All Things Considered has been on air since 1971 and has
had Robert Siegel as one of its weekday hosts since 1987.
52. Located more than 8,500 feet above sea level, Sucre is the judicial capital of
Bolivia.
53. Kingston, New York became the first capital city of that state in 1777 and was
burned by the British that same year.r
54. Pacifist and activist Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to win the Nobel
Prize for Peace in 1905.
55. You Are There was a 1950’s television program hosted by Walter Cronkite
that recreated historical events as news events.
56. The only two states with precious metals in their nicknames are California
(The Golden State) and Nevada (The Silver State).
57. The 1980 REO Speedwagon album Hi Infidelity was their biggest hit selling
more than 10 million copies and producing their first number one song “Take
It on the Run.”
58. The brown pelican is the state bird of Louisiana.
59. Prior to a 1968 ruling, flight attendants could be terminated if they got mar-
ried or reached the age of 32 or 35 depending on the airline.
60. Louis Daguerre began producing photographs in the 1830s by exposing sil-
ver-coated copper plates.
61. Rose Mary Woods became famous during the Watergate investigation as the
loyal secretary of Richard Nixon who had been with him since his time in
congress in 1951.
62. Nellie Tayloe Ross was the first female governor of the state of Wyoming in
1927, making her the first female governor of any U.S. state, who went on the
head the U.S. Mint for 20 years starting in 1933.
63. In 1719 certain prisoners in Paris were allowed to go free if they married
prostitutes and moved to Louisiana.
64. Clint Eastwood is the oldest person ever to win the Academy Award for Best
Director for the 2004 film Million Dollar Baby.
65. Coined in the mid-1960s, the word “pixel” is combination of slang for pic-
tures and the word elements.
66. The state of Vermont once tried to become part of Quebec.
67. Virginia Wade was the last English woman to win the women’s singles title at
Wimbledon in 1977.
68. The current King of Jordan once worked as an extra on the TV series Star
Trek: Voyager.
69. The state capital of Arizona moved four different times before finally settling
in Phoenix.
70. The Obie, introduced the newspaper The Village Voice in 1956, is considered
Off-Broadway’s highest honor.
71. John Dillinger made a daring prison escape in 1934 using a carved wooden
gun.
72. Chuck is the cut of meat between the neck and shoulder blade of a cow.
73. Geologists discovered that much of sand in the Grand Canyon actually origi-
nated in the Appalachian Mountains.
74. Former surfing champion Jack Murphy was one of three men convicted of the
theft of the Star of India diamond (along with several other precious stones)
from the American Museum of Natural History in 1964.
75. Lemurs are only found on the island of Madagascar and a few small neigh-
boring islands.
76. Accounting for approximately 10% of the population, the Kurds are the
largest minority ethnic group in Turkey.
77. David Herold, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and Mary Surratt were the
four conspirators hanged for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
78. Approximately 1.3 million Americans have died as a result of war since 1775.
79. Belgium has three federal regions; Wallonia, Flanders, and Brussels.
80. Japanese inventor Atsushi Shimizu has developed a turbine that can withstand
typhoon force winds and generate electricity.
81. Mary Martin, Sandy Duncan, and Cathy Rigby are among the women who
have played the character Peter Pan on Broadway.
82. The Super Bowl’s MVP Award is named for Pete Rozelle who served as the
NFL’s Commissioner from 1960 to 1989.
83. The Rosetta Stone which allowed for the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs
is actually a tax document written in three languages.
84. Sears, Roebuck and Company sold more than 70,000 catalog kit homes be-
tween 1908 and 1940.
85. The First Reich of Germany was the Holy Roman Empire which existed in
various forms from 962 to 1806.
86. Corona Extra is the top-selling imported beer in the United States with more
than $1.44 billion in annual sales.
87. The three AKC-recognized dog breeds that have miniature in their name are
the miniature pinscher, miniature bull terrier, and miniature schnauzer.
88. Patsy Cline’s recording career lasted just eight years starting in 1955.
89. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the first African American to be Time Magazine’s
Man of the Year (1963)
90. The first stagecoach line was established in 1732 between Burlington and
Amboy in New Jersey.
91. The name of the band Stone Temple Pilots was partly inspired by an STP mo-
tor oil logo.
92. Rich Man, Poor Man, a 1976 adaptation of a bestselling Irwin Shaw novel,
was one of the first TV miniseries.
93. Seven different species of Hawaiian bee have been declared endangered, the
first time the designation has ever been given to a bee.
94. The Alabama nickname “The Yellowhammer State” comes from the Civil
War when a company of soldiers wore uniforms trimmed with yellow and
were nicknamed Yellowhammers after a type of woodpecker.
95. Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) served as the capital of British-occupied India
until 1911.
96. Four-hundred-million years ago there were about 22 hours in a day on Earth.
97. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Van Buren, and George H. W. Bush
are the four vice presidents who have been elected to the presidency while a
sitting vice president.
98. Science fiction author H.G. Wells coined the phrase “the war that will end
war” in 1914.
99. The Mongol Empire was the second largest in history controlling more than 9
¼ million square miles of territory.
100. In bullfighting a Veronica is a motion in which the matador slowly twirls his
cape away from a charging bull.
101. While writing Invisible Man, author Ralph Ellison worked as a waiter, pho-
tographer, and jazz trumpeter.
102. A legend is a table accompanying a map that explains what the colors and
symbols used represent.
103. The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole became known as
the Five Civilized Tribes in early America because of their willingness to
adopt aspects of western culture and government.
104. Algeria has been the largest country in Africa since South Sudan gained its
independence from Sudan in 2011.
105. A 9,000-year-old skeleton was discovered in Cheddar, England, and genetic
testing found a 300 generation later relative of his teaching school half a mile
away.
106. Skylab, which orbited the Earth from 1973 to 1979, was the first U.S. space
station.
107. Donnie Osmond has his first solo hit as a teen idol in 1970 with a cover of
Roy Orbison’s “Sweet and Innocent.”
108. In a single mouthful a blue whale can consume as many calories as the aver-
age human takes in in 180 days.
109. About 22 million gallons of water are trapped inside plastic bottles in U.S.
landfills.
110. The Larry O’Brien Trophy features a regulation size sterling silver basketball.
111. Ivan the Terrible was the first Russian ruler to hold the title of czar when he
was proclaimed Crown Prince of Moscow in 1533.
112. The use of the word “flak” for anti-aircraft guns comes from WWII and the
German word Flugabwehrkanone meaning “aircraft defense cannon.”
113. Cape Canaveral was renamed Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973.
114. Delivering the ball to the batsman in cricket is called bowling.
115. The first youth hostel in the U.S. opened in 1934 in Massachusetts.
116. In addition to its technological fame, Hoover Dam is known as a masterpiece
of the art deco style of design.
117. Actor Harrison Ford once put his carpentry skills to use as a stagehand for
The Doors.
118. “Home on the Range” is the official state song of Kansas.
119. Englishman Thomas Cook founded one of the world’s oldest and most endur-
ing travel agencies when he started giving rail tours by getting bulk discounts
for train travel.
120. Motorola engineer Martin Cooper placed history’s first cell phone call April 3,
1973 to a rival to brag about his achievement.
121. History’s deadliest recorded earthquake took place in China in 1556 and re-
portedly killed 830,000 people.
122. A major port on the Red Sea, Jeddah is the second most populous city in Sau-
di Arabia.
123. The plastic tag closures on loaves of bread are color coded to different days of
the week to help ensure proper stock rotation.
124. Studies have shown that most people are more likely to remember what
they’ve written if they write it in blue ink.
125. The tiny nation of Monaco is the mostly densely populated in the world with
more than 18,000 people per square kilometer.
126. Mount Godwin-Austen and Chhogori are other names for the world’s second
highest mountain commonly known as K2.
127. James Michener’s book Tales of the South Pacific became the basis for the
Broadway musical South Pacific.
128. Nathan Hale gave his “one life” for his country on Sept. 22, 1776.
129. Paranormal and psychic debunker James “The Amazing” Randi set up the
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) which offers a $1 million prize
to anyone able to demonstrate supernatural abilities under scientific testing.
130. In a record which has stood since 1931, Norman Taurog is the youngest per-
son ever to win the Oscar for Best Director at the age of 32.
131. Legend claims that the tapping noise made by the death watch beetle heralds a
death in the house.
132. The CN Tower in Toronto is the tallest freestanding structure in the Western
Hemisphere.
133. Tojo, the Prime Minister of Japan during WWII, was hanged for war crimes in
1948.
134. There are about 9 million people having a birthday on any given day.
135. First run on June 19, 1867, the Belmont Stakes is the oldest of horse racing’s
Triple Crown races.
136. Two-thirds of Greenland lies north of the Arctic Circle.
137. In the 16th century Dutch growers specially bred carrots to come out orange
to honor the ruling house of that country.
138. About 1 in 12 men is colorblind but only about 1 in 200 women.
139. Azrael is a Muslim name for the Angel of Death.
140. Built in the early 1700s, the Alamo was originally the chapel of the Mission
San Antonio de Valero.
141. In 2007 a bowhead whale was discovered with the tip of a harpoon embedded
in its back from 1890.
142. UNICEF is the world’s largest buyer of vaccinations for poor countries.
143. Paul Anderson holds the record for the greatest weight ever lifted by a human,
backlifting 6,270 lbs. in 1957.
144. Betty Ford had a CB handle in the 1970s, “Frist Mama.”
145. Unimak and Unalaska are the largest of the Aleutian Islands.
146. Admiral Chester Nimitz formed the Blue Angels during World War II to
showcase Naval aviation.
147. The first color TV transmission was produced by John Baird in this London in
1928.