Facts You Probably don’t Need
- The first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel was Annie Edson Taylor on October 24, 1901. It was her 63rd birthday.
- The first person to die during the construction of the Hoover Dam was J.G. Tierney on December 20, 1922. The last person to die during the construction was Patrick Tierney on December 20, 1935. He was J.G.’s son.
- There is a basketball court on the fifth floor of the U.S. Supreme Court Building known as “the highest court in the land.” In 1993, Justice Clarence Thomas tore his Achilles while playing there.
- Of the over 20,000 species of bees, only seven are considered to be honeybees.
- Swedish mathematicians have determined that there are 177,147 ways to tie a necktie.
- Croissants come from Vienna, Austria.
- Buttermilk contains no butter. It is simply the liquid that remains after butter is churned.
- Despite being labeled as “sugar free,” Tic Tacs are packed with sugar. Because each one has less than 0.5 grams of sugar, they are legally able to label them as such.
- The technical term for a baby rabbit is a “kitten.”
- The reason the name of so many south and central Asian countries end in “stan” is because the word comes from the Persian root word meaning “land of” or “homeland.”
Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.
