Quick Fact 821: An Australian man, Don Ritchie, died in 2012 at the age of 86 from cancer. For the final 45 years of his life, he lived across the street from the most famous suicide spot in Australia, known as “The Gap,” an ocean cliff in eastern Sydney. During that time, Ritchie stopped at least 160 people (with the […]
Read more
We haven’t done a quick fact round-up in ages, so here you go. What follows is the Top 100 Quick Facts (as chosen by us) on TodayIFoundOut. f
Read more
811) 57 year old Remus “Sonny” Graham received the transplanted heart of a 33 year old man who had killed himself named Terry Cottle. Cottle’s wife, Cheryl, had recently decided to leave him. Her son, Timmy, stated she had said she couldn’t stand being married to someone who made less than herself. With Terry’s heart firmly beating in his chest, […]
Read more
801) Nick Offerman, better known as Ron Swanson from the Parks and Recreation TV series, is a professional boat builder and has a side business as a wood craftsman. In 2008, he even released an instructional DVD- “Fine Woodstrip Canoe Building with Nick Offerman,” offering instructions on how to make your own canoe. He stated in an interview with Wood […]
Read more
792: In 2011, a 17 year old Chinese man, Xiao Zheng, made headlines when he purchased an iPad and an iPhone. Why was this newsworthy? In order to be able to afford it, he sold one of his kidneys for 20,000 yuan or just a bit over £1,900 or about $3000. As he said, “I wanted to buy an iPad2, […]
Read more
782: At the young age of 15, Jim Carrey began working full time as a janitor to support his family who were living out of a VW van at the time after his father had lost his job. In their free time, Carrey’s father helped his son put together a comedy stage act… which ultimately bombed. Despite this, over the […]
Read more
Embed This Infographic [Source: Today I Found Out]
Read more
While just about everybody’s heard of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, there was a lesser known third co-founder of Apple, Ronald Wayne. Among other things, Wayne designed the first Apple logo. Unfortunately for him, starting such a business was a risk given that he’d be liable for any debt accrued by the company at the time. This was less of […]
Read more
Text Version: Quick Fact 761: “Soccer” was once a popular name for Football in Britain in the sport’s earliest days. When the rules for the sport were first being defined, it was named “Association Football” to distinguish it from the other forms of football commonly played. Within a year of its inception, this got slurred down to “Assoccer,” after the […]
Read more
It’s been about a year since we did our last “Top Quick Facts” post here on TodayIFoundOut, so here are 55 of our favorites from all the quick facts we’ve posted since last summer. (And if you’re interested, here’s last summer’s top quick fact list).
Read more
Bonus Fact From the Archives: Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double through the first six Harry Potter films, David Holmes, was paralyzed from the waist down during the sixth film while practicing a flying scene that included an explosion. The actress who played Moaning Myrtle, Shirley Henderson, was 37 years old at the time Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was […]
Read more
Image via Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com Image via s_bukley / Shutterstock.com 741: Golden Globe winner Richard Harris, today perhaps best known for his role as Albus Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films before his death preceding the release of The Chamber of Secrets, wasn’t just an extremely accomplished actor, but also a successful musician. He even had a […]
Read more
Image via Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com Image via catwalker / Shutterstock.com Image via s_bukley / Shutterstock.com 731: In 1799, a young boy named Conrad Reed found a 17-pound “rock” while playing at a creek on his family farm in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. He and his family kept it as a doorstop for three years. His father, John Reed, impressed […]
Read more
(Image credit: NASA/ESA) Image via Featureflash / Shutterstock.com 721: The “Hercules beetle” lives in the rainforests of Central and South America and is known for being able to lift more than 850 times its own weight, or about 8 kilograms (17.6 lbs). Pound for pound, this makes it one of the strongest animals on the planet. For reference, if a […]
Read more
Image via: Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com 711: According to Mike Tyson, his ex-wife Robin Givens was sleeping with Brad Pitt when Tyson and she were still married. Tyson stated in an interview about the specific incident, “I was getting a divorce. I was going to my lawyer’s office to divorce her that day but I wanted to sneak in…This particular […]
Read more
701) Love that “new car smell”? You may be smelling beaver butt secretions, which you’ve also probably at one point or another eaten. Secretions from beavers’ castor sacks located next to their anal glands have a musky/vanilla scent. This substance, called castoreum, is commonly used in various perfumes, in some cases used to create the “new car smell,” and used […]
Read more
lev radin / Shutterstock.com Featureflash / Shutterstock.com Image via @SirPatStew 1. According to the Florentine Codex, among other sources, it is believed that the Ancient Aztecs were clean freaks, particularly compared to Europeans at the time. The Aztecs would bathe regularly (sometimes even twice per day, according to conquistador Andres de Tapia who claimed Montezuma did this), used deodorants, soap […]
Read more
Jon Le-Bon / Shutterstock.com Featureflash / Shutterstock.com carrie-nelson / Shutterstock.com meunierd / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact #681: There’s an urban legend that states that Coca-Cola was originally green in color. In fact, the original formula for Coca-Cola was also brown like it is today. The whole “Coca-Cola was green” myth started around the same time Coca-Cola was commonly sold in green […]
Read more