meunierd / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 661: Edgar Allen Poe married his first cousin, Virginia Clemm , when he was 26 and she 13. She died just 11 years later, inspiring some of his more famous poems, such as “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee”. A friend of Poe’s, Charles Burr, wrote, “Many times, after the death of his beloved wife, […]

Harmony Gerber / Shutterstock.com Chris Harvey / Shutterstock.com miker / Shutterstock.com Photo by flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com Text Version- Fact 651: “Here Comes Dots” is an anagram of “The Morse Code” Fact 652: The film “The Day After Tomorrow” could have been more succinctly titled “Overmorrow”, which is the English word for the day after tomorrow, first popping up in English […]

Mitch Gunn / Shutterstock.com Featureflash / Shutterstock.com Shirley Henderson- image source/ author- nicolas genin Featureflash / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 641: In the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the person who finished in fourth place in the women’s high jump was actually a man, German athlete Heinrich Ratjen. Two years later, he won a gold medal setting a new “women’s” world […]

Gisborne Airport –image source s_bukley / Shutterstock.com Bruce C. Murray / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 631: Hachikō was a dog who would greet his master Hidesaburō Ueno at the Shibuya Station every day for about a year when his master would come home from work at the University of Tokyo. Unfortunately, one day Ueno died while at work and didn’t […]

Text Version: Fact 621- If you have a butt load of wine, you possess about 126 gallons (477 liters) of wine (1 butt). This is also known as 1 pipe of wine. Fact 622-“Play it again, Sam” was never said in Casablanca. Furthermore, although many attribute the adapted version to Bogart, the closest thing to it comes from Bergman’s character, […]

Jordan Tan / Shutterstock.com MISHELLA / Shutterstock.com s_bukley / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 601: The “Red Bull” energy drink gets its name from the Thai energy drink that inspired Dietrich Mateschitz to create Red Bull, “Krating Daeng”, with “daeng” meaning “red”, and “krating” being a reddish-brown bovine. Fact 602: “Hack the System” blogger Maneesh Sethi once hired a woman for […]

lev radin / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 591: In 2005, a 22 year old man by the name of Ronald MacDonald robbed a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant (stealing the money in the store’s safe) where he worked at the time. Fact 592: Nearly 1/3 of the world’s socks (about 8 billion pairs per year) are made in the district of Datang […]

MISHELLA / Shutterstock.com Northfoto / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 556: A popular additive to many perfumes, Ambergris, comes from the intestines of sperm whales. When it’s fresh, not surprisingly, it smells like crap, but then later begins to smell sweet and “earthy”. Fact 557:Jumping Badger was the birth name of famed Indian chief Sitting Bull… His father’s name was Jumping […]

Kiev.Victor / Shutterstock.com Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com Featureflash / Shutterstock.com Frontpage / Shutterstock.com Joe Seer / Shutterstock.com fmua / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 536: “Seuss” in “Dr. Seuss” is actually pronounced “Zoice” (think “voice”). Theodor Geisel used the name in honor of his mother, whose maiden name was “Seuss”. As most Americans mispronounced the Bavarian name, Geisel eventually gave up […]

Joseph August / Shutterstock.com Martin Lehmann / Shutterstock.com SeanPavonePhoto / Shutterstock.com Mark Herreid / Shutterstock.com Text Version: Fact 516: George W. Bush was the head cheerleader at Phillips Academy boarding school during his senior year of high school. At the time, it was an all-male school. Fact 517: The “USA Patriot” in USA PATRIOT Act actually stands for something: Uniting […]

If you liked these, check out more free quick-facts here. You might also be interested in QI’s 1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off. Text Version: Fact 496: Nintendo’s name comes from the Japanese name “Nintendou”. Roughly translated “Nin” means “entrusted” and “ten-dou” means “heaven”, so basically “leave luck to heaven”. If this seems a strange name/slogan for Nintendo, […]

TechWizard / Shutterstock.com J. Henning Buchholz / Shutterstock.com SeanPavonePhoto / Shutterstock.com If you liked these, check out more free quick-facts here. You might also be interested in QI’s 1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off. Text Version: Fact 476: “School” comes from the Ancient Greek “skhole”, which meant “leisure or spare time”. Fact 477: A “tittle” is nothing dirty, […]

If you liked these, check out more free quick-facts here.  You might also be interested in QI’s 1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off. Text Version: Fact 449: While often used as the poster woman for “how things were different back in the day” with models and actresses, Marilyn Monroe’s body dimensions according to her tailor were 35 inch […]