80 Fun Facts About Random

Which planet is nicknamed the Red Planet?

Mars is the Red Planet: iron oxide, essentially rust, in the dust covering its surface gives it the reddish colour visible from Earth.

How many points is a touchdown worth in American football?

It has been six since 1912; the extra point or two-point conversion is what pushes a score to seven or eight.

What is the main ingredient of hummus?

The word itself is simply Arabic for chickpeas; tahini, lemon juice and garlic do the rest.

Which fictional paper company employs the staff of the US version of The Office?

Dunder Mifflin Paper Company's Scranton, Pennsylvania branch is the setting, run by regional manager Michael Scott from the show's 2005 premiere.

Which superhero's secret identity is Peter Parker?

Spider-Man is Peter Parker, bitten by a radioactive spider in Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962), created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Who wrote The Hobbit?

J. R. R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 and later revised the Gollum chapter so it sat comfortably alongside The Lord of the Rings.

What is the name of Batman's butler?

Alfred Pennyworth first appeared in Batman #16 in 1943 and has since served as Bruce Wayne's legal guardian, medic and surrogate father.

Which capital city is the coldest in the world by average yearly temperature?

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital, averages roughly -1 C across the year; it sits at about 1,350 metres in a valley that traps bitterly cold winter air.

On which planet are the strongest sustained winds in the Solar System, reaching around 2,100 km/h?

Neptune's winds reach about 2,100 km/h, the fastest known on any planet, driven partly by internal heat although it gets only about 40 percent of Uranus's sunlight.

What is the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa?

Equatorial Guinea, the former colony of Spanish Guinea, became independent in 1968 and keeps Spanish as an official language alongside French and Portuguese.

Which was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?

Shrek, the 2001 DreamWorks film, won the inaugural Best Animated Feature Oscar at the March 2002 ceremony, beating Monsters, Inc. and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

Which element has the symbol W, taken from its German name Wolfram?

Tungsten, symbol W from the German Wolfram, has the highest melting point of any metal, about 3,422 C, which made it ideal for incandescent bulb filaments.

In which city were Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie assassinated in June 1914?

Sarajevo, capital of Austro-Hungarian-ruled Bosnia, was where Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot the couple on 28 June 1914, setting off the July Crisis.

Which chilli sauce takes its name from a coastal town in Thailand?

Sriracha is named after Si Racha, a town on Thailand's eastern Gulf coast in Chonburi province; the best-known American version is made by Huy Fong Foods, founded in Los Angeles in 1980.

What is the term for a group of owls?

A parliament of owls: the term was popularised by C. S. Lewis, whose 1953 Narnia book The Silver Chair features a parliament of owls, echoing Chaucer's poem The Parliament of Fowls.

Which programming language is named after a British comedy troupe?

Python was named by Guido van Rossum after Monty Python's Flying Circus; its documentation carries on the joke, using 'spam' and 'eggs' as placeholder names instead of 'foo' and 'bar'.

Which island is the largest in the Mediterranean Sea, and also its most populous?

Sicily, with over 4.7 million people and Europe's largest active volcano, Etna, is both the largest and most populous island in the Mediterranean.

Who was the first person to lead a party to the South Pole, arriving on 14 December 1911?

Roald Amundsen reached the Pole on 14 December 1911, five weeks ahead of Scott; he had learned polar survival skills from the Netsilik Inuit while navigating the Northwest Passage in 1903-06.

Which Grand Slam tournament is played on clay courts?

The French Open at Roland Garros in Paris is the only major on clay; its long rallies make it widely regarded as the most physically demanding tournament in tennis.

What is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 70 million copies sold?

Thriller, Michael Jackson's 1982 album, has sold an estimated 70 million copies; sales surged after he debuted the moonwalk on the Motown 25 TV special in May 1983.

How many chromosomes does a typical human body cell contain?

46 chromosomes: 22 pairs of autosomes plus one pair of sex chromosomes; egg and sperm cells carry a single set of 23.

Which explosive, invented by Alfred Nobel in 1867, made the founder of the Nobel Prizes his fortune?

Dynamite tamed nitroglycerin into a form easier and safer to handle, making Nobel hugely rich.

Which team became the first to win 18 NBA championships, in 2024?

The Boston Celtics' 2024 title was their 18th, the first time any team reached that many; eight of them came in a row from 1959 to 1966, the longest streak in league history.

Which post-impressionist painter severed part of his own left ear with a razor in December 1888?

Vincent van Gogh cut off part of his left ear after a quarrel with Paul Gauguin in Arles; he died in July 1890, only 19 months later, aged 37.

Besides Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest, which fourth national capital does the Danube flow through?

Belgrade, the Serbian capital, stands where the Sava meets the Danube; downstream the river forms much of the Romania-Bulgaria border before reaching the Black Sea.

Which Levantine or Turkish dessert is made from layers of filo pastry, chopped nuts and syrup or honey?

Baklava's paper-thin filo sheets are brushed with melted butter before baking, giving the crisp layered texture beneath the chopped nuts and syrup.

What is the highest possible break in a normal frame of snooker?

147 comes from potting all 15 reds each with a black, then the six colours in order; only with a free ball can the theoretical maximum rise to 155.

Which is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species?

The emperor penguin stands up to about 120 cm and breeds only in Antarctica, where males incubate a single egg on their feet through the polar winter.

Which Canadian author wrote the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale?

Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid's Tale in 1985; she has said every practice in Gilead had a real historical precedent, and the novel won the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987.

Which sultan's 46-year reign, from 1520 to 1566, was the longest of any Ottoman ruler?

Suleiman the Magnificent ruled from 1520 to 1566; under him the Ottomans took Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes in 1522 and besieged Vienna in 1529.

Which company did Paul Allen co-found with his childhood friend Bill Gates in 1975?

Microsoft was founded in Albuquerque in April 1975 by Paul Allen and Bill Gates; Allen left day-to-day work in 1983 after a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis but stayed on the board until 2000.

Which is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, played on outdoor grass since 1877?

Wimbledon, first held in 1877 at the All England Club, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and the only one of the four majors played on grass.

What is the sole official language of Suriname?

The South American country was a Dutch plantation colony until independence in 1975 and has around 14 local languages besides.

Which hormone, produced by beta cells in the pancreas, lowers blood glucose?

Insulin, released by the beta cells of the pancreatic islets, moves glucose into cells; the neighbouring alpha cells release glucagon, which raises blood sugar when it dips.

Which Fleetwood Mac album, released in February 1977, is widely considered the band's magnum opus?

Rumours, released on 4 February 1977, was recorded as the band members' relationships fell apart, which is what most of its songs are about; it won the 1978 Grammy for Album of the Year.

What is the least populous state capital in the United States?

Montpelier, Vermont's capital, had about 8,000 residents at the 2020 census, fewer than any other state capital; Pierre, South Dakota, is the next smallest with about 14,000.

Which unit is the SI base unit of electric current?

The ampere, often shortened to amp, has since 2019 been defined by fixing the value of the elementary charge rather than by the force between two parallel wires.

Whose tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by a team led by Howard Carter?

Tutankhamun's tomb, KV62, was opened in November 1922; Carter's patron George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, had funded his digs since 1907.

Which sparkling wine may only carry its name if made in one designated region of north-east France?

Champagne has been protected by an appellation d'origine controlee since 1936; only sparkling wine from the delimited Champagne region around Reims and Epernay may use the name.

Which board game's weapons include a candlestick, a rope and a lead pipe?

Cluedo is Clue in North American editions, which also swap the dagger for a knife and the spanner for a wrench.

Which chess piece moves only along diagonals?

The bishop moves any distance along diagonals only, so each bishop stays on the same colour of square for the entire game; a player starts with one on each colour.

Which star, about 4.25 light-years away, is the nearest to the Sun?

Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf about 4.25 light-years away, is the nearest star to the Sun; it is a faint member of the Alpha Centauri system, discovered by Robert Innes in 1915.

Salvador Dali's 1931 painting of melting clocks is called what?

The Persistence of Memory, painted in 1931 and held by New York's Museum of Modern Art since 1934, was inspired, Dali said, by Camembert cheese melting in the sun.

Which Charles Dickens novel opens with the line 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'?

A Tale of Two Cities, serialised in Dickens's weekly All the Year Round in 1859, is set in London and Paris in the years around the French Revolution.

Which Japanese drink is made by a process closer to brewing beer than making wine?

Sake is brewed: koji mould converts polished rice starch to sugar while yeast ferments it, a parallel process closer to beer-making than to wine-making.

Which mammal has the longest gestation period, carrying its calves for about 22 months?

The African elephant carries its calf for about 22 months, the longest gestation of any mammal; a newborn weighs around 100 kg and can stand within an hour of birth.

Which Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1976 and cut its first demo at Keystone Studios in 1978?

U2 formed at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin in 1976 after Larry Mullen Jr. posted a notice; the band recorded its first demo at Keystone Studios in November 1978.

The city of Marrakesh is one of the four imperial cities of which country?

Morocco's four imperial cities are Fez, Marrakesh, Meknes and Rabat, each a former royal capital; Marrakesh was founded by the Almoravids around 1070.

Which sprinter set the 100 m world record of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin?

Usain Bolt ran 9.58 seconds in the Berlin final on 16 August 2009, cutting 0.11 s from his own mark of 9.69 set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Which Paris museum has normally displayed the Mona Lisa since 1797?

The Louvre has housed the Mona Lisa since 1797, apart from spells in Napoleon's bedroom and its theft by Vincenzo Peruggia in 1911; the sitter is most likely Lisa del Giocondo.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 started in a bakery on which street?

Pudding Lane was where Thomas Farriner's bakery caught fire shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September 1666; the blaze burned most of the medieval city inside the old Roman wall.

Which initialism on an invitation comes from the French for 'please respond'?

RSVP stands for repondez s'il vous plait, literally 'respond if it pleases you'; PS and NB, by contrast, abbreviate the Latin post scriptum and nota bene.

The Super Bowl trophy is named after which coach, who won the first two Super Bowls?

Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls, after five NFL championships before the merger.

Who became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, in 1932?

Amelia Earhart flew from Newfoundland to Northern Ireland on 20-21 May 1932 and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for it, five years before her 1937 disappearance over the Pacific.

Which fermented Korean side dish is most often made from salted napa cabbage or radish?

Kimchi is made by salting napa cabbage or radish, then seasoning it with gochugaru chilli powder, garlic, ginger and salted seafood before fermentation; it appears with almost every Korean meal.

Which nickname for Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 did poet Ludwig Rellstab coin in 1832?

Moonlight: Rellstab likened the first movement to moonlight on Lake Lucerne, five years after Beethoven's death; Beethoven himself headed the 1801 score 'Sonata quasi una fantasia'.

On which planet would you find the largest and most visible ring system in the Solar System?

Saturn's rings, first seen by Galileo in 1610, span about 280,000 km yet are mostly less than a kilometre thick; all four giant planets have rings, but only Saturn's are easily visible.

Which conflict on 18 June 1815, fought in what is now Belgium, was Napoleon's last battle?

Waterloo, south of Brussels, saw Napoleon beaten by Wellington's Anglo-allied army and Blucher's Prussians, the two Seventh Coalition armies, ending the Hundred Days of his return from Elba.

Which martial art, meaning 'gentle way', became an Olympic sport in 1964?

Judo, founded by Jigoro Kano in 1882 and meaning 'gentle way', made its Olympic debut at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, what kind of animal is Napoleon?

A pig: Napoleon and Snowball are the two young boars who take command after Old Major dies, until Napoleon's dogs chase Snowball away.

Which river carved the Grand Canyon?

The Colorado River cut the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona over roughly the last six million years; the gorge is 446 km long and reaches about 1,800 metres deep.

Which Bogart and Bergman film of 1942 is set in a Vichy-controlled North African city?

Casablanca was adapted from the unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's, bought by Warner Bros in January 1942; it premiered in New York that November and won the Best Picture Oscar.

Which Quentin Tarantino crime film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994?

Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in May 1994 and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Tarantino and Roger Avary, whose story Pandemonium Reigns became the Butch storyline.

Which Adele album, released in 2011, topped the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks?

21, released in January 2011, spent 24 weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and won Album of the Year at the 2012 Grammys.

Roughly what is the speed of light in a vacuum?

300,000 km per second, so precisely 299,792,458 m/s that the metre is now defined as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Which dish, eaten in Hungary itself as a soup, is one of that country's national dishes?

Goulash (gulyas, from the Hungarian for herdsman) began as a cattle-drovers' dish and in Hungary is a paprika-seasoned beef soup rather than the thick stew most of the world knows.

Which bird lays the largest eggs of any living land animal?

The ostrich lays the largest egg of any living bird, about 15 cm long and 1.4 kg; adults are the heaviest living birds, weighing up to about 145 kg.

At which racecourse is the Kentucky Derby run each May?

Churchill Downs in Louisville has hosted the Kentucky Derby since the first running in 1875; the race for three-year-olds is the first leg of the Triple Crown, run on the first Saturday in May.

The Wright brothers made the first controlled, sustained powered flight in 1903 near which North Carolina town?

Kitty Hawk was the nearest settlement; the flights on 17 December 1903 took place four miles south at Kill Devil Hills, the first covering 120 feet in 12 seconds.

Which Australian natural wonder is the world's largest coral reef system?

The Great Barrier Reef, off Queensland, is made up of over 2,900 individual reefs and about 900 islands stretching for more than 2,300 km; it was World Heritage-listed in 1981.

Which Holst orchestral suite, first performed in 1918, has seven movements?

The Planets omits Earth, and Pluto had not been discovered; its premiere on 29 September 1918 at the Queen's Hall, conducted by Adrian Boult, was a private performance for about 250 invited guests.

Which Italian dessert is built from coffee-soaked ladyfingers and mascarpone cream?

The Veneto region sought EU protected status for it in 2013 so that versions with strawberries could not use the name.

Who became South Africa's first Black president in 1994?

Nelson Mandela was inaugurated on 10 May 1994 after the first fully democratic election; he had negotiated the end of apartheid with F. W. de Klerk, sharing the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Bengal and Siberian subspecies of which cat are the largest living felids?

The tiger is the largest living cat; Siberian (Amur) males can weigh over 250 kg, and India holds the largest wild population, more than 3,000 animals at its 2022 census.

The papermaking process is traditionally credited to Cai Lun, a court eunuch of which Chinese dynasty?

Han: Cai Lun presented his papermaking process to Emperor He of the Eastern Han in 105 CE, though archaeological finds show paper-like material in China from the 2nd century BCE.

How many hearts does an octopus have?

Three: one systemic heart drives blood around the body while two branchial hearts pump it through the gills; the systemic heart stops beating while the octopus swims, which is why it prefers crawling.

Which planet's solar day of about 117 Earth days is roughly half its year?

Venus: its slow retrograde spin gives a solar day of 116.75 Earth days against a year of 224.7 Earth days, while its sidereal rotation of 243 days is longer than its year.

The Bluetooth wireless standard is named after a 10th-century king of which country?

Denmark: Harald 'Bluetooth' Gormsson united the Danish tribes in the 10th century; Intel's Jim Kardach proposed the codename in 1997, and the logo merges the runes for Harald's initials.

The unicorn is the heraldic symbol of which country?

Scotland's royal arms were supported by two unicorns; after the 1603 Union of the Crowns, James VI and I paired a Scottish unicorn with the English lion as supporters of his royal arms.

Which food, when properly stored, does not spoil thanks to its high sugar and acidic pH?

Honey's high sugar concentration and acidic pH of about 3.9 draw water out of microbes and stop them growing, so sealed honey keeps indefinitely.