Facts You Probably don’t Need
- The official city motto of Paris is “Fluctuat nec mergitur”, or “She is tossed by the waves but does not sink.”
- Richard Branson bought Necker Island when he was just 28 years old. It was on sale for $6 million, but he negotiated the price down to $180,000.
- As of 2015, Iceland is the most peaceful nation in the world. The literacy rate is 99% among all Icelanders and the incarceration rate is 47 prisoners per 100,000 people.
- Painter Raphael once snuck into the Sistine Chapel to look at the unfinished work of Michelangelo while he was gone. Upon seeing the paintings, he went back to a completed painting of his own at the Church of Sant’Agostino, scraped it off the wall, and started completely over.
- 81-year-old Marie Wilcox in San Joaquin Valley of California is the last fluent speaker of the Wukchumni language. In an attempt to revive the dying language, she spent seven years writing and recording a Wukchumni dictionary.
- Andre the Giant died in his sleep while in Paris for his father’s funeral. His father had passed 12 days before.
- Your credit score goes down when you pay off a loan because it’s considered closing an account.
Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.
