21 Arcane Facts That'll Dial Your Small Talk Game Up To 11
These are like crunches for your brain.
![21 Arcane Facts That'll Dial Your Small Talk Game Up To 11](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/3/8/2/705382.jpg?v=2)
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We're in the thick of the lazy part of the year, when it's tempting to let your brain relax and get flabby. We're here to prevent that from happening, with a collection of completely true facts that are objectively interesting. And if these whet your appetite for article-length interestingness, there's a link to a related Cracked article under each image.
![CRACKED COM INDIANA JONES ALMOST FOUGHT A CYBORG. The Nazi baddie in Raiders of the Lost Ark was first envisioned by Steven Spielberg as having a bion](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/2/704132.jpg?v=2)
![STEPPING ON LEGOS HURTS SO MUCH BECAUSE THEY'RE INDESTRUCTIBLE. A Lego brick is made of plastic SO tough that it can withstand about 950 pounds of pre](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/9/704139.jpg?v=2)
![THE GOOD GUYS WITH GUNS MYTH ISN'T BACKED BY EVIDENCE. According to the FBI, of 160 shooter incidents between 2000 and 2013, only five were stopped](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/4/5/704145.jpg?v=2)
![A TINFOIL HAT WON'T PROTECT YOU. Will tinfoil stop government satellites from getting into your head? Ha! That's what they want you to think! MIT stud](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/4/0/704140.jpg?v=2)
![THE SOPRANOS WAS RIDDLED WITH REAL CRIMINALS. Some actors who played gangsters in The Sopranos turned out to be the real stuff. Anthony Borgese, who p](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/4/8/704148.jpg?v=2)
![STIEG LARSSON TRAINED GUERRILLA FIGHTERS (MAYBE). Larsson penned the successful Millennium trilogy, but his true passion was leftist journalism and ac](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/6/8/8/704688.jpg?v=2)
![THE IVY LEAGUE IS MORE ABOUT CONNECTIONS THAN EDUCATION. Elite colleges' reputations aren't backed by any hard data. Whenever researchers look into it](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/4/6/704146.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED.COM RASPUTIN WASN'T THAT HARD TO KILL. You have probably heard that putting down Grigori Rasputin took poison, bullets, and drowning him in a](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/4/2/704142.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED.COM WOMEN WERE BANNED FROM SKI JUMPING BECAUSE OF THEIR UTERUSES. When ski jumping was invented in the 19th century, old-timey doctors said th](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/6/8/9/704689.jpg?v=2)
![INSTAGRAM RUINS NATURE SITES. It goes like this: Someone snaps a picture of a lovely place and posts it to Instagram, where it get thousands of shares](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/4/3/704143.jpg?v=2)
![SUPERHEROES WERE INVENTED BY A BARONESS. In 1903, Hungarian-born Emma Orczy created the Scarlet Pimpernel, the first hero to have a secret identity. S](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/4/1/704141.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKEDC COM 12 FORMER SLAVES BECAME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS. After the 15th Amendment gave black men the right to vote in 1870, a total of 12 former slav](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/7/704137.jpg?v=2)
![YOUR BELLY BUTTON HOUSES BACTERIA UNKNOWN TO SCIENCE. Researchers at North Carolina University had the idea to sample volunteers' navels. They found 2](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/6/704136.jpg?v=2)
![MOTHS ARE EVOLVING TO STAY AWAY FROM LAMPS. Moths' attraction to lamps is famously unhealthy for them. But evolution seems to be changing that. swiss](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/6/0/8/709608.jpg?v=1)
![CRACKEDGOM SHAKESPEARE MAY HAVE HAD SYPHILIS. The Bard's later work is peppered with endless references to syphilis, and it's a pretty good bet that t](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/5/704135.jpg?v=2)
![FANS HAVE CALCULATED HARRY POTTER'S FORTUNE: A couple of Reddit users, being Reddit users, analyzed images of Harry's vault in Sorcerer's Stone, estim](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/6/8/7/704687.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED.COM POCO LECEND PHIL HARTMAN DESIGNED NOTORIOUS ALBUM COVERS. Long before being Troy Mcclure or Bill McNeal, Hartman started out in showbiz as](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/4/704134.jpg?v=2)
![CHESS WAS ONCE THOUGHT TO MAKE PEOPLE DUMBER. When chess started getting popular in the 19th century, some denounced it as a pointless waste of time t](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/2/8/704128.jpg?v=2)
![CRACKED CON CONGRESS HAD ITS OWN IN-HOUSE BOOTLEGGER. In 1920, George Cassiday set up shop in the House of Representatives Every morning he arrived in](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/1/704131.jpg?v=2)
![THE STUDIO WANTED GREMLINS TO BE LESS GREMLIN-HEAVY. According to director Joe Dante, an issue Warner Bros. executives had with Gremlins was that it h](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/1/3/0/704130.jpg?v=2)
![BINGE-WATCHING IS SCIENTIFICALLY A BAD IDEA. Binge-watching may be the way we consume entertainment now, but that doesn't make it a good way. Accordin](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/pictofact/6/8/6/704686.jpg?v=2)