1. Mister Rogers always mentioned out loud that he was feeding his fish because a young blind viewer once asked him to do so. She wanted to know the fish were OK.
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2. Boring, Oregon and Dull, Scotland have been sister cities since 2012. In 2017, they added Bland Shire, Australia to their "League of Extraordinary Communities."
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3. Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt once sneaked out of a White House event, commandeered an airplane, and went on a joyride to Baltimore.
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4. If you have the feeling you’ve experienced an event before in real life, call it déjà vu. If you feel like you’ve previously experienced an event in a dream instead, there’s a different term for it: déjà rêvé.
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5. During Prohibition, moonshiners would wear "cow shoes." The fancy footwear left hoofprints instead of footprints, helping distillers and smugglers evade police.
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6. Since founding the Imagination Library in 1995, Dolly Parton has donated 100 million books to children.
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7. The 100 folds in a chef's toque are said to represent 100 ways to cook an egg.
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8. In curling, good sportsmanship and politeness are essential. Congratulating opponents and abstaining from trash talk are part of what's known as the "Spirit of Curling."
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9. In 1974, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis published a paper titled "The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of 'Writer's Block.'" It contained a total of zero words.
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10. Guinness estimates that 93,000 liters of beer are lost in facial hair each year in the UK alone.
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11. George Washington served an eggnog-like drink to visitors at Mount Vernon. His recipe included rye whiskey, rum, and sherry.
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12. Some cats are allergic to humans.
13. Queen Elizabeth II is a trained mechanic.
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14. Volvo gave away the 1962 patent for their revolutionary three-point seat belt for free, in order to save lives.
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15. Tsundoku is the act of acquiring books and not reading them.
16. Ravens in captivity can learn to talk better than parrots.
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17. Bela Lugosi was buried in full Dracula costume—cape and all.
18. Central Park's lampposts contain a set of four numbers that can help you navigate. The first two tell you the nearest street, and the next two tell you whether you're closer to the east or west side of the park (even numbers signal east, odd signals west).
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19. A teacher wrote of a young Roald Dahl on his school report card: "I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended."
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20. The only Blockbuster store in the world that is still operating is in Bend, Oregon.
21. Blood donors in Sweden receive a thank you text when their blood is used.
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22. Kea parrots warble together when they're in a good mood, making them the first known non-mammal species to communicate with infectious laughter.
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23. Long before rap battles, there was "flyting": the exchange of witty, insulting verses. The verbal throwdowns were popular in England and Scotland from the 5th to 16th centuries.
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24. Melbourne gave some of its trees email addresses so residents could report problems. Instead, the trees received love letters.
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25. An estimated 1 million dogs in the U.S. have been named primary beneficiary in their owners' wills.
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26. At Petrified Forest National Park, visitors sometimes break the rules (and the law) by taking rocks home with them. According to rangers, they often end up returning the stolen goods in the mail—along with an apology note.
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27. The Russians showed up 12 days late to the 1908 Olympics in London because they were using the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian calendar.
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28. Maya Angelou was the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco.
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29. In Japan, letting a sumo wrestler make your baby cry is considered good luck.
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30. J.K. Simmons has been the voice of the Yellow Peanut M&M since the late 1990s.
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31. Count von Count's love of numbers isn't just a quirky character trait—in traditional vampire folklore, the bloodsuckers have arithmomania, a compulsion to count.
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32. In Great Britain and Japan, black cats are perceived as auspicious. In the English Midlands, new brides are given black cats to bless their marriage, and the Japanese believe that black cats are good luck—particularly for single women.
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33. Portland was named by a coin flip. Had the coin landed the other way, the city would be Boston, Oregon.
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34. During World War I, a Canadian soldier made a black bear his pet and named her Winnipeg. “Winnie” was later a resident of the London Zoological Gardens where she was an adored attraction, especially to a boy named Christopher Robin, son of author A.A. Milne. The boy even named his teddy bear after her.
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35. Sleep literally cleans your brain. During slumber, more cerebrospinal fluid flushes through the brain to wash away harmful proteins and toxins that build up during the day.
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36. Neil Armstrong's astronaut application arrived a week past the deadline. A friend slipped the tardy form in with the others.
37. Due to the restaurant's reputation for staying open in extreme weather, the so-called “Waffle House Index” is informally used by FEMA to gauge storm severity.
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38. The first sales pitch for the Nerf ball was “Nerf: You can’t hurt babies or old people!”
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39. The manchineel tree is nicknamed the "Tree of Death" for good reason: Touching it can leave chemical burns on your skin, its fruit is toxic, and its bark—when burned—can cause blindness.
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40. If drivers adhere to the 45 mph speed limit on a stretch of Route 66 in New Mexico, the road's rumble strips will play a rendition of "America the Beautiful."
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41. Russian cosmonauts used to pack a shotgun in case they landed in Siberia and had to fend off bears.
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42. Space has a distinct smell: a bouquet of diesel fumes, gunpowder, and barbecue. The aroma is mostly produced by dying stars.
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43. Before settling on the Seven Dwarfs we know today, Disney considered Chesty, Tubby, Burpy, Deafy, Hickey, Wheezy, and Awful.
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44. The annual number of worldwide shark bites is 10 times less than the number of people bitten by other people in New York.
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45. In 1997 a Louisville woman left actor Charles Bronson all of her money in a handwritten will—a total of about $300,000. She'd never met him; she was just a fan.
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46. Carly Simon's dad is the Simon of Simon and Schuster. He co-founded the company.
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47. Ben & Jerry learned how to make ice cream by taking a $5 correspondence course offered by Penn State. (They decided to split one course.)
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48. After an online vote in 2011, Toyota announced that the official plural of Prius was Prii.
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49. At the 1905 wedding of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, President Teddy Roosevelt gave away the bride.
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