Image credits

Fun facts

• The oldest known recording of a song was made to be read: Image: Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817–1879), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• He bet $50 he could drive across America, and he had no car: Image: Horatio Nelson Jackson, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The telegraph that caught a killer in 1845 had no letter Q: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Motorists tore up a red flag the law had already dropped: Image: Martinvl, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• A man who made postage cheap sold the first Christmas cards: Image: John Callcott Horsley, London, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The woman who started Mother's Day later tried to abolish it: Image: Carol M. Highsmith, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Britain's new coins face a judge and jury every year: Image: William H. Prior, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A ship's propeller counter became a saloon's cash register: Image: Wmpearl, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
• A royal Christmas tree became American by losing a tiara: Image: Joseph Lionel Williams, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The first car to pass 100 km/h ran on batteries: Image: Ton1~commonswiki, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• For 59 years, no pope would step outside the Vatican: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Moscow's clocks are still on the summer time of 1930: Image: Ivan Z., Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• The lowest shore on Earth drops more than three feet a year: Image: Landsat 8, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• This acacia was once called the most isolated tree on Earth: Image: Michel Mazeau, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Egypt and Sudan each insist this desert belongs to the other: Image: Egypt location map.svg; Sudan location map.svg: NordNordWest and Africa location, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• For 13 years, Portugal was ruled from Rio de Janeiro: Image: Nicolas-Louis-Albert Delerive, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Two countries brought the same flag to the 1936 Olympics: Image: arz, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The likely designer of the US flag asked to be paid in wine: Image: DevinCook (talk), Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• In 1969 the American Falls at Niagara ran dry on purpose: Image: James St. John, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• Canada and Denmark fought over a rock with flags and liquor: Image: Per Starklint, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Oxford's mayors paid for a 1355 tavern brawl until 1825: Image: Diliff, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Cleopatra's Needle is some 1,400 years older than Cleopatra: Image: George Knight, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The shortest war on record was over before 10 a.m.: Image: The Illustrated London News, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The Pantheon's dome has stood 1,900 years without steel: Image: Livioandronico2013, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Shot in the chest, Theodore Roosevelt gave his speech anyway: Image: Bain News Service, publisher, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The first known photo of a person shows a near-empty street: Image: Louis Daguerre, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Bluetooth was only a code name, taken from a Viking king: Image: Niels Elgaard Larsen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• His sea watch passed the test, and the judges called it luck: Image: Tatters ❀ from Brisbane, Australia, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Scrolls burned by Vesuvius are being read without unrolling: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A dead pig set off a 13-year US-British standoff: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Soccer's red card was thought up at a London traffic light: Image: Pascua Theus alias Körnerbrötchen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 de
• The NBA's 24-second shot clock came from simple division: Image: Gavindow at en.wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
• Wimbledon was first played to pay for a broken pony roller: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A 1912 Olympic wrestling bout lasted 11 hours and 40 minutes: Image: photographer of IOC, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Baseball's official inventor was at West Point that year: Image: Dada1960, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The first World Cup final used a different ball in each half: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The marathon's odd 385 yards come from a royal box in 1908: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• In 1971 an astronaut took a six-iron to the Moon: Image: Kevin M. Gill, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• The Olympics once gave gold medals for poems and sculptures: Image: Bain News Service, publisher, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Barbados scored in its own net on purpose to win a match: Image: xrevbc, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Hubble's mirror was polished precisely to the wrong shape: Image: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• He waited eight years for Venus, and that day it was cloudy: Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• They blamed pigeons for the faint glow left by the Big Bang: Image: NASA, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The first stethoscope was a few sheets of paper, rolled up: Image: Science Museum London / Science and Society Picture Library, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• In 1851 a pendulum let Parisians watch the Earth turn: Image: xiquinhosilva from Cacau, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• Congress once set aside money to paint the Statue of Liberty: Image: Jack Boucher, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Helium turned up in sunlight 27 years before it did on Earth: Image: Archangel689, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The first Atlantic cable's chief electrician burned it out: Image: Robert Charles Dudley, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
• The apple never hit Newton, and his tree is still growing: Image: It's No Game from Leicestershire, UK, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• An argument over frog legs produced the first battery: Image: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• In 1914 a cartoonist walked offstage into his own cartoon: Image: Winsor McCay, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The talkies began with a line Al Jolson had used for years: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Homer's "D'oh!" came from a Laurel and Hardy villain: Image: Employee(s) of MGM, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Spock's salute began as a blessing Nimoy wasn't meant to see: Image: Geisler Martin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• The first Oscar winners were announced three months early: Image: Alexander Migl, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The Academy gave him an Oscar in case he lost, then he won: Image: United States Army Pictorial Service, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• London's police lost a fight with the BBC over police boxes: Image: Matt Brown, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• A court ordered every copy of Nosferatu destroyed: Image: Fred Romero from Paris, France, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• Most of the first projected cartoons ended up in the Seine: Image: Émile Reynaud, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Television's first face belonged to a ventriloquist's dummy: Image: Orrin Dunlap, Jr., Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Hans the horse did sums only when the asker knew the answer: Image: Karl Krall, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The first platypus sent to Britain was taken for a fake: Image: Charles J. Sharp, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The real Smokey Bear was named after the poster: Image: Francine Schroeder photo for Smithsonian Institution, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Freud dissected hundreds of eels and never found the testes: Image: David Perez, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
• This bird leads people to wild honey and waits for the wax: Image: Dominic Sherony, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• A submarine listening post off Bermuda recorded whale songs: Image: National Marine Sanctuaries, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• From one orchid, Darwin predicted a moth no one had seen: Image: Wilferd Duckitt from Darling, South Africa, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• A newspaper notice led to the monarchs' winter hideout: Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A seabird banded in 1956 was laying eggs again in 2024: Image: USFWS Pacific, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A five-month-old bird flew 8,400 miles without stopping: Image: USFWSAlaska, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Bing Crosby taped his radio show on wartime German machines: Image: Friedrich Engel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Two astronauts reported a UFO, then played Jingle Bells: Image: NASA, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The Cavern Club once told John Lennon to cut out the rock: Image: spaztacular, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• Django Reinhardt played his guitar solos with two fingers: Image: William P. Gottlieb / Adam Cuerden, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The 808 drum machine died because transistors got better: Image: Roland_TR-808_&_909.jpg: Brandon Daniel derivative work: Clusternote (talk), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• The Million Dollar Quartet may have been a trio on tape: Image: Carol M. Highsmith, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Haydn's Farewell Symphony ends with the players walking out: Image: Jakub Hałun, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Trinidad's steel drum grew out of a colonial ban on drums: Image: Kip1234, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Before microphones, some violins came with a metal horn: Image: Sdkb, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The two men behind baseball's song had never been to a game: Image: Bain News Service, publisher, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• In 1957 the BBC showed spaghetti growing on Swiss trees: Image: Robert Couse-Baker from Sacramento, California, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• The fortune cookie most likely came to America from Japan: Image: Ksayer1, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• The modern strawberry began with a French spy's five plants: Image: Ivar Leidus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• The Royal Navy poured its sailors rum every day until 1970: Image: Reginald George Guy Coote, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A stone pineapple 46 feet tall sits on a Scottish hothouse: Image: Ian Murfitt, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• All Hass avocados come from a tree a mailman nearly cut down: Image: Ivar Leidus, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• In 1833 Boston sent a shipload of pond ice to Calcutta: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Tin cans were patented 45 years before the can opener: Image: Evan-Amos, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Mrs Beeton began her cookbook at 21 and copied most recipes: Image: Isabella Beeton, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• In 1943 the US banned sliced bread for seven weeks: Image: Mike Finn, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• A chess machine kept its secret for 84 years: Image: Joseph Racknitz, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Two teams put the same space game in a coin box in 1971: Image: Tom Purves, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• The game that named a genre is set in a real Kentucky cave: Image: James St. John, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• Pokémon began with a boy's bug hunts and a Game Boy cable: Image: KoS, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Atari really did bury its games in a New Mexico landfill: Image: taylorhatmaker, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• The rules of a 4,500-year-old board game survived on clay: Image: BabelStone (Own work), Wikimedia Commons, CC0
• Lincoln's new beard pushed a printer into board games: Image: Popular Graphic Arts, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A gene that shapes our brains and hands is named after Sonic: Image: No machine-readable author provided. Nina assumed (based on copyright claims)., Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
• Lab bosses at MIT played a maze game and tried to stop it: Image: The wub, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Online avatars are named for a Hindu god's descent to Earth: Image: Harshil Mehta, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Most dictionaries trace OK to an 1839 newspaper joke: Image: Spoodlyks.; Robinson, Henry R., -1850., Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Gerrymander began with a hard G, the way Gerry said it: Image: Elkanah Tisdale, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• For over 300 years, a computer was a person: Image: Harvard College Observatory, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The ye in Ye Olde was a printer's stand-in for "the": Image: Images George Rex from London, England, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Theodore Roosevelt's order to write "tho" lasted four months: Image: William Charles Morris, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Rule of thumb was tied to wife-beating only in the 1970s: Image: James Gillray, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Crocodile tears were put to the test in 2006, on caimans: Image: Keven Law from Los Angeles, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Hobson's choice is said to come from a Cambridge stable: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Five years into a ten-year plan, the OED had reached "ant": Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Utopia means "no place," and More filled it with joke names: Image: Bibliothèque Mazarine, France, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The Night Watch was cut down to fit a wall in 1715: Image: Rembrandt, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A dying man said only he knew where the stolen van Eyck was: Image: Jan van Eyck / Hubert van Eyck, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Madame X's shoulder strap was first painted slipping off: Image: John Singer Sargent, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• A diver saved Winchester Cathedral, working in the dark: Image: Caeciliusinhorto, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Citicorp Center was secretly reinforced at night in 1978: Image: Epicgenius, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Chicago jacked up its buildings while people shopped inside: Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• Britain's first registered trademark appears in a Manet: Image: Édouard Manet, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The HMV dog was first painted listening to the wrong machine: Image: Francis Barraud, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• In 5,000 snowflake photos, a Vermonter found no two alike: Image: Wilson Bentley, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The oldest surviving aerial photo shows Boston, not Paris: Image: James Wallace Black, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Today's Five

• What are airplane contrails mostly made of?: Image: Nestek, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
• What couldn't the first iPhone (2007) do?: Image: Andrew from London, UK, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• What did the letters SOS originally stand for?: Image: Lauren.mcalary, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0