Facts You Probably don’t Need
- The first New Year’s Eve ball drop took place in 1907. The first ball was made of iron and wood, weighed 700 pounds, and had 100 light bulbs.
- Today’s New Year’s ball now has 32,000 LED lights and weighs in at a whopping 11,875 pounds.
- The only time the annual ball drop wasn’t held was 1942 and 1943 due to the wartime “dimout” of lights in New York City. Crowds still gathered and had a minute of silence at midnight, followed by chimes ringing out from sound trucks in Times Square.
- The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
- An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
- Pepsi originally contained the enzyme called pepsin, which serves to digest proteins found in ingested food, thus the name.
- There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
- Over 1,000,000 Euros are thrown into the Trevi fountain in Rome, Italy every year. The money is used to subsidize a supermarket for the needy.
- A duel containing three people is called a “truel.”
Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.
