If you have any facts or
trivia. You can submit
them to me using this
form 


To receive a regular dose
of fun facts join the mailing
list




Be sure to sign the guest book

Page 5
  [Next Page] [Main Page]   [Submit a Fact]   [Email Us]

  • Napoleon suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats.

  • Gerald Ford was one of the members of the warren Commission appointed to study the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

  • Gin and canasta are both descended from an ancient Chinese game, mah-jongg, which is more than a thousand years old.

  • Alexander the Great ordered his entire army to shave their faces and heads. He believed beards and long hair were too easy for an enemy to grab and cut off the head.

  • Napoleon, the famous French general, was not born in France. He was born on the Meditteranean island of Corsica of Italian parents.

  • Nero and Henry VIII were both relatively good rulers when they assumed power, but both became bloodstained tyrants. Each killed a philosopher who had been a good influence, Nero compelling Seneca to commit suicide and Henry having Thomas Moore beheaded.

  • Edgar Allan Poe and James Abott McNeill Whistler both went to West Point Military Academy.

  • Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective story. Before the wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Roget" the genre was totally unknown in English or American literature.

  • Elizabeth I of England owned nearly 3,000 gowns.

  • Emerson Moser, who was Crayola's senior crayon maker revealed upon his retirement that he was blue-green colorblind and couldn't see all the colors! He molded over 1.4 billion crayons in his 37 year career.

  • When Elizabeth I of Russia died in 1762, 15,000 dresses were found in her closets. She used to change what she was wearing two and even three times of an evening.

  • When he was a child, Blaise Pascal once locked himself in his room for several days and would not allow anyone to enter. When he emerged, he had figured out all of Euclid's geometrical propositions totally on his own.

  • Ignce Paderewski, one of the greatest concert pianists of all time, was also premier of Poland.

  • In 1739, nearly 500,000 people died in Ireland due to the widespread crop failure of potatoes.

  • Playing cards in India are round.

  • Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became the first non-Italian pope in 455 years on October 17, 1978. He was inaugurated six days later in a mass at St. Peter's Square, becoming John Paul II. 

  • President Franklin Pierce was arrested while in office for running over an old woman with his horse, but his case was dropped due to insufficient evidence in 1853.

  • President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other - simultaneously. Leonardo da Vinci could draw with one hand and write with the other - also simultaneously.

  • President John Tyler had fifteen children.

  • President Taft weighed 352 pounds.

  • President Ulysses S. Grant was once arrested during his term of office. he was convicted of exceeding the Washington speed limit on his horse and was fined $20.

  • Mao Zedong, like many Chinese of his time, refused to brush his teeth. Instead, he rinsed his mouth with tea and chewed the leaves. Why brush? "Does a tiger brush his teeth?" argued Mao. Chairman Mao also loved to chain-smoke English cigarettes, when his doctor asked him to cut down, he explained that "smoking is also a form of deep-breathing exercise, don't you think?"

  • When Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 - Halley's Comet was visible in the sky over Florida, Missouri. Aware that he was born when Halley's Comet was visible, Mark Twain predicted in 1909 that he would die when it returned. He was right. When Mark Twain died on April 21, 1910, Halley's Comet was once again visible in the sky.

  • Marco Polo discovered that Kublai Khan maintained 5,000 resident court astrologers. Their duties included that hazardous task of weather prediction, with unforeseeable consequences for those who guessed wrong.

  • When Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco into England in the early 1600s, King James I wrote a booklet arguing against its use. 

    [Next Page] [Main Page]   [Submit a Fact]   [Email Us]