33 Random Bits of Trivia Our Mom Wrote on Post-Its and Slid Into Our Lunchbox

Better than anything our crusty old teacher can teach us anyway
33 Random Bits of Trivia Our Mom Wrote on Post-Its and Slid Into Our Lunchbox

It’s so nice to have a mom that goes above and beyond for our education. We didn’t appreciate it when we were younger, but we’re super grateful for all of her little tidbits now — especially since our job involves finding random facts. 

Now dear old mom isn’t just housing us, but she’s doing our job for us too! You know what? She’s getting two framed pictures of us for her birthday this year.

Sandra Bullock

Sandra Bullock gave LA-area health care workers 6,000 KN95 masks. This was in April 2020, when the pandemic had just started and there were shortages of masks and other protective equipment. CRACKED.COM

Beyonce

Beyoncé's lyric mentioning Red Lobster caused their sales to increase by 33% 27% NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time with 2 billion books sold. CRACKED.COM Her estate claims she ranks 3rd overall, behind Shakespeare's works and the Bible. She is the most-translated author with works in at least 103 languages.

Goats

The City of Calgary uses goats to fight weeds. They began using goats in 2016 and just kept going -- in 2020, there were three different goat herds operating in the city, according to Calgary Parks. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The U.K.

The UK dumped about 1.17 million tons of weapons in a deep sea trench. The sea above Beaufort Dyke They kept dumping both conventional and chemical weapons from the '20s to the '70s into Beaufort Dyke, which has caused underwater explosions over the years. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Great Wall

The Great Wall of China is partly made of rice. The builders added sticky rice to the mortar, which made the Wall more stable and helped protect it against earthquakes and exposure to the elements. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Spike Jonze

Adam Spiegel got nicknamed Spike Jonze by his dirtbike shop co-workers. Не didn't shower before work, so his hair stuck out in spikes. CRACKED.COM

Beer

Ancient Egyptians revered beer. They drank it daily and at religious rituals, and gave it divine status. The goddess Hathor was called, among other things, The Lady of Drunkenness. Even laborers, including those who built the pyramids, got a ration of over 10 pints of beer a day. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Madame Tussaud

Madame Tussaud made death masks for people executed in the French Revolution. The death masks were made using heads cut by the guillotine - and, to make things much worse, they were often her friends (she used to be the king's sister's art tutor). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Hitler

Germany lost WWII partly because Hitler slept in late. His underlings were told not to wake him up no matter what, and he slept until 11 or noon on D-Day. And even after he got up, he was sure the D-Day assault was just a diversion, so he didn't send any reinforcements - it took a while to change his mind on that. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Cavalry

There is one recorded case of men on horseback capturing a naval fleet. In the Battle of Texel in January 1795, a fleet of 14 Dutch ships was trapped in ice near Texel Island. The French heard of that and sent infantry, cavalry, and horse artillery forces to capture them. Apparently, there was no fighting - after a five-day standoff, the ships surrendered. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

NASA

NASA astronauts wear orange suits, too. NASA Most of the time, they wear white suits, because white reflects solar radiation better than any other color. But when they're on their way into space, or returning to Earth, they wear orange because it's very easy to see against the sea or sky - that way, if they have to bail, rescue teams will find them more quickly. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

James Bond

There was a real James Bond. Не was an MI6 agent spying on Poland in the '60s. e zam. e pracy Seki arth. Vian W. sko telstwo miejsce urodz James Albert Bond 2 brybyjskie 30.1 192 Polish counter-espionage noted that he was chatty, cautious, and a womanizer. Не pretty much did nothing of note on his ten-year mission, then left and never and came back. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Bees

Honeybees can recognize human faces. In an experiment, bees remembered faces even two days after memorizing them. Somehow, they pull this off with 10,000 fewer neurons than humans. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Red Cross

The Red Cross was invented by a guy who kind of wandered into a battle. In 1859, Henry Dunant was trying to meet with Napoleon III, and happened to see the Battle of Solferino - which ended with 40,000 dead and wounded left behind on the battlefield. When he came home to Geneva, he started to work on a society for helping the wounded in wars. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Burgers

McDonald's burgers aren't resistant to rotting. They don't rot simply because they lose moisture very quickly - because they're small, and have a large surface area for their size - - so mold and bacteria don't get a chance to grow. A homemade burger that's small and has a relatively large surface area isn't going to rot, either. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Moon

In Moon, the base is on the far side of the moon so it doesn't interfere with the Earth. All that activity kicks up a lot of soil, which might make the moon's surface less reflective and therefore less bright - and that could mess with a lot of biological systems on Earth. To prevent that from happening, it was put on the far side. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Guinness World Record for Longest Drift

The Guinness World Record for the longest drift is 232.5 miles. It was set by a 2018 BMW M5, which had to be refueled mid-drift five times by an M5 tanker - and, every time, a stuntman had to connect the car and tanker as they drifted together. The drift took eight hours. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The South Pole

The South Pole is so high, you can get altitude sickness on it. That's what happened to Buzz Aldrin in 2016 - - he got so sick on the South Pole (which is 9,300 feet high), he had to be evacuated to New Zealand. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Oneida

Oneida flatware was created by a sex cult. The Oneida Community started as an agrarian utopia in the 1800s, before switching to metallurgic industrialism and creating the fancy silverware still sold today. Their success was their downfall, as the government started to look closely into their free-loving, commie ways. CRACKED.COM

Shrimp

A type of shrimp only found in one pond was obliterated by land development. UNTER STARBUCKS COFFEE ON CRACKED.COM The Florida fairy shrimp was discovered in 1952 to be a unique species of fairy shrimp specific to a single pond in Gainesville, Florida. When re- searchers returned to that pond in 2011, they realized it had been filled in for development.

Herbs

Herbs and spices can be different parts of the same plant. CRACKED GOM Herbs come from the leaf of a plant, while spices come from other parts such as roots, bark, and seeds. So cilantro is an herb (coriander leaf) while coriander is a spice (cori- ander seed).

Secret Societies

The secretive '7 Society' at the University of Virginia is so mysterious, members are only revealed after their deaths. MCCONNELL UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 1910 A MEMBER OF THE SEVEN SOCIETY 7 CRACKED.COM Members receive a wreath of black magnolias in the shape of a 7 placed at the gravesite, and the bell tower of the University Chapel chimes at seven-second intervals on the seventh dissonant chord when it is seven past the hour.

Engineering Disasters

Human error led to one of the worst engineering disasters in US history. GRACKED COM The chief engineer took sole re- sponsibility for the St. Francis Dam collapse in 1928, testify- ing, If there was an error in hu- man judgment, I was the hu- man. Over 400 people were killed when the dam failed in the middle of the night.

Hong Kong’s Subways

An AI controls Hong Kong's subway system. CRACKED.COM Hong Kong has one of the world's most effi- cient subway systems with a 99.9% on-time rate and the entire sys- tem is managed via Arti- ficial Intelligence.

Nazis

Nazis partially succeeded in counterfeiting the British pound to cause hyperinflation. CRACKED.COM Using a German concen- tration camp, they man- ufactured 132 million GBP, which is the equiv- alent of 6-7 billion mod- ern-day pounds.

Apple

Apple wanted to make the iPhone back in the '80s. CRACKED.COM The first design of the iPhone was made back as far as 1983, which looks more like the iPad, but with an actual phone attached.

Ivy League

A teen managed to get an Ivy League education, in multiple universities, for free. CRACKED.COM A teenager named Guil- laume Dumas snuck into Ivy League schools over 4 years, gaining free education from Yale, Brown, Stanford and many others.

Superman

The first superhero, Superman, owes a lot to a character that debuted 5 years before him. CRACKED.COM 'Doc Savage' was a pulp fiction Superhero known as 'The Man of Bronze,' and had a 'Fortress of Solitude' in the Arctic. Не was known as a Su- per Man, and his name was Clark.

Sinkholes

A Florida man disappeared into a sinkhole that formed under his house. CRACKED COM In 2013, a man in Florida ran to his brother's bedroom af- ter hearing him scream only to find the entire room and his brother being swallowed by a sinkhole. They were never able to find the body of his brother.

Video Games

33 Random Bits of Trivia Our Mom Wrote on Post-Its and Slid Into Our Lunchbox

STDs

Seafood poisoning could be transmitted sexually. Ciguatera is the most common form of poisoning from eating fish - and it could be transmitted through sex (with a person, not a fish). Two cases were documented in 1989 where doctors suspect husbands passed the toxin to their wives through the semen. Ciguatera symptoms include muscle pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. CRACKED.COM

Serial Killers

Serial killers are dying out. Serial killers in TV and movies are as common as stray dogs, but in real life their numbers are steadily dropping. We have gone from 128 killers with three or more victims in 1987 to just 15 in 2015. Part of the reason is that police have gotten much better at catching them. CRACKED.COM

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