50 Awesome Facts About Everything
Facts Around the World
1. The national memorial that commemorates the 1889 Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania preserves what’s left of the South Fork Dam.
2. Starting with its fourth issue, Stan Lee put the hyperbolic slogan “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!” on the cover of every issue of The Fantastic Four.
3. The Chinese Song Dynasty made military use of gunpowder as early as the 11th century.
4. In 1877 British activist Annie Besant was prosecuted for a pamphlet on birth control.
5. Pagan ruler Vladimir the Great of Kiev sent envoys throughout neighboring nations to determine which of the monotheistic religions might be suitable for his people ultimately settling on Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
6. Among the alumni of the exclusive Harrow School in London are Winston Churchill, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Byron
7. The Bronze Star is awarded by the U.S. military for meritorious achievement in ground combat.
8. The medieval order The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon were more commonly known as the Knights Templar.
9. The major hub of the Washington Metro is the stop named for French planner Pierre Charles L’Enfant.
10. Born in 1564, Christopher Marlowe was employed by Elizabeth I’s Secretaryn of State to uncover Catholic plots against her reign.
11. “The Great Engineer” was a nickname for President Herbert Hoover.
12. Mascots Snap, Crackle and Pop first appeared on Rice Krispies packaging in 1933.
13. About 7% of the world’s population get a sneeze reflex from staring into bright light, and 94% of people with this condition are Caucasian.
14. Lou Gehrig had the first number ever retired in Major League Baseball in 1939.
15. When racehorse American Pharoah won the Triple Crown in 2015, it was the first horse to do so since 1978.
16. A U.S. Army wedding may end with an arch of heavy cavalry sabers.
17. Going online in October of 2016, the Watts Bar 2 reactor was the first new reactor in the United States in 20 years.
18. The world’s largest deposits of amber are found along the shores of the Baltic Sea.
19. Ulster is a traditional political division of Ireland with six of its nine counties in Northern Ireland.
20. 17th century British author Izaak Walton is best remembered for his work on fishing The Compleat Angler.
21. An atoll is a ring-shaped coral island surrounding a lagoon.
22. In 1920 author A.A. Milne celebrated the birth of his only child, Christopher Robin.
23. Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei designed the Richelieu Wing of the Louvre, as well as the pyramidal glass entrance.
24. Cleopatra died in Alexandria, Egypt in 30 B.C.
25. Milan is the capital of the Lombardy region of Italy.
26. The Raytheon Company produced both the first microwave oven and the Patriot Missile.
27. About 10,000 containers fall off ships at sea every year.
28. The word pistol originally descends from a Czech word meaning “whistle.”
29. The construction of the London Bridge over the Thames between 1176 and 1209 reportedly cost the lives of 150 workmen.
30. The 7-mile-long Mystic River which flows into Boston Harbor gets its name from a Wampanoag word meaning “big river.”
31. Priapus was the fertility god of Ancient Greece.
32. One of the southernmost points on the Iberian Peninsula, Gibraltar is a British dependency.
33. Singer Madonna was dropped from her Pepsi sponsorship in 1989 after controversy surrounding her “Like a Prayer” video.
34. The dorsal striatum is the part of the brain that takes over when you drive to work or home and don’t remember how you got there.
35. Izanagi is Izanami are the male and female creator gods in traditional Japanese mythology.
36. In the ’60s and ’70s, the Minnesota Viking’s defensive line members were known as the Purple People Eaters.
37. Henry Ford II, the eldest son of Henry Ford, was the head of Ford Motor Company from 1945 to 1979.
38. Little was known about the planet Mercury until Mariner 10 visited it in 1974.
39. Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee University as a “School for Colored Teachers” in 1881.
40. Written for the 1932 movie Chasing Rainbows, “Happy Days Are Here Again” became the campaign song for FDR.
41. Prior to the European Union, the European Community existed from 1967 to 1993.
42. In its first broadcast on February 24, 1942, Voice of America said “The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth.”
43. Washington Roebling supervised the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge designed by his father John A. Roebling.
44. Mont Blanc on the border between France and Italy is the highest point in continental Europe.
45. Born July 7, 1940, Ringo Starr was a senior member of The Beatles.
46. The Pearl Harbor Memorial spans the hull of the U.S.S. Arizona sunk on December 7, 1941.
47. Running back Marcus Allen has scored the most game-winning touchdowns of any player in NFL history with 10.
48. The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia began as the personal art collection of Catherine the Great.
49. Groucho Marx was Johnny Carson’s first-ever guest on The Tonight Show.
50. Häagen-Dazs was the name created for an ice cream brand launched in Bronx, New York in 1961 which was meant to sound Danish even though that language has no umlaut ä or zs.
