Interesting Facts - Page 217

1081
The Antonov An-225 Mriya was the heaviest airplane ever built. Only one was ever made. It was destroyed in 2022 during the Ukraine War.
1082
The ancient Greeks dug up bones which they believed belonged to ancient heroes and giants. It is now theorized that these bones were the fossils of giant prehistoric creatures.
1083
The Pokemon episode "Electric Soldier Porygon" aired only once and caused about 600 children to be hospitalized due to rapidly flashing light sequences that triggered epileptic seizures.
1084
Anthony Hopkins was only on screen for about 16 minutes in "The Silence of the Lambs". As a percentage of the length of the movie, this is the least an actor has ever been on screen and still won an Oscar for Best Actor.
1085
Kearney, Nebraska was originally spelled "Kearny." But the post office kept misspelling it as "Kearney" so eventually they just rolled with it.
30 Comments
+2
Level ∞
Apr 27, 2025
Source for #1082: @lefineder on X.

Credit @GeoPhilia for 1083.

Credit @TigerPl for 1084.

Credit @UnrequitedLove for 1085.

+3
Level 68
Apr 27, 2025
nnnnnnnnnnnew Facts!!!!

Thanks again QM

+3
Level 76
Apr 27, 2025
Yoo. Thank you, QM, for adding my fact!
+4
Level 27
Apr 28, 2025
LOVE THE NEW UI IT'S SO USEFULLLL
+4
Level 68
Apr 28, 2025
Massive agree. It was so difficult to get to the majority of pages before (short of simply altering the number in the URL). This is way better
+1
Level 61
May 4, 2025
agreed but I will miss the quick shortcut to get to the end. Worth it tho
+4
Level 68
May 5, 2025
It's still there lol, the grey button next to the dropdown menu for the page numbers. You can't see it on this page, because it is the last one
+1
Level 61
May 5, 2025
Oh, I didn't see it lol, thanks
+2
Level 27
May 5, 2025
what would be really nice is the ability to search up facts by number rather than just by keyword
+3
Level 63
Apr 29, 2025
When the facts show up below a quiz, the words go out the box
+2
Level 68
Apr 29, 2025
on mobile or PC?
+4
Level 56
Apr 30, 2025
The mathematician Heron of Alexandria, who discovered a formula about finding an area of a triangle with only its 3 sides, was also the inventor of the vending machine.
+3
Level 48
May 1, 2025
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, is a fan of the Beatles. His favorite song is "Yesterday".
+1
Level 61
May 6, 2025
My favorite song by the Beatles is Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da
+6
Level 66
May 2, 2025
The United States is the third most populated country in the world. If you added a billion people to its population, it would still be the third most populated.
+2
Level 27
May 5, 2025
didn't the fat Russian guy in the movie 2012 fly an Antonov
+2
Level 55
May 6, 2025
Scotland's "national" animal is a Unicorn.
+3
Level 80
May 9, 2025
The tallest free-standing clock tower in the world, is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower ("Old Joe"), at approx. 100m tall, on the University of Birmingham campus [Source]

Several railway stations, especially in the United Kingdom, have a "Platform 0", where an extra platform has been constructed before Platform 1. Stations which have a Platform 0 include Cardiff Central, London King's Cross and Leeds in the U.K., and Kyoto in Japan [Source]

7 of the 8 largest cities in the Central African Republic begin with B [Source]

(shameless promotion) Additionally, along with the above fact, I have got another 25 related to geography in this blog: Interesting Facts About Geography

+1
Level 61
May 10, 2025
how can a clock tower be Free Standing?
+4
Level 80
May 10, 2025
Not connected to a church, building, etc.

The base of Old Joe is very large - from Wikipedia:

"The base is solid concrete, 50 ft (15.2 m) square by 10 ft (3.0 m) thick, with foundations that extend 328 ft (100 m) below ground to ensure stability"

The foundations extend into the ground as low as the tower is high.

+6
Level 40
May 10, 2025
Fact drop from the IF Group (from two weeks ago but we've been busy)

The mathematician Carl Gauss proposed for three huge square-shaped fields of wheat to be grown in Siberia, arranged so that there is a right triangle-shaped gap between them. He believed that this arrangement would signify the Pythagorean theorem, and convey to extraterrestrial beings that humans were intelligent enough to know it. -thread

Bobby Caldwell won “Top Black Artist of the Year” in 1979 for his soulful song "What You Won't Do For Love". Bobby Caldwell is white. -SirPhilippines

Ohio State hasn't lost a football game to a team from Ohio in 104 years -ooftownroad

The board game Campaign for North Africa is notorious for its length and complexity: the manual is a little less than 200 pages and a full game takes around 1500 hours to complete. -Lindwyrm

+6
Level 40
May 10, 2025
A near-extinction event 10,000 years ago removed the genetic diversity of cheetahs so much that completely unrelated modern cheetahs are as genetically similar as human identical twins. -SirPhilippines

Prawo Jazdy was a supposed criminal in Ireland noted for having over 50 traffic violations, though all were suspiciously in different parts of the country and associated with different addresses. It was discovered by the Irish police in 2007 that "Prawo Jazdy" meant driving license in Polish, and multiple Polish people with the phrase written on their driving license were identified by it, assumed to be their name. -thread

Saturn’s North Pole has a large, persistent cloud pattern that forms a hexagon. Each side of the Great Hexagon is about 14,500 km (a bit bigger than Earth). -Dimby

+6
Level 40
May 10, 2025
On April 1, 1980, Boston's WNAC-TV aired a fake news report claiming that Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts, had erupted like a volcano, using footage from the recent Mount St. Helens eruption and fake warnings from President Jimmy Carter. Although the broadcast ended with a card reading "April Fools," many viewers panicked, some fled their homes, and emergency services were overwhelmed with calls. The station apologized later that night, and Homer Cilley, the executive producer responsible, was fired for poor judgment and violating FCC rules on using stock footage without disclosure. -PontiacLover
+2
Level 61
May 12, 2025
The fact that they only got in trouble because of poor judgement and violating FCC rules is crazy
+3
Level 81
May 11, 2025
Bosnia and Herzegovina's presidency is not a single person, but is held by three different people simultaneously, one from each of the country's main ethnic groups (Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats). On top of that, there's also the High Representative, a foreign (as in, not from Bosnia and Herzegovina) minister who has the power to unilaterally sack government officials and enact laws.
+1
Level 61
May 12, 2025
Did You Know That: 95% of a car's lifetime is spent parked
+4
Level 65
May 13, 2025
an earthquake in Valdivia, Chile, in 1960, caused a tsunami that devastated Hilo, Hawaii
+2
Level 49
May 14, 2025
Hey JetPunk, I go on JetPunk every day of the week!
+1
Level 61
May 15, 2025
So do I
+1
Level 55
May 17, 2025
I saw antonov when it had to land in Karachi due to technical issues on route to somewhere(maybe gulf). It was really huge!