100 Facts That Will Make You Go “WTF”

There are weird facts and facts that are hard to believe—and then there are facts so strange all you can do is say, “huh?” From film adaptations bankrolled by the CIA to some intriguing insights into Russian space porn, these facts—adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube—are sure to have you scratching your head.

It’s equivalent to the weight of about 12.8 billion standard Charleston Chews.

Crichton, who also wrote Congo and The Andromeda Strain, clocked in at around 6 foot 9. The greatest basketball player of all time was around 6 feet, 6 inches. If you’re wondering, Crichton did play varsity basketball, but as far as we know Jordan has never dipped his toes into the waters of speculative science-fiction.

The king had a discolored, dead tooth that earned him a rather undesirable nickname: Harald Bluetooth. About a millennium later, Bluetooth technology was christened in his honor. As Intel’s Jim Kardach remarked, “King Harald … was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries.”

It’s not at all clear that this was an actual problem in need of a solution, but in any case, one soon arose. The “safety coffin” or “coffin alarm” was a way for a prematurely interred person to get the word out that they were still alive. Most of these devices used a bell or some other type of noisemaker to communicate between the coffin and people six feet over. 

When the team switched stadiums in 2019, the ashes were dutifully collected and reinstalled in the team’s new digs. 

A study from Harvard University finds that having no friends can be just as deadly as smoking. Both affect levels of a blood-clotting protein that can contribute to heart attacks and strokes.

Some people even said the deed was done by his onetime assistant Johannes Kepler, who wanted access to Brahe’s data. In 2010, though, Brahe’s body was exhumed, and it was soon determined that there wasn’t a deadly level of mercury in his system, as previously thought possible. Instead, he may have expired from holding it in too long. This theory says that Brahe got a deadly bladder infection after his overly polite choice to not excuse himself from a royal banquet. Brings a new meaning to the phrase “when you gotta go, you gotta go.”

Fat Tuesday is a day when some observant Christians get their vices out of their systems before Lent begins. Adolf Frederick’s vices seem to have included gluttony: It’s said that he feasted on lobster, caviar, champagne, and 14 servings of a sweet roll then known as “hetvägg.” The extremely rich meal probably wasn’t directly responsible for his death, but it certainly didn’t help.

The conference organized by The Society of Professional Obituary Writers is called “ObitCon.”

Also known as the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Fun fact: Brigham Young once said of the Church’s founder, Joseph Smith, “[he] told me that the garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.”

The incident occurred roughly a month after he had undergone gastric bypass surgery. Roker might have eaten something there that he shouldn’t have. As the beloved weatherman told Dateline’s Nancy Snyderman, “I pooped my pants. Not horribly, but enough that I knew.” The unfortunate event is actually a not uncommon side effect of gastric bypass. Roker didn’t let the incident get in the way of his time in our nation’s most hallowed home, though. He “threw out the underwear and just went commando.”

He felt “you must only show the first two cracks.” Blahnik has since backtracked on this crack fact, though—In 2012, he said, “I’m tired of the whole toe-cleavage thing.”

This Instagram-fad suggested that sun exposure to the area between the genitals and the anus would confer incredible benefits on participants, from improved focus to enhanced health and longevity. Sunshine and Vitamin D are, to be sure, good in moderation, but please wear sunscreen, and feel free to keep your underwear on.

It’s a defense mechanism.

That’s actually considerably longer than a dolphin.

Though they do have lungs, when their skin is moist this unique ability provides another method to absorb oxygen.

Instead of leaving it behind, though, they “push the shedding skin into their mouth and eat it,” in the words of Seattle’s Burke Museum.

At around a month a half, the kitties start producing melanin, causing the eyes of many breeds to darken.

It was the first state in the country to adopt an official sport.

They wanted insights into armor that had been designed for King Henry VIII, which the Tower held in its collection. The one-time Tudor King had to have full protection while remaining mobile when engaged in games of foot combat. At least one of the spacesuit developers apparently felt this balance between protection and mobility was similar to the challenges his team faced and requested photographs and “details of the various joints” that comprised the armor.  

The green color cast some old potatoes develop is an indirect indication of high concentrations of the toxin solanine. Though solanine poisoning is rare today, there are documented incidents of people dying from toxic potatoes. If in doubt, it’s probably best to throw out any green potatoes.

According to his website, Werbock has hung up his nipples and no longer performs publicly.

The balloons were launched from West Germany and sent into countries including Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. George Orwell’s allegorical novella, often read as a criticism of Stalinist communism and the results of the Russian Revolution, was banned in those countries. The idea behind the operation was for Orwell’s satirical ideas to get into the hands of people who might then start to question authorities and the Communist Party line.

The author, who was sickly all his life, wrote the story in just a few days.

Centuries ago, the English began to import the helmeted guinea fowl. The people who ate the poultry evidently didn’t know it was from Africa. Because it was imported to Europe from merchants in Turkey (now Türkiye), the English believed the birds were also Turkish.⁠ According to one account of its etymology, when the Spanish arrived in the New World, they encountered a new bird that was delicious and it too was soon being imported to Europe. The English got it confused with the turkey they had been enjoying. Eventually, the name stuck to the New World bird. ⁠

He had found out that the “mummy brown” paint he was using was made from actual ground-up mummies, so he held a funeral for the tube in his back garden. A young Rudyard Kipling was in attendance.

It’s thought that the dust comes mostly from relatively nearby comets and asteroids, though more recent research suggests that some of it could come from much farther, including the Kuiper Belt, which starts at a distance about 4.3 billion kilometers from us. 

Translated into English, in fact, Bhutanese leaders are known as “Dragon Kings.”

According to a biography, the Talented Mr. Ripley author would bring her little friends out if she got bored at dinner.⁠

He got two for Best Inspirational Performance and one for Best Sacred Performance.

Radulae are essentially the gastropod version of teeth, which sit inside their mouths. 

In the horrific words of Mashable Southeast Asia, he “woke up the next morning to find an 18-meter-long tapeworm already exiting his rectum.”

Some tapeworms use spines or retractable hooks to get a grip, while others have suction cup-like suckers to hold on, even as the muscles of their hosts contract during digestion.

Afterward, he was warned not to make fun of army officers‚ instead, he was told, his criticism should be limited to civilians and animals.

After one human milk transfusion gone wrong, the patient had to be resuscitated with a combination of morphine and whiskey.

Whenever a dead local whale was spotted, the hotel gave patients the opportunity to lay inside the carcass for a couple of hours, thinking it would reduce inflammation. The short-lived, so-called treatment was apparently “discovered” when a drunk man “took a header into the decomposing blubber” of a recently deceased cetacean and came out rheumatism-free.

Soon after, the pair introduced their second successful cheese-dust-based offering: Annie’s Mac & Cheese.

That was four years before the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was passed.

His name was Nursultan Nazarbayev.

It was changed back in 2022.

The exception is Idaho, and even in the 49 other states you’d likely be breaking other laws in the process.

They found that one purveyor charged $200 for an elbow.

It’s thought that they kill hundreds of people each year.

The animals can actually sleep underwater, pop up for a breath, and sink back down without waking up.

Some species of the gastropod carry a deadly parasite which they can pass on to humans. The resulting disease has been informally dubbed “snail fever.”  

That’s according to the United States’s Social Security Administration’s actuarial life table.

The big birds have long, sharp toenails and they’re stronger than those rather spindly-looking legs might have you believe. According to a piece by Randy Sell of North Dakota State University, “A mature ostrich is capable of delivering a kick of up to 500 psi.” That’s around the same pressure delivered by a professional bantam weight boxer.

It has instructions on what to do “if you have a gun and need to use it,” and features some incredible drawings of human-ostrich combat.

Or at least the birds no longer saw other ostriches as potential mates.

The bird’s name was Waldo, and according to Cash, “I got off lightly. All he did was break my two lower ribs and rip my stomach open down to my belt.”

But one half of that pair, Dr. Valery Polyakov, did mention some “‘colorful’ movies” that Russian officials sent men in space to help them regain typical sexual functioning after a long (presumably celibate) mission.

He came out against that idea, partially on the grounds that an astronaut with such equipment at his disposal might develop something he called “doll syndrome.” 

This rather horrifying item first appeared in the 16th century and was “used to hurt and humiliate women whose speech or behaviour was thought to be too offensive or unruly,” in the words of the British Library.

Browne had hair from author James Fenimore Cooper’s locks and 13 of the first 14 U.S. presidents (it seems that he never got his hands on any strands from Millard Fillmore). Sheep and lion locks also made it into the collection.

It’s known as Malassezia. So if you find the itchiness and flaking uncomfortable, maybe meditate on the fact that there’s fungi thriving on your scalp.

They’re also eating, pooping, and reproducing on your face.

The average human is made up of about 30 trillion human cells, and 39 trillion microbial cells of various types. Because the microbes are so small, they only account for about 1 to 3 percent of a person’s body mass.  

Unbeknownst to the show’s producers or that episode’s bachelorette, contestant Rodney Alcala had already committed at least four murders at the time. He’d eventually be convicted of more than a half dozen homicides, but that day he was selected as the winning bachelor for a date that luckily never transpired.

Stump killed 16 people, including 13 children—one of whom was his own son. He supposedly ate his own child’s brain. And from there it somehow gets even worse.

It sounds like a lot until you compare it to the tens of thousands of executions for supposed witchcraft that happened in Germany during the same era.

Their plight ended with the some of desperately hungry survivors resorting to cannibalism of the non-homicidal nature—and helped lead Gail Borden to develop shelf-stable condensed milk.

He had an anal fistula, which in the words of the UK’s National Health Service website, is “a small tunnel that develops between the end of the bowel and the skin near the anus (where poo leaves the body).” Fistulas can cause discomfort and make sitting difficult, so Louis sought out treatment to alleviate his royal pain in the butt. To prepare for the procedure, surgeon Charles-François Félix practiced on dozens of healthy commoners. It’s thought that many of these test patients died.

Some people actually put fake fistulas made of bandages around their butts. This was known as “le royale.”

It was essentially a series of witch trials centered around Madame Catherine Monvoisin, also known as La Voisin, a potion maker who had the pejorative sobriquet “the witch of Paris.” La Voisin’s partner said that the royal mistress had only achieved her position through the use of special potions. La Voisin was eventually killed for her alleged crimes. Her daughter then outlined an even more outlandish story about Montespan engaging in the dark arts and even drinking baby’s blood. Montespan, for her part, ended up retiring to a convent. 

A banquet hosted by Queen Isabeau of Bavaria featured a group of dancers in apparently flammable outfits. When the Duke of Orleans got too close with a lit torch, it set off a fire that resulted in the deaths of four men. 

That’s according to Denmark’s Copenhagen Post, which added that “the gossip was ripe about the time the king during a royal feast in Christiansborg entered the room with his pants around his ankles.”

Steinman—who was a frequent collaborator of Meat Loaf’s—had an interesting perspective on the power ballad. On his personal website, he noted that he wrote it “under the influence of Wuthering Heights” and called it “an erotic motorcycle.”

That’s about a third of all food produced for human consumption.

Rather than slicing potatoes and frying them up, Pringles are a bit of a franken-chip made up of dehydrated potato along with wheat starch, rice four, and other ingredients. They actually are only 42 percent potato. Back in 1975, the FDA ruled that Pringles could only be labeled “chips” if they also prominently mentioned the dried potatoes. The company ultimately decided to call them “crisps” here in the States.

According to a New York Times piece from 1975, “It’s believed Procter & Gamble … spent 10 years and $70 million to research, develop, manufacture and market its first Pringles.” Using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Inflation calculator, that’s equivalent to about $12 billion dollars today.

That means that almost 1 percent of his blood stream was alcohol. That’s more than 18 times the legal limit in the state of Utah, incidentally, and more than twice the level generally considered fatal. Nevertheless, the man survived and was even awake and talking to police.

This condition is known as “Morton’s toe.”

It means “towards or for a pancake.”