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 language 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 subways 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 million 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 language 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 Regina 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 generally considered the first rock opera.
32. Quechua is the most widely surviving language of Native Americans
with between 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 Romanov 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
Shakespeare 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
married or reached the age of 32 or 35 depending on the airline.
60. Louis Daguerre began producing photographs in the 1830s by
exposing silver-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
pictures 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 originated 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
neighboring 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 between 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 motor 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, photographer, 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 average 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 enduring 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 reportedly killed 830,000 people.
122. A major port on the Red Sea, Jeddah is the second most populous city
in Saudi 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 person 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.
148. The Spanish word for beer comes from Ceres the Roman goddess of
agriculture.
149. Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, captured Palmela Castle
from the Moors in the 12th century.
150. Lisbon and Eureka are popular types of lemon.
151. Joe and Ben Weider were scrawny kids who became bodybuilders and
founded a bodybuilding equipment, competition, and magazine
empire.
152. In 1950s England Teddy Boys dressed in styles inspired by nobles of
Edwardian England.
153. Russia’s Alexander the Great passed a proclamation in 1861 freeing
the serfs.
154. Crown Cork & Seal makes 1/3 of the cans used for food in North
America.
155. Living in what is now Mexico more than 3,000 years ago, the Olmecs
were the first known Mesoamerican civilization.
156. Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President ever to publish a novel.
157. Bewitched was the first live-action television show to put a husband
and wife in the same bed together.
158. A call is a stock market option that lets you purchase a certain stock
for a set price until a certain date.
159. With more than 10 million visitors annually, the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the
United States.
160. Erich Remarque was working as a sportswriter in Germany when he
wrote All Quiet on the Western Front.
161. When ABC lost the contract to air The Grammy Awards in 1973, they
had Dick Clark create the American Music Awards for them.
162. In a synagogue the cantor leads the congregation in singing and the
chanting of prayers.
163. The game of canasta is played with two decks of cards and four
jokers.
164. Penicillin came into wide use in World War II, replacing sulfonamide
drugs which were first synthesized in 1932.
165. In Scotland firths are the wide bays into which most of Scotland’s
rivers flow.
166. Stringers are freelance reporters not directly employed by a
newspaper but working part-time and were once paid by the column
inch.
167. In a 1937 Stephen Vincent Benet short story, Daniel Webster defends
Jabez Stone before the Devil’s jury of villains.
168. The 16th century Corsairs of northern Africa were known collectively
as the Barbary pirates.
169. An early proposed name for Utah was Deseret meaning “land of
honeybees.”
170. Head Start is a government program for preschoolers which began as
a summer project in LBJ’s War on Poverty.
171. Forced into exile in 1955, Emperor Bao Dai was the last ruling
monarch of Vietnam.
172. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibited sex
discrimination in athletics.
173. West Quoddy Head in Maine is the easternmost point in the United
States.
174. During the 5th century the Teutonic tribe known as the Vandals
conquered part of North Africa and ruled there for a century.
175. Singer El DeBarge left his family group DeBarge in 1986 and scored
his only major solo hit that year when “Who’s Johnny” reached the
top of the charts.
176. The sepoys were native Indians who served in the British army and
mutinied in 1857.
177. Christo and Jeanne-Claude were a married couple who crated large
outdoor environmental art installations such as “The Gates” in Central
Park, NY and the wrapping of the Reichstag in Berlin.
178. The metal Gallium will melt in your hand.
179. Human blood will appear green at 30 ft. under water since red light
doesn’t penetrate that deeply.
180. With an area of 215 square miles, Lake Winnebago is the largest lake
in Wisconsin.
181. The first two New York Times headlines to be set in 96-point type
were five years apart; “MEN WALK ON THE MOON” in 1969 and
“NIXON RESIGNS” in 1974.
182. The state of California ranks #1 in both population and agricultural
production.
183. Hank Aaron reached the top of Major League Baseball’s RBI
rankings in 1975 and has remained in that position ever since.
184. In 1865, Wellington succeeded Auckland as the capital of New
Zealand.
185. George Pullman built the modern sleeping coach with a folding upper
berth & a lower berth made from seat cushions.
186. In 1972 Bobby Fischer became the first American chess player to win
the world championship.
187. The state of Delaware has only three counties the least of any U.S.
state.
188. Lord Humongous is the main antagonist in the 1981 post-apocalyptic
Australian film The Road Warrior.
189. Located in Scotland and with an elevation of more than 4,400 ft., Ben
Nevis is the highest point in the British Isles.
190. “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” is the most popular song from
the 1965 Broadway musical Man of La Mancha.
191. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit discovered that the boiling point of liquid
 varies based on atmospheric pressure.
192. South American soccer great Pelé was known as Perola Negra, “The
Black Pearl.”
193. There are 145 Latin Catholic dioceses in the United States.
194. The United States removed itself from the gold standard on April 19,
1933.
195.
196. 5th century invaders the Angles gave England its name.
197. Tora! Tora! Tora! was a 1970 film that showed the bombing of Pearl
Harbor from the perspectives of both the Japanese and American
sides.
198. John Adams was President of the United States when Napoleon
became First Consul and began rule as dictator of France.
199. From 1838 to 1841 Charles Darwin was Secretary of the Geological
Society of London.
200. The term midshipman was used in the 17th century to denote and
experienced seaman, but in more modern usage refers to a junior
officer or officer cadet.
201. “With windows” are diagonal windows found almost exclusively in
Vermont that date back to the superstition that witches can’t fly their
brooms through them.
202. President Lyndon Johnson had a pair of beagles named Him and Her.
203. The Motorized Victrola was the first car radio and gave the name to
the company Motorola.
204. A large thunderstorm that forms almost every day over the Tiwi
Islands in Australia has been named Hector.
205. In Parcheesi a player begins with four pieces and can move a
maximum of two of them on one roll of the dice.
206. The 2004 film Cold Mountain had two songs which were nominated
for the Best Original Song Oscar, although they lost to “Into the
 West” from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
207. At 230 miles, the River Shannon is both the longest river in Ireland
and in the British Isles.
208. Any bald or golden eagle that dies in the U.S. is sent to the National
Eagle Repository in Colorado where parts of the birds may be
distributed to Native American tribes for ceremonial use.
209. President Woodrow Wilson was sometimes known as “The
Schoolmaster in Politics.”
210. Jacques Piccard, USN Lieutenant Don Walsh and film director James
Cameron are the only three people ever to have reached the deepest
known point in the ocean, Challenger Deep.
211. In the 1890s British artist Francis Barraud painted his now famous
dog Nipper listening to a gramophone.
212. The Monkees received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy
Series in 1967.
213. British explorer James Cook was killed attempted to kidnap and
ransom the King of Hawaii.
214. Typically, the first floor in a building in England would be known as
the second floor in the United States.
215. Malcolm III of Scotland was the king crowned at the end of the
Shakespeare play Macbeth.
216. Carlos Alazraqui was the voice of the popular Taco Bell Chihuahua in
the 1990s.
217. Founded in 1835, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo houses the gold
coffin of Tutankhamen.
218. Heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano won all 49 of his
professional fights, 43 by knockout.
219. At 4,973 feet, Black Mesa is the highest point in the state of
Oklahoma.
220. Maria Shriver became the First Lady of California in 2003.
221. The Romans founded the city of Antinoopolis in Egypt to honor
Antinous, who had drowned in the Nile.
222. The “M” in Britain’s M1, which opened in 1959, stands for
“motorway.”
223. Launched in 1975, the César Award is the French equivalent of the
Oscars.
224. The Alps and the Andes were built up during the Miocene epoch
between 5 and 23 million years ago.
225. The first drinking straw was designed to have a diameter smaller than
the typical lemon pip.
226. French for “half cup,” demitasse may refer to a small cup or the
strong, black coffee served in it.
227. France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the
United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Switzerland form
the G10 group of industrialized nations which meets annually.
228. 70% of the non-public land in England is owned by about 1% of the
population who is largely descended from William the Conqueror’s
army.
229. The Canadian city of Toronto is home to the annual Dora Awards
which honor achievements in theatre, dance, and opera.
230. Barbara Walters, J.J. Abrams, and Julianna Margulies are among the
famous graduates of Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY.
231. Almost all Koreans lack the gene that causes armpit odor.
232. In 1983 Neil Simon became the first living playwright to have a
Broadway theater named for him.
233. Turquoise is the state gem of both Arizona and New Mexico.
234. The gender neutral term for a niece or nephew is a nibling.
235. Future French leader Charles De Gaulle’s 1934 book The Army of the
Future helped inspire the Blitzkrieg.
236. Michigan is the only state that touches three of the Great Lakes.
237. A Nassau is a type of casual golf wager named for a Long Island
country club.
238. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky are the four U.S.
states officially called commonwealths.
239. The Shetland Islands are the northernmost part of the United
Kingdom and are largely inhabited by people of Scandinavian
descent.
240. A gun cartridge belt worn over the shoulder and across the chest is
known as a bandolier.
241. Jam rock band Spin Doctors had their biggest mainstream success
with their 1991 album Pocket Full of Kryptonite which sold more
than 5 million copies and spawned three chart hits.
242. Michael Jordan had a batting average of .202 in his time in the
baseball minor leagues in the mid-1990s.
243. At 13,800 feet Mauna Kea is the highest point in the state of Hawaii
and the second highest island peak in the world.
244. By Mexican law, tequila must be made from a minimum of 51%
agave plant sugars.
245. The presidential library of FDR was the first such library ever
planned while the president was still in office.
246. After developing his Maine hunting shoe in 1911, L.L. Bean opened a
mail order business.
247. The 2001 Christopher Nolan film Memento to told in reverse
chronological order.
248. A cartoon within a cartoon, the Brown Hornet was a favorite
superhero of the kids in the 1970’s cartoon Fat Albert and the Cosby
Kids.
249. The average human will produce 72 million red blood cells every 30
seconds.
250. Joe Lieberman ran for both the Vice Presidency of the United States
 and for his Senate seat in 2000.
251. The national memorial that commemorates the 1889 Johnstown Flood
in Pennsylvania preserves what’s left of the South Fork Dam.
252. 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.
253. The Chinese Song Dynasty made military use of gunpowder as early
as the 11th century.
254. In 1877 British activist Annie Besant was prosecuted for a pamphlet
on birth control.
255. 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.
256. Among the alumni of the exclusive Harrow School in London are
Winston Churchill, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord Byron
257. The Bronze Star is awarded by the U.S. military for meritorious
achievement in ground combat.
258. The medieval order The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the
Temple of Solomon were more commonly known as the Knights
Templar.
259. The major hub of the Washington Metro is the stop named for French
planner Pierre Charles L’Enfant.
260. Born in 1564, Christopher Marlowe was employed by Elizabeth I’s
Secretary of State to uncover Catholic plots against her reign.
261. “The Great Engineer” was a nickname for President Herbert Hoover.
262. Mascots Snap, Crackle, and Pop first appeared on Rice Krispies
packaging in 1933.
263. 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.
264. Lou Gehrig had the first number ever retired in Major League
Baseball in 1939.
265. When racehorse American Pharoah won the Triple Crown in 2015, it
was the first horse to do so since 1978.
266. A U.S. Army wedding may end with an arch of heavy cavalry sabers.
267. Going online in October of 2016, the Watts Bar 2 reactor was the first
new reactor in the United States in 20 years.
268. The world’s largest deposits of amber are found along the shores of
the Baltic Sea.
269. Ulster is a traditional political division of Ireland with six of its nine
counties in Northern Ireland.
270. 17th century British author Izaak Walton is best remembered for his
work on fishing The Compleat Angler.
271. An atoll is a ring-shaped coral island surrounding a lagoon.
272. In 1920 author A.A. Milne celebrated the birth of his only child,
Christopher Robin.
273. Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei designed the Richelieu Wing of
the Louvre, as well as the pyramidal glass entrance.
274. Cleopatra died in Alexandria, Egypt in 30 B.C.
275. Milan is the capital of the Lombardy region of Italy.
276. The Raytheon Company produced both the first microwave oven and
the Patriot Missile.
277. About 10,000 containers fall off ships at sea every year.
278. The word pistol originally descends from a Czech word meaning
“whistle.”
279. The construction of London Bridge over the Thames between 1176
and 1209 reportedly cost the lives of 150 workmen.
280. The 7-mile-long Mystic River which flows into Boston Harbor gets
its name from a Wampanoag word meaning “big river.”
281. Priapus was a fertility god of Ancient Greece.
282. One of the southernmost points on the Iberian Peninsula, Gibraltar is
a British dependency.
283. Singer Madonna was dropped from her Pepsi sponsorship in 1989
after controversy surrounding her “Like a Prayer” video.
284. 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.
285. Izanagi are Izanami are the male and female creator gods in
traditional Japanese mythology.
286. In the ’60s and ’70s, the Minnesota Viking’s defensive line members
were known as the Purple People Eaters.
287. Henry Ford II, the eldest son of Henry Ford, was the head of Ford
Motor Company from 1945 to 1979.
288. Little was known about the planet Mercury until Mariner 10 visited it
in 1974.
289. Booker T. Washington founded Tuskegee University as a “School for
Colored Teachers” in 1881.
290. Written for the 1932 movies Chasing Rainbows, “Happy Days Are
Here Again” became the campaign song for FDR.
291. Prior to the European Union, the European Community existed from
1967 to 1993.
292. 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.”
293. Washington Roebling supervised the construction of the Brooklyn
Bridge designed by his father John A. Roebling.
294. Mont Blanc on the border between France and Italy is the highest
point in continental Europe.
295. Born July 7, 1940, Ringo Starr was the senior member of The Beatles.
296. The Pearl Harbor Memorial spans the hull of the U.S.S. Arizona sunk
on December 7, 1941.
297. Running back Marcus Allen has scored the most game-winning
touchdowns of any player in NFL history with 10.
298. The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia began as
the personal art collection of Catherine the Great.
299. Groucho Marx was Johnny Carson’s first ever guest on The Tonight
Show.
300. 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.
301. The 41-story Umeda Hankyu Building in Osaka, Japan has five of the
world’s largest elevators each of which can accommodate 80
passengers.
302. Explorer I was the first U.S. satellite launched in 1958 and weighing
just 31 lbs.
303. The nation of Monaco has just 3 ½ miles of coastline, the least of any
non-landlocked country.
304. Solid hydrogenated vegetable shortening Crisco was first introduced
in 1911.
305. Thomas Hart Benton was a 19th century United States senator from
the state of Missouri who strongly advocated for westward expansion
and was the first senator to serve five terms.
306. In 1954 Ronald Reagan began hosting a TV show for General Electric
and making speeches to its workers.
307. The iconic Wonder Wheel Ferris wheel at Coney Island, NY was built
in 1920.
308. The longest jellyfish ever recorded measured 160 ft.
309. The Endless Summer is a 1966 documentary about two surfers who
travel the world looking for the perfect wave.
310. “Vulgar” originally referred to the everyday form of Latin spoken by
ancient Romans.
311. The famous triangular skyscraper located in New York City at 175
Fifth Avenue is known as the Flatiron Building.
312. The catchy “Gimme a Break” Kit Kat jingle was created in 1986 by
the DDB advertising agency.
313. Meteorologists began assigning female names to hurricanes in 1953.
314. A Siamese fighting fish is so aggressive it will even attack its own
reflection in the mirror.
315. The “El Nino” weather phenomenon in the Pacific causes unusual
weather fluctuations every three to seven years.
316. Ruben Studdard edged out Clay Aiken to win the second season of
American Idol.
317. During the eight-day Jewish observance of Passover, the eating of
hametz, leavened bread, is prohibited.
318. The record for snowfall in a single snowstorm was 189 inches in 1959
on Mount Shasta in California.
319. Neoprene is a type of synthetic rubber first developed at DuPont in
1930.
320. Uruguayans call their highlands Cuchilla Grande, or “big knife” for
the sharp, narrow rock formations.
321. The striped bass is the state fish of Rhode Island.
322. Blanche of Castile ruled France as regent when her son Louis IX went
to the Crusades in 1248.
323. The Bulldogs of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington are
popularly known as the “Zags.”
324. Dr. Kubler-Ross’ list of the five states of grief goes from denial to
acceptance.
325. James Smith, who became the WBA heavyweight champion in the
mid-1980s, was known by the nickname “Bonecrusher,” and was the
first heavyweight champion with a college degree.
326. A docket is a list of cases in court for trial or the names of the parties
 who have cases pending.
327. In ancient Greek legend Clytemnestra was the wife of Greek king
Agamemnon who may or may not have murdered him depending on
whether the author was Homer or Aeschylus.
328. A bias is a line of thread diagonal to the grain of the fabric.
329. Early recordings of Motown singers were made in a converted
warehouse on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit.
330. Pat Benetar’s “You Better Run” was the second video ever aired on
MTV.
331. The famed Pony Express only lasted for 19 months before the
telegraph made it impractical.
332. Dennis Wilson was the only member of the Beach Boys who actually
knew how to surf.
333. At their closest point, Canada and Greenland are only sixteen miles
apart.
334. The Army of the Potomac was the first Union Army organized for the
American Civil War and would remain the primary Union Army in
the east.
335. The Purple Heart medal bears a profile of George Washington on its
obverse side.
336. Popular 1980’s Bud Light spokesdog Spuds MacKenzie was actually
a female named Honey Tree Evil Eye.
337. Pico de Orizaba is the highest volcanic mountain in North America
and the third-highest North American peak overall.
338. About one out of every two million lobsters is born blue.
339. The CBS game show The $64,000 Question first hit the air in 1955
gave away $1,000,000 in its first 17 months.
340. Woodrow Wilson was the first U.S. President to earn a PhD.
341. Former Laker Jerry West is the basketball player that appears on the
NBA logo.
342. It is actually the larva of moths that eat clothing.
343. The Spirit of Ecstasy is the name of the Rolls Royce hood ornament.
344.
345. Since 1930 there have been fewer than 10 left-handed catchers in
Major League Baseball.
346. The Cozy Dog Drive-In in Springfield, IL was the birthplace of the
corndog.
347. From 1958 to 1961 television westerns Gunsmoke and Wagon Train
were the number one and two rated shows in the U.S.
348. Germany, France, UK, and Italy all have 29 votes in the EU, the
current maximum number possible.
349. J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” were originally designed to help an
insomniac nobleman sleep.
350. In Monopoly the rent on utilities is 4 times the amount rolled if one is
owned or 10 times if both are owned.
351. Proof sheets are a system for displaying an entire roll of 35 mm film
to make it easier to choose photos for enlargement.
352. Nathan Pritikin, advocate of a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, was the
subject of the book The Man Who Healed America’s Heart.
353. Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jewish artillery officer in the late-19th
and early-20th centuries who was wrongly convicted as a spy for
Germany and ultimately exonerated in a scandal that echoed across
Europe.
354. The capacity of an adult human stomach is about a quart.
355. When Katie the Carrot was introduced to the Mr. Potato Head line of
toys in 1964, Mrs. Potato Head was temporarily discontinued.
356. There have been five different versions of Space Mountain since the
ride first opened at Walt Disney World in 1975.
357. The narrowest bone in the leg, the fibula, is Latin for “clasp.”
358. A kanabō was a type of heavy, knobbed war club used by samurai in
 feudal Japan.
359. The three Midwestern state capitals named for U.S. Presidents are
Lincoln, Jefferson City, and Madison.
360. During the English Civil War the Roundheads, members of the
Puritan religious group, closed the theaters.
361. For Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson became the first actress
to be nominated for both Best Actress and Best Screenplay in 1995.
362. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an agency of this
department Health and Human Services.
363. Nashville, Tennesee was named for General Francis Nash and
ancestor of 20th century poet Ogden Nash.
364. Astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer first conceived of the idea of a space
based telescope, which would ultimately result in the Hubble
Telescope, in 1946, 11 years before Sputnik was launched.
365. Josephine Cochrane was the inventor of the first commercially
successful dishwasher which she built in her shed, along with
mechanic George Butters, in 1886.
366. Angelo Siciliano became better known as Charles Atlas, and was
billed as “the world’s most perfectly developed man.”
367. Babe Didrikson Zaharias, who won two track and field gold medals at
the 1932 Summer Olympics and 10 LPGA major championships, was
the Associated Press’ female athlete of the year for 1932, 1945, 1946,
1947, 1950, and 1954.
368. The Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona completely surrounds the
reservation of another tribe, the Hopi.
369. Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie called life a “a long
lesson in humility.”
370. Better Homes and Gardens magazine was first launched in 1922 as
Fruit, Garden and Home.
371. The master gland of the body, the pituitary, is controlled by a small
 area at the base of the brain known as the hypothalamus.
372. The title character’s full name in The Wizard of Oz is Oscar Zoroaster
Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Digg.
373. Often misused, the Greek term “hoi polloi” mean the common people
or the masses.
374. Since it was unable to prevent the use of the word spam to refer to
unwanted email, Hormel began referring to its meat product in all
capital letters.
375. The unicorn is the national animal of Scotland.
376. Solar, lunar, equinoctial, and sidereal are all types of year in
astronomy.
377. The park bench that Tom Hanks sits on for much of Forrest Gump
was in Chippewa Square in Savannah, Georgia.
378. 18th century British agriculturalist Jethro Tull perfected the seed drill.
379. The Whitehouse Press Briefing Room is built over a swimming pool
constructed for FDR.
380. The Harlem Globetrotters was actually formed in Chicago in the
1920s, and didn’t play a game in Harlem until 1968.
381. The collective noun for a group of jellyfish is a smack.
382. In the 2003 movie Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, the
eponymous hero is seeking Pandora’s Box.
383. St. Louis, Missouri boasted the world’s first purpose built gas station
in 1905. Gasoline was originally sold by pharmacies and other
establishments as a side business.
384. A perambulator, or pram, was invented in 1733 by William Kent for
the children of the Duke of Devonshire.
385. The Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake Tabernacle, Salt Lake Assembly
Hall, and the Seagull Monument are all in the area known as Temple
Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.
386. The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in Japan is the longest suspension bridge
 in the world and contains enough cable to circle the globe 7 ½ times if
laid end-to-end.
387. William S. Gray and Zerna Sharp were the authors of the Dick and
Jane books which taught reading to schoolchildren throughout the
United States from the 1930s through the 1970s.
388. “In Flanders Fields” was a famous WWI memorial poem written by
Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.
389. The northernmost point of South America is Santa Catalina Island,
Colombia.
390. A modern airplane’s “black box” is actually colored bright orange to
make it easier to find among wreckage.
391. The first commercial telefax system between London and Paris began
11 years before the invention of the telephone.
392. Alicia Keys received five Grammy Awards for 2001 including Best
New Artist and Song of the Year for her hit “Fallin’”.
393. The Rocky Mountain Columbine is the state flower of Colorado
394. The tomb at the center of the Taj Mahal contains the remains of
Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan.
395. The shell of a cashew, which is actually a seed, is toxic and must be
removed for consumption.
396. On April 4, 1964 The Beatles held all of the top five spots on the
Billboard pop charts, a feat which has never been repeated.
397. 2012 was the first year in which 60 million passenger cars were
produced in the world, about 165,000 new cars every day.
398. Director Gore Verbinski who is known for directing the first three
Pirates of the Caribbean films as well as winning an Oscar for his
animated film Rango is the ninth highest grossing director of all time.
399. Washington state has the only state flag that includes the image of a
U.S. president.
400. The role of Rudy on The Cosby Show was originally intended to be
 for a boy.
401. The condor appears on the coats of arms of four South American
countries.
402. Teddy Roosevelt tried unsuccessfully to remove “In God We Trust”
from U.S. currency because, as a devout Christian, he felt putting God
on money was sacrilege.
403. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain all died at
the age of 27.
404. New York Tammany Hall machine politician William Magear Tweed
was better known by the name “Boss.”
405. Gossima was the original name of table tennis when it was introduced
in 1889.
406. The Chinese Manchu dynasty introduce the queue (or pigtail)
hairstyle for men in the 1600s as a sign of submission to the emperor.
407. Frequent James Bond antagonist organization SPECTRE stands for
SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and
Extortion.
408. The musical duo of Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley are better known
as The Righteous Brothers.
409. Spim is a name for unsolicited advertising sent of instant messaging.
410. In 1803, Ohio became the first state created out of the Northwest
Territory.
411. American businessman John Jacob Astor IV was the wealthiest
person to die during the sinking of the Titanic and among the
wealthiest men in the world at the time.
412. Americans consume in excess of 150 million hot dogs over the Fourth
of July holiday.
413. In the first shot of the opening credits of the 1960’s sitcom Gilligan’s
Island, the American flag over the harbor can be seen flying at half-
mast because of the recent assassination of JFK.
414. Forensic expert Dr. Kay Scarpetta has been the protagonist in 23
different mystery novels by Patricia Cornwell.
415. Columnist Herb Caen coined the term “beatnik” in 1958 to refer to
young people involved in the beat culture popularized by Jack
Kerouac.
416. Designed by Vincent Connare and inspired by comic book lettering,
the Comic Sans font was introduced by Microsoft in 1994.
417. Abbreviated Wb, a weber is a unit of magnetic flux.
418. Charles Lindbergh was Time Magazine’s very first Man of the Year in
1927.
419. Actress Betty White has received 21 nominations of Primetime
Emmy Awards starting in 1951 and has won 5.
420. In 1901 U.S. Surgeon General Walter Wyman helped establish a
hospital in Hawaii for leprosy.
421. The original Ferris Wheel was designed for the Chicago World’s Fair
in 1893 and could carry 2,160 people.
422. The Long John Silver’s chain of fast seafood restaurants started in
Lexington, KY in 1969 and now has more than 1,200 stores
worldwide.
423. Based on a Biblical story the Dance of the Seven Veils which Salome
does before King Harod first appeared in an 1891 Oscar Wilde play
and was later made famous in the Strauss opera Salome.
424. King James V was not yet two when he was crowned king of
Scotland at Stirling Castle in 1513.
425. Jerry Rice holds the NFL record for most career receiving yards at
22,895 with the next closest being Terrell Owens with 15,934 yards.
426. A heptagon is a plane figure of seven sides and seven angles.
427. The 1968 family musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was loosely
based on a children’s book by James Bond author Ian Fleming.
428. Canadian singer-songwriter Michael Bublé has sold more than 55
 million albums worldwide, but has had only one hit on the Billboard
Hot 100 in the U.S. with 2009’s “Haven’t Met You Yet.”
429. From Sanskrit, hatha literally means “force yoga.”
430. Creedence Clearwater Revival had seven songs reach #2 on the pop
charts but never had a #1 hit.
431. Nelson Rockefeller was elected Governor of New York four times
between 1958 and 1970.
432. The famed Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with took place in Tombstone,
Arizona Territory on October 26, 1881 lasted about 30 seconds.
433. From the Arabic for “old man”, a sheik is the head of a family, tribe,
or village.
434. The French call the game tiddlywinks jeu de puce meaning “the flea
game,” since the disks act like jumping fleas.
435. The “Big Four” film schools are USC and UCLA in Los Angeles and
NYU and Columbia in New York.
436. Francesco Scavullo was a fashion photographer who defined the
“Cosmo Girl,” shooting covers for three decades.
437. Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland is one of the world’s most active volcanos
with its last major eruption in 2010 disrupting air travel across
western and northern Europe.
438. Brooklyn Dodgers owner Charles Ebbets financed the construction of
Ebbets Field in 1912 by selling half of his shares in the team.
439. The U.S. graduate school system was largely modeled on that of
Germany.
440. The “ZIP” in ZIP code stands for Zone Improvement Plan.
441. Elvis Presley booked a month-long gig at the Grand Ole Opry in 1954
but was booted out after just one performance.
442. A drop is considered 1/60th of a teaspoon.
443. The word seltzer comes from the name of the small mineral springs
hamlet of Nieder-Selters, Germany.
444. Lord Hastings, a foe of Richard III, gained the distinction of being the
first person executed at the Tower of London.
445. A trillion used to mean a number with 12 zeros behind it in British
English, but the UK has more recently shifted to the American
definition of a number with 9 zeros following.
446. In astronomy magnitude refers to the apparent brightness of celestial
objects; the Moon has a magnitude of -12.6 and the sun -26.7.
447. Peter Gabriel had his last number one hit on the U.S. charts in 1986
with “Sledgehammer.”
448. Over 1,000 years old, the Danish monarchy is the oldest extant
monarchy in Europe.
449. The X in Xmas is actually the Greek letter “Chi,” an abbreviation of
the word Christ.
450. The phrase “See you next Wednesday” appears on most of director
John Landis’ films and even in the video for “Thriller” which he
directed. It was the title of a script he wrote as a teenager.
451. Daniel Webster tried a failed to be elected President of the United
States three times, and he turned down offers of the vice presidency
from both presidents Harrison and Taylor who died in office.
452. In 2016 a 22-year-old man was the first confirmed death from a spider
bite in Australia in 37 years.
453. Food chemist William Mitchell received 70 patents over the course of
his career and was the inventor of Cool Whip, Pop Rocks, and Tang.
454. Most famous for his painting “American Gothic,” artist Grant Wood
won a Crayola coloring contest as a child.
455. Based on gross imports, Canada is the number one source of foreign
oil for the United States.
456. The star-nosed mole has 22 pink appendages on its nose that it uses as
feelers.
457. Astronaut John Glenn served four terms as a senator from the state of
 Ohio, not seeking reelection only two years before his death.
458. The phrase “work in” means to alternate sets with someone else on
one piece of weight equipment.
459. In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Lamentations is a collection of five
poems about the fall of Jerusalem.
460. In ancient Greek myth Athena turned Arachne into a spider so that
she’d spend the rest of her life spinning.
461. Despite being nominated five times, Gandhi never won a Nobel Peace
Prize.
462. “White crane spreads wings” and “step back and repulse monkey” are
postures in the martial art tai chi.
463. Latino-American rock band Los Lobos had their only major chart hit
in 1987 when their cover of the song “La Bamba,” from the film of
the same name, reached the top of the pop charts in the U.S. as well
as seven other countries.
464. Native to central Africa, the giant otter shrew is the world’s largest
insectivore.
465. Oaxaca is a state in southern Mexico containing 53% of that nations
indigenous population.
466. Queen Elizabeth II was in Kenya in 1953 when she learned she had
become monarch.
467. “Deacon” was the Secret Service code name for President Jimmy
Carter.
468. The state of Alaska is bordered by the Canadian province of British
Columbia and the Yukon Territory.
469. A blind engineer by the name of Ralph Teetor was the inventor of
cruise control.
470. Before entering the NBA, basketball great Patrick Ewing lead
Georgetown to three NCAA finals and the 1984 championship.
471. In 1993 True Path Party leader Tansu Ciller became the first female
 prime minister of Turkey.
472. The only MLB players with more than 700 career home runs are Babe
Ruth, Hank Aaron, and the current home run champion Barry Bonds.
473. In 1328, in the Treaty of Northampton, the English recognized Robert
the Bruce as King of the Scots.
474. On the summit of Dunsinane Hill in Scotland are the remains of
Macbeth’s castle.
475. Roger Baldwin, director of the American Union Against Militarism,
transformed it into the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920.
476. During World War II, the Japanese repeatedly bombed the city of
Darwin on Australia’s northern coast.
477. An object that is of equal length across four dimensions is called a
tesseract.
478. Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck played the two titled characters in the
2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert
Ford.
479. Of all the lawyers in the world, two-thirds live and practice in the
United States.
480. The Artic gets its name from the Greek word “arctos” meaning bear
because its proximity to Ursa Major.
481. The first VCR was developed in 1956 but weighed 1,500 pounds, and
it would take another 15 years for a commercially viable model to be
developed.
482. Mr. Mushnik’s flower shop is the location in both the stage musical
and the film Little Shop of Horrors.
483. The term bantamweight for boxers between 112 and 118 pounds is
believed to have come from a town on the island of Java.
484. The African language group known as Bantu contains more than 500
languages including Zulu and Xhosa.
485. The name of the mythical female spirit the banshee comes from the
 old Irish for “woman of the fairy realm.”
486. Developed in Australia, the Sugarbaby and the Crimson Glow are
recent breeds of strawberry.
487. Ground was first broken for the construction of the Pentagon on
September 11, 1941.
488. By the time they’re a high school senior, a typical American has spent
17,000 hours of their life in school.
489. The 1917 Stanley Cup finals were the first to be played in the United
States and the first to be won by and American team, the Seattle
Metropolitans.
490. Bela Lugosi turned down the role of the monster in Frankenstein
before it went to little-known actor Brois Karloff.
491. Sammy “The Bull” Gravano was the star witness in the 1992 trial of
crime boss John Gotti.
492. The name of Paul Simon’s hit 1972 song “Mother and Child
Reunion” was inspired by an item on a Chinese restaurant menu.
493. The country of Namibia was known as South-West Africa from 1915
to 1990.
494. After having an argument with his son about the game Crazy 8s,
Merle Robbins invented UNO in 1971.
495. Liberty Island was known as Bedloe’s Island before the arrival of the
Statue of Liberty.
496. For his brilliant but minority Supreme Court opinions, John Marshall
Harlan became known as “The Great Dissenter.”
497. President Garfield’s assassin chose to use an in ivory handled gun
over a wooden one because he believed it would look better in a
museum exhibit.
498. In the U.S. Army, a Major General wears two stars.
499. The 1934 Shirley Temple movie Bright Eyes featured her iconic song
“On the Good Ship Lollipop.”
500. The letter “Q” is the only letter of the alphabet that does not appear in
the name of any U.S. state or territory.
501. Purlicue is the name of the gap between your thumb and index finger
as well as being the term for a curl or flourish in writing.
502. For six consecutive years starting in 1995, Fortune magazine called
Enron “The Most Innovative Company in Corporate America.”
503. In 1963 actor Peter Sellers became the first man to appear on the
cover of Playboy magazine.
504. In 1980 Super Bowl XIV was held in Pasadena’s Rose Bowl and
stands as the most highly attended Super Bowl in history.
505. Lemniscate is the name of the sideways 8 used to represent infinity.
506. Oregon is the only state with a different design on each side of its
flag.
507. In a speech in 1895, Booker T. Washington accepted the Atlanta
Compromise which would keep most segregation in place with the
understanding that African-Americans would receive free basic
education and due process under the law.
508. Bearskin is the name of the tall, fuzzy, black hats worn by the guards
at Buckingham Palace.
509. Lou Dobbs was the chief economic correspondent for CNN from its
launch in 1980, and worked for the network with the exclusion of one
year until 2009.
510. Cereal icon Cap’n Crunch commands the S.S. Guppy.
511. The Domesday Book was William the Conqueror’s census of 11th
century England.
512. States may determine the color of their own school buses, but most
have used National School Bus Chrome Yellow since it was
recommended at a 1939 national conference.
513. Unlike the honeybee, the bumblebee does not die when it stings and
may do so multiple times.
514. In 1950 Chuck Cooper became the first African American drafted by
an NBA team when he joined the Celtics.
515. The 1948 car known as the Tucker Torpedo and later the Tucker 48
introduced many cutting edge automotive concepts later widely
adopted by automobile manufacturers even though only 51 cars made
before the company collapsed.
516. About 30% of all animal species are beetles.
517. His name is not as well known, but Fred Noonan was the navigator
who disappeared along with Amelia Earhart in 1937.
518. Vietnamese revolutionary and diplomat Le Duc Tho engaged in secret
peace talks with Henry Kissinger between 1970 and 1973 to end the
Vietnam War, the success of which led to both being awarded a Nobel
Peace Prize.
519. Cerium is the most abundant of the rare earth minerals.
520. While Medusa is the most commonly known from Greek myth, her
sisters Stheno and Euryale were also gorgons.
521. In 1582 the man born Ugo Buoncompagni introduced the Gregorian
Calendar still in use today.
522. Mike Mansfield of Montana was a U.S. senator and the longest
serving Senate Majority Leader from 1961 to 1977.
523. After four nominations, Sean Penn took home the Beast Lead Actor
Oscar of 2004’s Mystic River.
524. Because of his uncanny skill at reading the stock market, Warren
Buffet earned the nickname “The Oracle of Omaha.”
525. Psychologist Carl Jung named the Electra complex after an ancient
Greek woman famous for her attachment to Agamemnon.
526. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Reservoir was created by Grand Coulee
Dam in Washington.
527. It’s thought that construction of Stonehenge started as early as 2900
B.C. on Salisbury Plain in southern England.
528. A controversial defense secretary under Kennedy and Johnson was
the subject of the Oscar-winning 2003 documentary The Fog of War:
Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.
529. Due to the efforts of Spokane, Washington resident Sonora Dodd,
Father’s Day was first celebrated there, on June 19, 1910.
530. Glam rocker Paul Gadd recorded the popular sporting event anthem
“Rock and Roll Part 2” under the name Gary Glitter.
531. Former heads of state Syngman Rhee of Korea and Ferdinand Marcos
of the Philippines both had to find asylum in Hawaii after fleeting
their home countries.
532. In a dark room, a stop bath is used to arrest the action of the
developer.
533. Little Green Men became a popular newspaper description of aliens
associated with flying saucer sightings in the 1950s.
534. Among the many flying records of billionaire Howard Hughes was a
flight around the world in 3 days, 19 hours, 14 minutes.
535. In 1725 Peter the Great sent Danish explorer Vitus Bering to explore
the Pacific coast.
536. Serving from 1982 to 1998, Helmut Kohl was the longest-serving
democratically elected Chancellor of Germany.
537. B-612 is the asteroid the title character is from in The Little Prince.
538. Lady Flash was a group formed by a trio of backup singers for Barry
Manilow who had their own chart hit in 1976 when the song “Street
Singin’” reached #27.
539. Shakespeare characters Romeo and Juliet appear as letter codes in the
NATO phonetic alphabet.
540. The 1952 Charlie Chaplin film Limelight won an Oscar for Best
Dramatic Score 21 years later since it was never released in Los
Angeles until then.
541. Cadbury produces more than 300 million Crème Eggs every year.
542. There is more copper in the U.S. nickel than in a penny.
543. Armsaye is the name of the hole in your shirt that your arm goes
through.
544. The first recorded automobile accident in the United States took place
1896 when a car struck a bicyclist in New York.
545. Just weeks after leaving office, Teddy Roosevelt and his son Kermit
left on a year-long African hunting expedition.
546. All modern powered vacuum cleaners are based on designs developed
by British engineer Hubert Cecil Booth.
547. The highest scoring game in college football history was in 1916
when Georgia Tech (coached by John Heisman) defeated Cumberland
College 222-0.
548. Anne Boleyn was beheaded with a sword rather than an axe.
549. Spanish-language network Univision started in 1962 as SIN (Spanish
International Network).
550. The shaggy haircut of Chekov in the original Star Trek series was
reportedly modeled after Monkees singer Davy Jones in an effort to
attract younger viewers.
551. A runaway sheep in New Zealand named Shrek was missing for six
years and had to have 60 pounds of wool sheared off him when he
was finally tracked down in 2004.
552. The Margherita pizza was created in 1889 to honor the Queen consort
of Italy, Margherita of Savoy.
553. Covering 2.32 sq mi and containing over 5 million remains, Wadi Al-
Salaam (Valley of Peace) cemetery in Najaf, Iraq is the largest
cemetery in the world.
554. James Munroe was almost the second president to be elected
unanimously, however one elector voted for John Quincy Adams to
reserve that honor for George Washington.
555. In the year 1958 the United States Senate was made up of 96
 members.
556. Seedless varieties of Ribier and Thompson are among the best-selling
types of grapes.
557. Boudica was a British Celtic queen who led an uprising against
occupying Roman forces around 60 A.D.
558. The position of First Lady of the United States does not need to be
filled by a president’s wife and may be assumed by his daughter,
niece, or sister instead.
559. Moving Buddies and Made in Taiwan were alternative titles
considered for the animated feature Toy Story.
560. A symbol of fertility in mythology, the pomegranate been called
“Nature’s most labor-intensive fruit.”
561. An American seal hunter named John Davis is believed to be the first
person to set foot on Antarctica.
562. In a 2003 CNN poll, former First Lady Hillary Clinton was voted
“The Most Admired Woman in America.”
563. Related to Old Norse, Islenska is the official language of Iceland.
564. Roger Maris held the record for most home runs in a season from
1961 until 1998.
565. The absolute limit to the height of a tree is around 130 meters as it is
impossible for them to get water any higher.
566. With temperatures as low as -94 F., Oymyakon in Siberia is the
coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth.
567. In 1968 she reached the Billboard Top 10 for the first and only time
with “Both Sides Now,” a song written by Joni Mitchell.
568. After retiring from medicine in 1840, Peter Roget began work on his
thesaurus in London.
569. The first national census in the United States was held in 1790 and
revealed a population of nearly 4 million.
570. In music, a hemidemisemiquaver is also known as a 64th note.
571. Its Latin name, Helvetia, appears on the coins and stamps of
Switzerland.
572. The Gulf of Finland, which freezes over for several months during
winter, is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea.
573. First designed as a surgical disinfectant, Listerine was available to
dentists in 1895 and became available over the counter in 1914.
574. There are more than 119,000 public libraries of some sort in the U.S.
575. A lavish gadget-laden railroad car called the “Nimrod” transported the
heroes in the 1960’s TV series The Wild Wild West.
576. The state of Vermont has the lowest rate of violent crime in the U.S.
at just over 99 incidents per 100,000 population.
577. In 1965 a Senate subcommittee predicted that by the year 2000 the
average American would be working 20 hours/week and taking seven
weeks of vacation every year.
578. Narrator Boris Karloff does not sing “You’re a Mean One, Mr.
Grinch” in the 1966 animated classic How the Grinch Stole
Christmas, but rather it is sung by the original voice of Tony the
Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft.
579. Hector Boiardi was a gourmet chef at the Plaza Hotel in NYC and
now graces the cans of Chef Boyardee products.
580. Fiordland, Tongariro, and Abel Tasman are among New Zealand’s
most popular national parks.
581. Who Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in
1963, doctors gave him a life expectancy of two years.
582. South America’s largest known petroleum deposits lie in Venezuela’s
Maracaibo Basin.
583. Barbie’s younger sister Skipper was introduced by Mattel in 1964.
584. Tired of dealing with the storage problems they presented, Antoine
Gibus invented the spring-loaded collapsible top hat in 1840.
585. Most species of piranha eat plant matter and insects.
586. Walt Disney promised that “as long as there is imagination left in the
world” his theme park would never be completed.
587. The Rams were the first NFL team to decorate their helmets.
588. Elmo is the only non-human ever to testify before congress.
589. In 1918 the U.S. military revived the newspaper Stars & Stripes
which originated during the Civil War.
590. Annie Sullivan, Hellen Keller’s “Miracle Worker,” was inducted into
the Women’s Hall of Fame in 2003.
591. Ansel Adams first took an interest in photography during a family trip
to Yosemite in 1916.
592. Subatomic particles known as quarks are named for a word James
Joyce used in Finnegan’s Wake.
593. In 1917, Jeanette Rankin of Montana became the first female member
of the U.S. House of Representatives.
594. The final resting place of the Titanic is on the sea floor about 12,500
feet down where the pressure equals 380 atmospheres.
595. For the first time, the 2012 Summer Olympics in London started all
races with all-electronic starting pistols.
596. Fort Caroline is a memorial to France’s 16th century attempt to
establish a permanent colony in what is now Florida.
597. On March 3, 1918 the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ended the war between
Russia and the Central Powers and ceded the Baltic states to
Germany.
598. The name of Canada may come from a word meaning “collection of
huts.”
599. You can visit the home of Betsy Ross at 239 Arch Street in
Philadelphia.
600. The longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe is the Oresund
Bridge which connects Copenhagen, Denmark to the Swedish city of
Malmo.
601. The home furnishings store Pottery Barn was founded by two
brothers in 1949 in West Chelsea, New York.
602. Kate Chopin’s 1899 book The Awakening shocked critics with its
frank portrayal of women’s emotional lives.
603. Russians comprise the largest ethnic minority in Ukraine at about
17.3% of the population.
604. Great Britain has the third most Olympic medals in the world,
summer and winter games combined.
605. In 1969 surrealist Salvador Dali created a logo for a Spanish brand of
lollipops.
606. According to Aristotle, the Phrygian King Midas died of starvation.
607. Hb is the medical abbreviation for the oxygen carrying component of
blood, hemoglobin.
608. The Fab Five were five freshman University of Michigan basketball
players starting in 1991 considered by many to be the greatest class
ever recruited.
609. A Raisin the Sun was the first Broadway play written and directed by
African Americans.
610. Chiaroscuro is an Italian term in art meaning the balance of light and
shade.
611. The longest speech ever given at the UN was 4 hours 29 minutes
delivered by Fidel Castro in 1960.
612. Singer Mandy Moore provided the voice of Rapunzel for the 2010
Disney animated film Tangled.
613. As of 2015 more than 2 million people were still using AOL dial-up
service.
614. Elijah Bond patented the Ouija board in 1891.
615. The distance between the lowest and highest points in the continental
United States, Mount Whitney and Death Valley, is only 88 miles.
616. Wallis Simpson, for whom Edward VIII abdicated the British throne
 to marry, was Time Magazine’s first Woman of the Year in 1936.
617. Chocolaty drink Yoo-hoo was invented Natale Oliveri for his small
store in New Jersey in 1926.
618. Pier 21 National Historic Site is Canada’s equivalent of Ellis Island.
619. Held between 1962 and 1965, the 21st Ecumenical Council of the
Catholic Church was popularly called Vatican II.
620. The color of fire hydrant caps indicate to firefighters the amount of
water pressure they can expect from that hydrant.
621. The Canary Islands were named for their large population of wild
dogs (the Latin root of dog is canaria).
622. Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP is currently the best-selling
album of the 21st century with more than 32 million in worldwide
sales.
623. Placekicker Morten Andersen is the all-time career scoring champion
for the NFL with 2,544 points.
624. Men being clean shaven in the U.S. became popular after WWI
because returning soldiers were clean shaven so that gas masks would
fit properly.
625. Ostracism was a process in Classical Athens by which a vote could be
taken to banish a person who was becoming too powerful politically.
626. Pumbaa from The Lion King was the first Disney character to fart.
627. Steve Jobs’ high school GPA was 2.65.
628. Goats are immune to poison ivy and poison oak, and are therefore
sometimes used to control the spread of those plants.
629. 2015 was the first year in the company’s history that McDonald’s
closed more stores than it opened in the U.S.
630. Founded in 1827, the Boston Globe won Pulitzer Prizes for public
service in 1966, 1975, and 2003.
631. Tabbouleh is a Middle Eastern bulgur wheat salad.
632. C2H5OH is the formula for ethyl alcohol the intoxicant in most
 alcoholic beverages.
633. Phineas Gage was a 19th century American railroad worker who
survived and accident in which a large iron rod was driven through
his skull destroying most of his left frontal lobe and altering his
personality.
634. Koala’s have the lowest brain to body mass of any mammal.
635. Sophia Coppola got the part of Michael Corleone’s daughter in
Godfather III when Winona Ryder dropped out of the role.
636. George Washington Bush led several families to found a settlement in
what is now Washington state in 1846, making him one of the first
settlers of mixed African and European heritage.
637. Buddhist typically celebrate the days of Buddha’s birth, the day of his
death, and the day of his enlightenment.
638. A cave beneath a cliff in Cornwall, England is said to house the final
resting place of Merlin.
639. Debuting in 1999, the character SpongeBob SquarePants was created
by former marine biology educator Steve Hillenburg.
640. Bob Hope was born in England, moved to the United States at age 5,
and became a citizen at 17.
641. Mules are sterile because they have an odd number of chromosomes
and cannot produce viable gametes.
642. Before founding his famous food brand, Duncan Hines was a
travelling salesman who became one of the first people in the U.S. to
publish restaurant ratings.
643. Only three humans have ever died outside the Earth’s atmosphere;
they were all members of the Soyuz 11 mission who died in 1971.
644. Britt Reed was the secret identity of the superhero the Green Hornet.
645. The National Civil Rights Museum has an exhibit about the
enrollment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi in
1962.
646. Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon was the first female prime minister
elected anywhere in the world in 1960.
647. Part of a consumer rewards program, S&H started issuing their
popular green stamps in 1896.
648. Before becoming an advisor to President Bush, Condoleezza Rice
served 6 years as provost of Stanford University.
649. For decades the Green Line was the buffer zone between the Greek
and Turkish forces on the island of Cyprus.
650. The Scottish surname prefix Mac means “son of.”
651. One of the tiles in the first word put on a Scrabble board must cover
the square with a star on it.
652. Cirque du Soleil began with street performers on stilts in Bay St.
Paul, Quebec.
653. The daughter of a Duke or Earl traditionally puts the word Lady
before her name.
654. The theme song for the US television series The Office was
performed by The Scrantones.
655. Archimedes’ quote “Give me a firm spot on which to stand, and I will
move the Earth” referred to the simple machine the lever.
656. From the Latin for “tie,” ligature are the type of sutures used on blood
vessels.
657. In soul food, chitlins are term for a hog’s innards, popularly fried or
boiled.
658. Founded in Trenton, New Jersey in 1889, Lennox is now the only
major manufacturer of bone China in the U.S.
659. The phrase “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance under
the Eisenhower administration to distinguish the U.S. from the
“godless communists.”
660. Weighing more than 35,000 pounds, the Compton Gamma Ray
Observatory was the heaviest satellite ever launched.
661. Dr. Herman Tarnower originally published his Scarsdale Diet in 1978,
and the book received an unexpected boost two years later when he
was murdered by a jilted lover.
662. In 1835 Zachary Taylor’s daughter Sarah married Jefferson Davis, the
future President of the Confederacy.
663. Characterized by good flavor, extra virgin olive oil has and acid level
of less than one percent.
664. Belize is the only country in Latin America with a national anthem
sung in English.
665. From the Italian for “more than usual wandering”, an extravaganza is
a lavish entertainment or a spectacular display.
666. The first person to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge was a professional
high diver who died on impact with the water.
667. The Jim Beam whiskey brand is now owned and produced by the
Japanese company Beam Suntory.
668. The poke bonnet which was a popular women’s fashion accessory in
the 19th century steadily gained a longer brim until a woman’s face
could only be seen directly from the front.
669. The first independent credit card company was Diners Club which
started in New York City in 1950 and initially included 14 restaurants.
670. Depending on equipment and Sherpas, the cost of climbing Mt.
Everest is between $60,000 and $120,000.
671. On November 18, 1913, Lincoln Beachy did the first loop-de-loop in
an airplane.
672. Nebraska is the only U.S. state with a unicameral legislature.
673. The tail of a comet always points away from the sun
674. A mill is one-tenth of a cent.
675. The steamship S.S. Great Britain was the first iron steamer to cross
the Atlantic in 1845.
676. Gavdos, an islet administratively part of Crete, is Europe’s
 southernmost point.
677. Mt. Saint Helens lost over 1,200 feet in height after its 1980 eruption.
678. The band Queen had their first U.S. chart-topper in 1979 with the
song “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
679. Pinckney’s Treaty of 1795 ended disputes between the U.S. and Spain
over Florida’s borders and access to the mouth of the Mississippi.
680. Stretching across the Northwest Territories, the Mackenzie River is
the longest river in Canada.
681. St. Croix, largest island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, was earlier owned
by the Dutch, English, Spanish, French, and Danes., who
682. Tricolore is a nickname often applied to the flag of France.
683. In 1884, the year of his death, Alan Pinkerton published the memoir
30 Years a Detective.
684. In 2010 Evan Lysacek became the first American to win the men’s
figure skating gold medal since Brian Boitano in 1988.
685. Madeline Albright became the first female Secretary of State in 1997.
686. Bill Rosenberg opened the first Dunkin’ Donuts in 1950 in Quincy,
Massachusetts.
687. While the term didn’t come into common use until the 1950s, the
Institute for Defence and Security Studies 1831 in London is arguably
the world’s oldest think tank.
688. William “The Refrigerator” Perry has the largest Super Bowl ring size
(25) in the history of the NFL.
689. One of James Madison’s two failed Constitutional amendment’s (10
of 12 of which were passed) forbade Congress from giving itself a
pay raise during its current session.
690. Professional pool player Rudolf Wanderone who adopted the
nickname “Minnesota Fats” was actually from New York but took the
name from the 1961 film The Hustler.
691. Whiskey is clear when distilled and gains its characteristic color from
 the oak barrels it’s aged in.
692. Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, was Time’s Person of the
Year for 1999.
693. Elba, famous site of Napoleon’s exile, is the largest island in Italy’s
Tuscan Archipeligo.
694. The successor of Charlemagne as king of the Franks Louis I was the
first of 18 French kings with his name.
695. For much of its early history, Hoover Dam was called Boulder Dam,
from a canyon where it was once going to be built.
696. A British lawyer known as a solicitor does not argue high court cases
but rather must hire a barrister to do so.
697. Avoirdupois is a French measuring system based on 16 ounces in a
pound, the name coming from Old French for “goods of weight.”
698. Jon Hornbuckle has the largest lifelist for birdwatching with 9,414
distinct species spotted.
699. Sulfuric acid is the most produced chemical in the United States.
700. In 1901 a California law abolished homework for grades 1 through 8.
701. Nicknames of the Dalmatian include the spotted dick and the plum
pudding dog.
702. Launched in 1922 Thom McAn shoe stores became the largest retail
shoe chain in the U.S. by the 1960s, but would begin declining in the
1980s with the rise of sneakers as the casual shoe of choice.
703. Herbert Hoover’s vice president Charles Curtis was Native American
on his mother’s side making him the highest ranking Native American
ever in U.S. government.
704. In January of 2016 there was a single winner of the $1.6 billion
Powerball jackpot, the largest lottery ever won.
705. In a cameo in the 1996 movie The First Wives Club, wealthy ex
Ivanka Trump advises “Don’t get mad, get everything.”
706. Introduced in 1975, the IBM 5100 was the first commercially
 available portable computer.
707. In Jewish folklore, before Eve, Adam was married to the she-demon
Lilith.
708. The first public kindergarten in the U.S. opened in 1873 in St. Louis,
MO.
709. Part of Time, Inc. Henry Luce founded Fortune magazine in 1929.
710. For his dying father, Welshman Dylan Thomas wrote the poem “Do
Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”
711. In 1902 former wild west peace officer Bat Masterson moved to New
York City and became a sportswriter for the Morning Telegraph.
712. Richard Nixon’s running mate in 1960, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had
lost his senate seat eight years earlier to John F. Kennedy.
713. With more than 376 days, biochemist Peggy Whitson has the most
time in space of any woman.
714. The Biography installment about Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was
subtitled “Bargain Billionaire.”
715. In the card game pinochle, an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and Ten of
trump is known as a royal sequence.
716. In 1992 President George H.W. Bush pardoned six Iran-Contra
figures, saying patriotism was their main motivation.
717. Ovine means pertaining to or resembling sheep.
718. When the first regular phone service was established in 1878, “Ahoy”
was the standard greeting rather than “Hello.”
719. Golfer Sam Snead has the most PGA wins of any professional player
at 82, just three ahead of Tiger Woods.
720. In April of 1939 Italy absorbed the country of Albania
721. The word for circumstances that lessen a punishment, mitigating,
comes from the Latin for “soft.
722. In 1987 John McCain was elected to the senate seat previously held
by conservative icon Barry Goldwater upon the latter’s retirement.
723. Prefab metal sheets used to print newspapers gave us the term
“boilerplate” for standard wording such as in contract.
724. What was long ago called Cush, part of Nubia, is modern day
Ethiopia.
725. In 2000 Marion Jones became the first female track and field athlete
to win medals in five different events at a single Olympics.
726. Hinda Miller and Lisa Lindahl sewed two athletic supporters together
to make the first sports bra
727. Regina is the capital of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
728. In the operetta “Thespis”, a troupe of actors takes over the duties on
Olympus so the gods can go on vacation.
729. In the 1240s David ap Llywelyn was the first to declare himself
Prince of Wales.
730. Built in 1970, the U.S. Steel Tower is the tallest building in
Pittsburgh, PA.
731. The surface shape of a mirror in a reflecting telescope is a parabola.
732. Tyson Foods, the second largest meat producer in the world, was
founded in Springdale, Arkansas in 1935.
733. At age 10, Michelle Wie became the youngest person ever to qualify
for the USGA amateur championship in 2000.
734. Patricius, the son of Calpurnius, a Roman nobleman, traveled to &
became the patron saint of Ireland.
735. Brunei and Oman are the two countries in the world that are
sultanates.
736. David McCullouch earned the 1978 National Book Award for History
for his Path Between the Seas about the creation of the Panama Canal
from 1870 to 1914.
737. Johnny Depp has played gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson in
both Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and The Rum Diary
(2011).
738. Average album length increased from 40 minutes in the LP ear to over
and hour in the era of CDs.
739. Horses are incapable of breathing through their mouths.
740. Vatnajökull is the largest glacier in Europe and covers in excess of
3,200 square miles of Iceland.
741. The Liberty Bell was actually cast in London, England.
742. In 1968 the nuclear submarine U.S.S. Scorpion sank and neither its
reactor nor the nuclear weapons aboard it have ever been recovered.
743. In 1981 Miss New York Deborah Ann Fountain became the first
person ever disqualified from the Miss U.S.A. pageant for the illegal
use of padding.
744. The tires for a Bugatti Veyron cost $42,000 a set and will last for 15
minutes at top speed.
745. Ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary is the highest rank of
diplomat.
746. Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, orbited the Earth 48
times in 1963.
747. American industrialist Elisha Otis invented the safety devices that
keep elevators from falling if the cable fails in the 1850s.
748. HAZMAT teams are specially trained and equipped to handle
hazardous materials such as chemical, nuclear, corrosive, radioactive,
or explosive.
749. The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution changed the date of
the presidential inauguration to January 20th in 1933.
750. By 1946, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh had catalogued over 29,000
galaxies, almost 4,000 asteroids, and one new planet, Pluto.
751. At 563.35 carats the world’s largest star sapphire, the Star of India,
was actually discovered in Sri Lanka.
752. The only father-daughter collaboration ever to hit the top of the
Billboard pop charts was “Something Stupid” in 1967 by Frank and
 Nancy Sinatra.
753. The glue used on Israeli postage stamps is kosher.
754. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway gained the nickname “The
Brickyard” when it was paved with 3.2 million bricks in 1909.
755. The newest U.S. cabinet-level department is the Department of
Homeland Security created in 2002.
756. The first touch tone telephone came into service in 1963.
757. The stars on more than 50 national flags have five points.
758. Gymnast George Nissen invented the first modern trampoline in
1936.
759. Built in 1807 and operating on the Hudson River, the North River
Steamboat was the first vessel to demonstrate the viability of steam
power for travel on water.
760. With more than 100 million copies sold in 37 languages, Guinness
World Records is the best-selling copyrighted book of all time.
761. The original theme song for the 1960’s TV sitcom Bewitched was a
version of the jingle for the shows sponsor, Chevrolet.
762. The glass panels on the Grand Canyon Skywalk are 2.5 inches thick
but can support up to 800 people.
763. New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Alaska, and Mississippi are the U.S.
states in which nuclear explosions have taken place.
764. U.S. consumption of poultry has doubled in the past 25 years from 18
to 36 million pounds per year.
765. The U.S. House of Representatives currently has 19 standing
committees and 3 permanent select committees.
766. The inventor of television, Philo Farnsworth, was reportedly inspired
to the idea of scanning parallel rows when watching a farmer plow a
field.
767. France had its last guillotine execution in 1977.
768. First developed by the Air Force to test ejection seats,
 Anthropomorphic Test Device is proper name for a crash test dummy.
769. The Norse colony in Greenland which began in 986 didn’t die out
until about 42 years before Columbus sailed.
770. Roberts Smalls was a slave who freed himself, his crew, and their
families from slavery by commandeering a Confederate ship in 1862
and taking it to the Union.
771. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were both born in Kentucky.
772. After Rama IV of Siam saw his flag with the elephant flown upside-
down, he switched to a striped flag.
773. In 1868 Christopher Sholes and two others patented the typewriter,
and in 1873 gunmaker Remington got the contract to market it.
774. Lake Victoria is the chief source of the Nile River.
775. According to Hindu myth, the sacred river Ganges emanated from the
toe of Vishnu.
776. Pluto has an orbital speed of only 2.9 miles per second.
777. 17th century German astronomer Kepler’s 1st law states that the
planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun.
778. The Bay of Fundy, noted for its high tides, separates New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia.
779. .kh is the internet country code for Cambodia.
780. Kiowa, Chiricahua, and Mescalero are major subgroups of the
Apache Native American tribe.
781. From the Latin for “delight,” a dilettante is someone who takes
delight in dabbling in the arts.
782. Charles Gates Dawes, the vice president under Calvin Coolidge, was
a songwriter who had a hit that topped the pop charts in 1951 with
“Melody in A Major.”
783. In the United States the budget for Nuclear Weapons falls under the
Department of Energy rather than the Department of Defense.
784. SeaWorld began as a plan to open an ocean-themed restaurant with a
 marine show in the 1960s.
785. In 1812 Spencer Perceval became the only British Prime Minister
ever to be assassinated.
786. Prominent proponent of Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism
Marcus Garvey was deported to his birth country of Jamaica from the
United States in 1927.
787. When Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase designed the original one-
dollar bill in 1862, he put his own picture on it.
788. The Straight of Messina separates Italy from the island of Sicily.
789. North Dakota is the only U.S. state that does not require voter
registration.
790. Exempli gratia, abbreviated e.g. in English, means “for example.”
791. Now home to more the 1.4 million people, Munich, Germany began
as a settlement of Benedictine monks.
792. In 1966 Alameda County, California was the first place in the U.S. to
use community service as an alternative form of punishment
(originally for female traffic offenders).
793. The genetic mutations that makes someone a redhead also makes
them more resistant to anesthesia.
794. Introduced in 1961, the name of PAM cooking spray stands for
Product of Arthur Meyerhoff.
795. Venetian gondoliers are famous for singing boat songs known as
barcarolle.
796. Both of Baltimore’s major league sports teams have bird nicknames,
both relocated from other cities, and both used to be nicknamed the
Browns.
797. The term “drag” in reference to cross-dressing started in the theater in
reference to men wearing dresses where the hem would drag along
the ground, and first appeared in dictionaries in the 1870s.
798. The temperature on the Celsius scale is 273.15 degrees lower than the
 temperature on the Kelvin scale.
799. In 1593 Queen Elizabeth I changed the length of a mile from 5,000
feet to the current 5,280 feet.
800. More than 2,600 record stores closed in the United States between
2005 and 2009.
801. Julia-Louis Dreyfus holds the record for most Emmy Awards for Lead
Actress in a Comedy with six as well as the record for most such wins
in a row with five.
802. Hanging food between trees to keep it from a certain animal is called
bear bagging.
803. In 1990 Colorado voters legalized a limited form of gambling in
Black Hawk, Central City, and Cripple Creek.
804. In common practice electrical power is billed in terms of kilowatt-
hour which is equal to 3.6 million joules.
805. Former Soviet republic Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life
Saparmurat Niyazov from 1985 when he became head of that nation’s
Communist Party until his death in 2006.
806. British inventor Matthew Piers Watt Boulton patented the hinged
airplane wing flight control surface known as the aileron in 1868.
807. In 1991 three of the five Oscar Nominated songs were from Beauty
and the Beast.
808. The first call to a commercially sold pager was in 1950 to a doctor
who was golfing.
809. In 1654 Otto von Guericke of Germany publicly demonstrated the
power of a vacuum by having two horses attempt to pull apart the
halves a sphere sealed by one.
810. Thirty-two different countries in Africa gained their independence in
the 1960s.
811. East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, South Vietnam, and the
USSR are all countries that only existed in the 20th century.
812. The Sumerians believed the constellation we call Aquarius
represented their sky-god, An, pouring waters of immortality upon the
Earth.
813. Mitsubishi Electric was the first company to deploy large scale video
screens for sporting events, now known as jumbotrons, with the first
being at the 1980 Baseball All-Star Game.
814. Hydrox cookies were introduced in 1908 four years before Oreos.
815. Second Sex author Simone de Beauvoir taught philosophy for 12
years before writing her first novel.
816. High School Musical and High School Musical 2 had the best-selling
albums for the years 2006 and 2007.
817. North-East Greenland Park is the largest park in the world covering in
excess of 375,000 square miles or about twice the size of California.
818. Of the eight main Hawaiian Islands, only the smallest Kahoolawe is
not inhabited.
819. Samuel Sewall was the only judge who publicly admitted his guilt
after the Salem Witch Trials.
820. Henry Schoolcraft is often remembered for his successful 1832
expedition to find the source of the Mississippi River.
821. “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life” is the
subtitle of Darwin’s 1859 work On the Origin of Species.
822. George Eyser won six medals in one day, including three gold, at the
1904 Summer Olympics in spite of the fact that one of his legs was a
wooden prosthesis.
823. In 1960’s London, Carnaby Street became a center of independent
fashion around the mod and hippie styles.
824. Zebulon Pike, after which Pike’s Peak is named, was accused of
scouting the west for vice president Aaron Burr who wanted to rule
the area.
825. First airing in 1956, The Price is Right is television’s longest-running
 game show.
826. Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus was the first to use the Mars and
Venus symbols to represent male and female.
827. While working for DuPont, Stephanie Kwolek invented the material
that came to be known as Kevlar in 1964.
828. Birmingham in the second most populous city in England.
829. Ratings of sitcom The Bing Bang Theory grew from an average of 8.3
million viewers in its first season to nearly 20 million viewers in its
seventh.
830. Saudi Arabia is connected to this island nation of Bahrain by the King
Fahd Causeway.
831. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD), American workers have the 16th longest
average work week in the world with Mexicans having the longest at
42.58 hours.
832. Harrison Ford is the highest grossing actor of all time having starred
in films grossing in excess of $4.9 billion.
833. Phil Jackson has the most championships of any coach in the NBA at
11; six with the Chicago Bulls and five with the Los Angeles Lakers.
834. Time, Inc. successfully spun off InStyle magazine from People in
1994.
835. The term Left Bank to refer to the south bank of the River Seine in
Paris dates to a time of philosophers and artists of the artistic
community at Montparnasse particularly in the 1920s.
836. The state capitals of Bismarck, North Dakota, Pierre, South Dakota,
and Jefferson City, Missouri all lie along the Missouri River.
837. Low-fare airline JetBlue began passenger service in 2000 with flights
between JFK and Fort Lauderdale.
838. Codeine and morphine are both made from opium, which is obtained
from a species of poppy.
839. Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese colonial empire in 1808
when its ruler fled Portugal during invasion by Napoleon.
840. Phil Donahue won Daytime Emmy Awards for his talk show The Phil
Donahue Show in 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986,
and 1988.
841. In 2002, National Geographic finally tracked down and ID’ed Afghan
refugee Sharbat Gula as the subject of its most famous cover from
1985.
842. Aeroflot is the flagship and largest passenger airline of the Russian
Federation.
843. With 11 ½ years in the position, Margaret Thatcher was the longest-
serving British Prime Minister since the early-19th century and the
longest to be referred to as PM.
844. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Union recalled all stamps it had
issued to prevent the Confederacy from using those seized from
federal post offices they had taken over.
845. Richard Bach’s Jonathon Livingston Seagull was the top-selling
fiction book of 1972 and 1973.
846. There are currently eight former Spanish colonies that use the peso
including Mexico, Argentina, and the Philippines.
847. Italy is the country that has won the most Oscars for Best Foreign
Language Film with 14.
848. The Ancient Romans built Hadrian’s Wall across Britain from the
mouth of the Tyne River to Solway Firth.
849. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 added the Explosives to the
name of the ATF as well as shifting the agency from the Department
of Treasury to the Department of Justice.
850. The Latin phrase libra pondo was used in ancient Rome to indicate
weight, which is why the abbreviation for pound is lb.
851. Elvis Presley was naturally a dirty blonde but dyed his hair in 1957 to
 emulate his screen idol Tony Curtis.
852. In 1759 St. James Gate Brewery was leased to Arthur Guinness for
9,000 years at 45 pounds per year.
853. An earthquake along the New Madrid fault on December 16, 1811
caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards.
854. An official men’s shot put weighs just over 16 pounds and a women’s
weighs 8.8 pounds.
855. Some species of possum have a gestation period of less than two
weeks.
856. Equatorial Guinea does not lie on the Equator.
857. “Luge” has the distinction of being the shortest winning word at the
National Spelling Bee.
858. Maryland gained the nickname “The Old Line State” from its soldiers
during the Revolutionary War to whom General Washington referred
to as “The Old Line.”
859. With 18,112, Thrissur, Kerala, India holds the record for the world’s
largest gathering of Santa Clauses.
860. Near Corbin, Kentucky, Cumberland Falls is sometimes referred to as
the “Niagara of the South.”
861. The 2003 California gubernatorial recall election which elected actor
Arnold Schwarzenegger included on the ballot former child star Gary
Coleman and porn actress Mary Carey.
862. Before settling on Cornhuskers, the University of Nebraska had
previously been known as the Antelopes and the Bugeaters.
863. In August of 1934 FDR was made an honorary member of the
Blackfoot tribe and given the name “Lone Chief.”
864. Brown University is Rhode Island’s only ivy league school.
865. Georgia O’Keeffe called her New Mexico home, where she spent the
last half century of her life, Ghost Ranch.
866. The first Baseball All-Star Game was held as part of the 1933
 Chicago World’s Fair.
867. Morocco became the first nation to seek diplomatic relations with the
United States in 1777.
868. “A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not
sufficient” was the quote inscribed on the tomb of Alexander the
Great.
869. Denver was initially awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics, but the
city’s voters turned the offer down.
870. While most of General Stonewall Jackson is buried in Lexington,
Virginia, his left arm is buried at the battle site of Chancellorsville in
Fredericksburg, Virginia.
871. The Cincinnati Red Stockings was the first baseball team to pay its
players.
872. John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States, had the most
children of any POTUS with 15.
873. General George S. Patton to fifth place in the pentathlon at the 1912
Summer Olympics.
874. The View-Master was introduced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair
with the main subjects available for viewing being the Grand Canyon
and Carlsbad Caverns.
875. Agent Orange was named for a single color strip on the canisters of
the herbicide.
876. Between 1930 and 1972 only 120 roller coasters were built in the
United States while more than 1,500 were destroyed.
877. Sebastian Shaw was the revealed face of Darth Vader at the end of
1983’s Return of the Jedi.
878. Walt Disney’s famous signature was not his own but rather an
invention of his art department.
879. A ferrule is the metal band that joins a pencil and eraser.
880. Because Mt. Everest is growing, to reach the summit today you would
 have to climb 27 inches further than Sir Edmund Hilary did in 1953.
881. The Chicago River used to flow into Lake Michigan but the Army
Corp of Engineers reversed its flow for sanitation purposes.
882. Maine is the only U.S. state that borders only one other state.
883. A pendentive is a curved support shaped like an inverted triangle that
holds up a domed roof.
884. The King, the Wizard, and Sir Rodney the Chicken-Hearted are
among the main characters in the comic strip The Wizard of Id
created by Brant Parker and Johnny Hart in 1964.
885. Barack Obama was the seventh U.S. President with a degree from
Harvard (John Adams was the first).
886. In 1974 People magazine’s first African-American cover subject was
actress Cicely Tyson who played Miss Jane Pittman.
887. From the Latin for “middle”, the mezzanine is the lowest balcony in a
theater.
888. In 1675 Jules Hardouin-Mansart became architect to King Louis XIV
and began redesigning the Palace of Versailles.
889. Roan is a term for a horse with a reddish coat sprinkled with white.
890. 19th century sci-fi writer Jules Verne foretold the artificial satellite in
his story “The Begum’s Fortune.”
891. There are 160 visible stars in the constellation Andromeda.
892. 1897 was the year of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.
893. The Hindi word for “tea”, in the U.S. chai refers to a blend of tea,
spices, and milk.
894. The last time two sisters were up against each other for an Oscar was
1967 when Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave were both nominated for Best
Actress.
895. Babette March was the first cover model for a Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue in 1964.
896. The Space Shuttle program had 133 successful flights and 2 failures
 resulting in 14 fatalities.
897. The Tonkinese cat breed developed in the U.S. around 1930 and is a
cross between a Burmese and a Siamese.
898. The sweet potato belongs to the same botanical family as morning
glories.
899. NBC executives originally wanted Paul Giamatti for the role of
Michael Scott on The Office, but he wasn’t interested.
900. Cleaning products, pet food, and frozen foods are the top three areas
of coupon distribution.
901. In 1982 “Jack & Diane” became John Mellencamp’s first and only
song to top the Billboard Hot 100.
902. From the Latin for “healthy,” a sanitarium is a resort where patients
go to recuperate.
903. Jimmy Doolittle led 16 B-25s in a surprise air raid on Japan on April
18, 1942.
904. The Mall of America occupies the 78 acres of land where Met
Stadium, former home of the Minnesota Vikings and Twins, once
stood.
905. The 44-story Erastus Corning Tower in Albany, NY is the tallest
building in the state outside of Manhattan.
906. The Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain, Montana was the first place to
receive Gideon Bibles in 1908.
907. Wickets are the hoops that balls are driven through in a game of
croquette.
908. By law, French workers get at least 30 paid vacation days every year.
909. In the early-1900s Billboard magazine primarily covered outdoor
entertainment such as circuses, fairs, carnivals, vaudeville, and
burlesque shows.
910. There were only seven inmates in the Bastille when it was stormed on
July 14, 1789.
911. An average horse has a peak output of about 14.9 horsepower.
912. The Pentagon has 6.5 million square feet of floor space but was
constructed in such a way that no point in the building is more than a
seven-minute walk from any other point.
913. In the early days of the Boeing corporations they would have their
woodworkers make furniture when plane orders were slow.
914. It costs $30,000 to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and
some well-known A-listers don’t have one because they don’t want to
pay for it.
915. Water is the only substance that occurs naturally in all three forms of
matter.
916. At 16-years-old Martina Hingis became the youngest woman ever to
win a Grand Slam singles championship when she won the 1997
Australian Open.
917. The first skyjacking happened in 1931 above Peru when rebel soldiers
force a pilot to fly them over the city of Lima to drop propaganda
pamphlets.
918. China’s famed terracotta army guards the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi
Huang Di who died in 210 B.C.
919. In the 1903 decision in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock the Supreme Court
gave Congress power over Native American lands.
920. Harry S. Truman made the first presidential address telecast from the
Whitehouse.
921. Though Harlequin Books was founded in 1949, it didn’t concentrate
on romance books until 1964.
922. The Danish seaport of Elsinore is the setting for Shakespeare’s
Hamlet.
923. In 1971 the Super Bowl trophy was renamed for coach Vince
Lombardi who had died the previous year.
924. Harry Longbaugh was the real name of the Old West outlaw known as
 the Sundance Kid.
925. The USDA allows the term “wyngz” for wing-like chicken products
that contain no actual wing meat.
926. A favorite of Hemmingway, Harry’s New York Bar in Paris was the
birthplace of the Bloody Mary.
927. In the summer of 1586 British navigator Sir Francis Drake attacked
the Spanish fort at St. Augustine and razed it.
928. Clifton Keith Hillegass is the “Cliff” behind Cliff’s Notes. He started
his company in 1958 when he published 16 Shakespearian study
guides.
929. The gravestone of J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife Edith has the names
Beren and Luthien, the lovers from The Silmarillion, engraved on it.
930. “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” is the longest
official state name in the U.S.
931. Convocation is the collective noun for a group of eagles.
932. The 3 Musketeers Bar orginally came in three different pieces
flavored chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla.
933. The USA’s most-climbed mountain, Monadnock, is located in New
Hampshire.
934. British philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s term “ghost in the machine”
represented the idea that the mind is apart from the body yet controls.
935. The term “jaywalker” comes from the fact that “jay” used to be slang
for a foolish person.
936. The string on a box of animal crackers is there so it can be hung on a
Christmas tree.
937. Despite being one of the most popular musical artists of all time,
Elvis Presley only won three Grammy Awards during his lifetime all
for gospel performances.
938. “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System” was the original name
for a computer mouse.
939. Created in 1914, the Federal Trade Commission issues cease and
desist orders against firms engaging in unlawful practices.
940. In an unaired pilot for the 1980’s sitcom Perfect Strangers, Louie
Anderson was the original Cousin Larry.
941. Brenda Lee was 13 years old when she recorded “Rockin’ Around the
Christmas Tree” in 1964.
942. Former NYU running back Ed Smith was the model for the Heisman
Trophy when it was sculpted in 1934.
943. The name of PEZ is derived from the German word for peppermint,
PfeffErminZ.
944. The White House is a 132-room building on an 18-acre plot of land.
945. A genuphobic is afraid of knees.
946. Jack Nicholson is the male actor with the most Oscar nominations
with 12.
947. Strawberry Shortcake was a character created for greeting cards in
1979 by Muriel Fahrion that went on to widespread popularity in the
1980s with a line of toys and a series of cartoon specials.
948. The newspaper Roll Call was started in Washington D.C. in 1955 and
delivers most of its copies free to Congress and the White House.
949. Gin’s name comes from the Latin for juniper, which is used to flavor
it.
950. While Darrell Hammond became the Saturday Night Live cast
member most recognized for playing Bill Clinton, Chris Elliot, Tim
Meadows, and Phil Hartman also portrayed the president at various
times.
951. There are four colossal statues of pharaoh Ramses the Great (Ramses
II) carved out of a sandstone cliff at Abu Simbel, Egypt.
952. A polar bear can smell food as much as ten miles away.
953. Long-distance runner Uta Pippig became the first woman to win the
Boston Marathon three consecutive times in 1994, 1995, and 1996.
954. In 1876 “Wild” Bill Hickock was killed in the Dakota Territory
holding aces and eights, later known as a dead man’s hand.
955. Beginning an American tradition, in 1801 Aaron Burr’s daughter
Theodosia and her new husband honeymooned at Niagara Falls.
956. Advil, the “advanced medicine for pain,” was the first nonprescription
brand of ibuprofen in the U.S.
957. Elizabeth Dole, wife of former presidential candidate Bob Dole,
served as Secretary of Transportation under Reagan and Secretary of
Labor under
958. Rhode Island was the only one of the original 13 states not to send
delegates to the Constitutional Convention.
959. On Memorial Day in 1911 Ray Harroun became the first winner of
the Indianapolis 500.
960. The name of this transparent blue-green gem aquamarine comes from
the Latin for “sea water.”
961. The proper way to address bishops and foreign ambassadors is “your
excellency.”
962. Mattel announced the breakup of Ken and Barbie in 2004 only to
have them reunite seven years later.
963. In 2016 Tim Duncan became only the third player in NBA history to
win 1,000 games and the first to reach that mark with only one team
(San Antonio Spurs).
964. Maulana Karenga was the creator of the African-American cultural
celebration of Kwanzaa in 1966.
965. Clogging is the official state dance of both Kentucky and North
Carolina.
966. Established in 1867, Harper’s Bazaar was America’s first fashion
magazine.
967. Joseph Story became the youngest person ever appointed to the
Supreme Court of the United States at the age of 32 in 1812, a
 position in which he would serve for 32 years.
968. In its pure form, all of the gold ever mined in the world would make a
cube about 50 feet to a side.
969. With an average of 3.64 million people per day passing through it,
Shinjuku Station in Tokyo is the busiest passenger train station in the
world.
970. On January 4, 1995 Newt Gingrich was sworn in as the first
Republican speaker of the house in more than 40 years.
971. Comcast is America’s largest media conglomerate by revenue, largest
cable television provider, and largest home internet service provider.
972. In 1859 English settler Thomas Austin released 24 rabbits onto his
property in Australia, by the 1920s their number had increased to
around 10 billion.
973. Nineteenth century politician and orator Stephen Douglas was
nicknamed “The Little Giant.”
974. When it became independent in 1829, Greece was half its current
size.
975. Long-time 20/20 host Hugh Downs was the main sidekick to Jack
Parr when he hosted The Tonight Show in the late-50s and early-60s.
976. In 1981 Lean Cuisine became the first widely available lower fat
frozen dinners.
977. Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor in Germany’s
history in 2005.
978. British tabloid News of the World, which began publishing in 1843,
was shut down in 2011 following revelations of a phone hacking
scandal.
979. Vanna White has been turning/touching letters on Wheel of Fortune
since 1982.
980. Hubba Bubba bubblegum was introduced in 1979 by Wrigley as a
less-sticky gum that could more easily be peeled off of your face.
981. Wide receivers in the NFL must wear numbers 10 to 19 or 80 to 89.
982. Hawaii is the smallest U.S. state that was not part of the original 13
colonies.
983. From Latin, the name of the important bone the patella means “small
shallow dish.”
984. Portuguese professional footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has the highest
all-time career goals.
985. Montani Semper Liberi (Mountaineers are Always Free) is the state
motto of West Virginia.
986. Phosphenes are the lights you see when you close your eyes and press
your hands to them.
987. Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory controls many of the space
probes launched by NASA.
988. Until the 20th century, Great Britain led the world in the production
of coal.
989. New Jersey’s Palisades Park on the Hudson River features 500-foot
cliffs that rise from the water’s edge.
990. A flyleaf is a blank page on the inside of the front or back cover of a
book.
991. In 1620 the Speedwell was found unseaworthy so its passengers were
crowded aboard the Mayflower.
992. Althing is the name of Iceland’s parliament.
993. The great east Asian desert the Gobi is formed by a rain shadow
created by the Himalayan Mountains.
994. In 1868 New Zealand became the first country to adopt a standard
uniform time zone.
995. Hip-hop focused magazine Vibe was launched by Time, Inc. and
Quincy Jones in 1992 and ultimately folded during the recession of
2009.
996. A dressing table for men created in the late 1700s was named for
 British dandy Beau Brummell.
997. Released in 1984, Red Dawn was the first film to earn the rating PG-
13.
998. Switzerland is the country that consumes the most chocolate per
capita.
999. The sordid life of Queen Victoria’s grandson the Duke of Clarence led
some to believe he was the notorious killer Jack the Ripper.
1000. Actor Peter O’Toole set the record for the most Academy Award
nominations without a win when he reached eight, however he did
receive an honorary Oscar in 2003.
1001. Child of Uranus and Gaia, Oceanus was believed by the ancient
Greeks to be the personification of the water that surrounded the
world.
1002. In 1525 Cortez ordered Cuauhtemoc, the last emperor of the Aztecs,
to be hanged.
1003. The satirical website The Onion bills itself as “America’s Finest News
Source.”
1004. The copra is the dried flesh of a coconut from which oil is obtained.
1005. The 1977 execution of Gary Gilmore by firing squad was the first
U.S. use of capital punishment in 10 years.
1006. Launched in 1975 the 3 Series has become one of BMW’s longest-
running nameplates as well as one of the longest-running in
automotive history.
1007. Nebraskan, Kansan, Illinoian, and Wisconsin are the four known
North American ice ages.
1008. In 1868 Louis Lartet dug up the first skeletons of Cro-Magnons in a
cave in Les Eyzies in southwest France.
1009. Popular as an indoor houseplant, philodendron actually means “lover
of trees.”
1010. France has the only Grand Slam tennis event still held on clay.
1011. Most of the books in the ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt were
written in Greek.
1012. A Chicago park is named for Samuel Gompers the founder and
longtime president of the American Federation of Labor.
1013. A group of foxes is known as a skulk.
1014. John Madden won 112 games as coach of the Raiders and has won
more than a dozen Emmys for his football commentating.
1015. Sometimes called the worst film director of all time, Ed Wood died
penniless in 1978.
1016. Consisting of chunks of grilled lamb on skewers, souvlaki is the
Greek version of shish kebab.
1017. Marie Antoinette was among the 16 children of Holy Roman empress
and archduchess Maria Theresa.
1018. In 1913 at a plant in Highland Park, Michigan, a car from Henry
Ford’s company became the first produced on an assembly line.
1019. In the United States 99% of all asphalt is made from recycled
materials.
1020. On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 was the first manned space mission
to leave Earth’s orbit.
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Bill O’Neill