Daniel Radcliffe was allergic to his Harry Potter glasses. He had an allergy to nickel, and they were quickly replaced with hypoallergenic specs. Also, did you know that his glasses had no lenses? This was to prevent reflections from anything happening behind the scenes. The glass lens was added in post-production.
100 Mind-Blowing His Facts
Elvis was originally blonde. He started colouring his hair black for an edgier look. Sometimes, he would touch it up himself using shoe polish.
Ed Sheeran bought a ticket to LA with no contacts. He was spotted by Jamie Foxx, who offered him the use of his recording studio and a bed in his Hollywood home for six weeks.
IKEA is an acronym that stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd, which is the founder’s name, the farm where he grew up, and his hometown.
Larry the Cable Guy’s real name is Daniel Lawrence Whitney. His notable Southern accent is fake – he was born and raised in the Midwest, not the South.
Costa Coffee employs Gennaro Pelliccia as a coffee taster, who has had his tongue insured for £10 million since 2009.
Johnny Cash took only three voice lessons before his teacher advised him to stop taking lessons and never deviate from his natural voice.
The Hobbit has been published in two editions. In the first edition, Gollum willingly bet on his ring in the riddle game.
A man with severe OCD and a phobia of germs attempted to commit suicide with a gun to his head. Instead of killing him, the bullet eliminated his mental illness without any other damage.
Daniel Craig was an anonymous stormtrooper in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Originally, he denied his cameo and claimed he wouldn’t bother being an extra in a movie.
There is a statue of Tesla in Silicon Valley that radiates free Wi-Fi. It was done as a homage to his vision for wireless communication.
Pope Francis has been given many extravagant gifts over the years, and one of them was a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. However, rather than keeping it for his pleasure and adventures, he sold it off and used the money to benefit homeless people.
During the entire run of Gilligan’s Island, it was never revealed if “Gilligan” was his first or last name.
After the release of the 1996 film Scream, which involved an anonymous killer calling and murdering his victims, Caller ID usage tripled in the United States.
Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed because the pilot let his kids fly the plane and unknowingly disengaged the autopilot function. The crash killed everyone on board.
Mob boss Vincent Gigante used to wander around New York in his bathrobe to convince the police he was insane and avoid capture.
Whenever Charles Dickens was away from home, he would always realign the bed he was sleeping in to face Northwards, as he felt that this fostered and unlocked his creativity.
William Hung, made famous for his appearance on American Idol singing “She Bangs,” is a 73rd generation descendant of Confucius.
Nutella was invented during WWII when an Italian pastry maker mixed hazelnuts into chocolate to extend his chocolate ration.
A mason in 1700s Jerusalem left his wooden ladder behind after doing some work on a church, and now it can’t be moved without the agreement & permission of six different Christian leaders.
Eminem’s mother filed an $11 million defamation lawsuit against him because of his lyrics about her. She settled for $25,000, and $23,354.25 of that went to her lawyer.
As a child, Jet Li performed with the Chinese National Wushu Team for President Nixon. Nixon asked him to be his bodyguard, but he declined.
In the 1980s, the founder of Pringles, Fredric Baur, requested to be buried in a Pringles can. His children honoured the request.
While filming Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey had his crown temporarily removed – that chipped tooth is real and a result of a childhood fight.
During the first live iPhone presentation, Steve Jobs had to frequently switch phones behind his desk. Otherwise, it would run out of RAM and crash.
PewDiePie supported his YouTube channel by selling hot dogs. His persistence paid off when in 2012, his YouTube channel garnered over one million subscribers.
Kanye West’s song “Hey Mama” was dedicated to his mother, who died in 2007 after complications with plastic surgery.
The first world leader to create a YouTube channel was the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who made his account in 2007.
Rick Astley has his brand of beer. It was a collaboration between him and the Danish microbrewery Mikkeller; it’s a red lager with “a hint of ginger”.
William Shakespeare had a curse engraved on his tombstone to prevent anyone from moving his bones.
A man who was hanged for his part in the Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot had his skin removed, and it was used to bind a book that listed his offences.
Comedian Mitch Hedberg never passed on a job, having been told “no” so often early in his career that he felt like if he didn’t say “yes,” he might not be allowed to perform again.
Hugh Jackman often will tell the paparazzi where he is when he goes home to Australia so they can get their photos, then leave him alone for the rest of his visit.
Tupac was the first U.S. artist to have an album reach Billboard #1 while still in prison. It was his third studio album, titled “Me Against the World“.
When Blackbeard captured ships, many of the African slaves on board would go on to become pirates. When he died, nearly one-third of his total crew were former slaves.
A man, Ben Sliney, grounded 4,000 commercial planes across the United States on 9/11 due to the attacks – it was his first day on the job.
Elton John tried to commit suicide once by sticking his head in an oven with the gas on low and windows open. He was found and stopped by his best friend Bernie Taupin.
When electricity was first installed in the White House in 1891, President Benjamin Harrison and his wife were afraid of electrocution because of the new concept. They refused to touch light switches, so the staff had to turn the lights on and off for them.
Snoop Dogg’s real name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr. His “Snoop Dogg” nickname came from his mother, who thought he looked like Snoopy from Peanuts.
In 1923, a jockey suffered a fatal heart attack, but his horse finished and won the race, making him the first and only jockey to win a race after death.
After a waitress at a pizzeria helped a customer choose the numbers for a winning lottery ticket in 1984, he “tipped” her $3,000,000 – half of his $6,000,000 prize money.
Marie Antoinette’s last words were to her executioner after accidentally stepping on his foot, saying, “Pardon me, sir, I meant not to do it.”
Bob Ross’s hair was naturally straight, but he chose to get a perm so he could save money on haircuts when touring the US penniless in his mobile home. Bob hated his curly hair but kept it as it was iconic.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has such severe dyslexia that he didn’t read his first novel until he was 38.
Paddington Bear has 2 birthdays (just like the Queen). Paddington celebrates his birthdays on June 25th and December 25th.
Paul McCartney was only paid £1 for performing at the 2012 London Olympics Closing Ceremonies. He willingly donated his performance.
All of the sweaters Mister Rogers wore on his show were hand-knitted by his mother. He said he loved wearing them because they always made him think of her.
Alexander Hamilton was shot and mortally wounded by Aaron Burr on the same spot where his son had been killed 3 years before and by the same set of pistols.
Ed Sheeran has a ketchup bottle tattooed on his arm.
Daniel Radcliffe identifies as Jewish, and his mother is Jewish too.
When Jay-Z was 12, he shot his older brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewellery. He later referenced it in a song titled “You Must Love Me.”
In 1942, a 12-year-old lied about his age to join the Navy. He became a decorated war hero at age 13 but was thrown out of the Navy after his mom found out.
Albert Einstein was married to his distant cousin, Elsa Einstein.
Einstein’s brain went missing when he died in 1955 and was lost for 23 years. The doctor who worked on his autopsy stole it and kept it in a hidden cider box.
Jack Daniel (the founder of the whiskey) died from kicking a safe. When he kicked it, he broke his toe, which got infected. He eventually died from blood poisoning.
At his audition for The Office, John Krasinski told someone he was nervous about the producers ruining the show because of how great the British version was – little did he know, the person he was talking to was the show’s executive producer.
The last picture taken of John Lennon while he was alive had his killer in the frame.
In 1993, Aleksandr A. Serebrov took his Game Boy to space. Later, it was auctioned for $1,220 and is said to have orbited Earth 3,000 times.
A chicken once lived for 18 months without a head. Mike the Chicken’s incredible feat was recorded back in the 1940s in the USA. He survived as his jugular vein and most of his brainstem were left mostly intact, ensuring just enough brain function remained for survival. In the majority of cases, a headless chicken dies in a matter of minutes.
Deaf people are known to use sign language in their sleep. A case study of a 71-year-old man with rapid eye movement disorder and a severe hearing impairment showed him using fluent sign language in his sleep, with researchers able to get an idea of what he was dreaming about thanks to those signs.
The longest anyone has held their breath underwater is over 24.5 minutes. The world record for breath-holding underwater was achieved by Croatian Budimir Šobat on 27 March 2021, who held his breath for a total of 24 minutes and 37 seconds. On average, a human can hold their breath between 30-90 seconds.
Someone left a family photo on the Moon. When Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke landed on the Moon in 1972, he decided to leave behind a photo of himself, his two sons and his wife. The photo remains on the Moon to this day.
Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, was designed by female architect Julia Morgan. In 1919, she was hired by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst to design a main building and guest houses for his ranch, but she ended up purchasing everything from Spanish antiquities to Icelandic moss to reindeer for the Castle’s zoo, which was once the world’s largest private zoo.
In 1871, Potter Palmer, a Chicago businessman, built Palmer House, a Hilton Hotel, for a wedding gift for his wife, Bertha, who in 1893 asked the hotel’s pastry chef to make a chocolate cake-like treat that would be easy to transport for the World’s Columbian Exposition. The result of this request was the Palmer House Brownie, made of thick chocolate and topped with a walnut and apricot glaze and later published in a Sears Roebuck Catalog in 1898.
The book 3 SHADES OF BLUE: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan notes that when Miles Davis moved to New York City at 18, he spent his first few weeks attending classes at Julliard and going to Harlem to see performances at Minton’s Playhouse and the Savoy Ballroom, as well as clubs on 52nd Street.
Wally Amos is responsible for making more than just cookies famous. You may be familiar with Wally “Famous” Amos, thanks to his packaged chocolate chip cookies. But before he worked his magic on the sweet treats, he was in the business of making people famous, Biography reports. He discovered and signed the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel and was a talent rep for acts like Diana Ross, Sam Cooke, and Marvin Gaye.
Johnny Appleseed’s fruits weren’t for eating. Yes, there was a real John Chapman who planted thousands of apple trees on U.S. soil. But the apples on those trees were much more bitter than the ones you’d find in the supermarket today. “Johnny Appleseed” didn’t expect his fruits to be eaten whole but rather made into hard apple cider.
Most Disney characters wear gloves to keep animation simple. Walt Disney might have been the first to put gloves on his characters, as seen in 1929’s The Opry House, starring Mickey Mouse. In addition to being easier to animate, there’s another reason for the gloves: “We didn’t want him to have mouse hands because he was supposed to be more human,” Disney told his biographer in 1957.
The current American flag was designed by a high school student. It started as a school project for Bob Heft’s junior-year history class in 1958, and it only earned a B-minus. His design had 50 stars, even though Alaska and Hawaii weren’t states yet; Heft figured the two would earn statehood soon and showed the government his design. After President Dwight D. Eisenhower called to say the design was approved, Heft’s teacher changed his grade to an A.
T. S. Eliot wore green makeup. No one is sure why the poet dusted his face with green powder, though some guess he was just trying to look more interesting.
Theodore Roosevelt had a pet hyena. Its name was Bill, and it was a present from the Ethiopian emperor. Roosevelt was famous for his many pets, including a one-legged rooster, a badger, a pony, and a small bear.
The inventor of the microwave appliance received only $2 for his discovery. Percy Spencer was working as a researcher for American Appliance Company (now Raytheon) when he noticed that a radar set using electromagnetic waves melted the candy bar in his pocket. He had the idea to make a metal box using microwaves to heat food, but the company was the one to file the patent. That was in 1945, and he received a $2 bonus but never any royalties.
Cap’n Crunch’s full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch. He’s also been called out for only having the bars of a Navy commander, but the so-called Cap’n held his ground on Twitter, arguing that captaining the S.S. Guppy with his crew “makes an official Cap’n in any book!”
The Terminator script was sold for $1. James Cameron is the award-winning director of movies like Titanic and Avatar. To get his big break with The Terminator, he sold the script for $1 and a promise that he’d direct it.
Onions were found in the eyes of an Egyptian mummy. Pharaoh Ramses IV of ancient Egypt had his eyes replaced with small onions when he was mummified. The rings and layers of onions were worshipped because people thought they represented eternal life. This aligns with the reason for mummification: to allow the pharaoh to live forever.
An employee at Pixar accidentally deleted a sequence of Toy Story 2 during production. Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar, wrote in his book, Creativity Inc., that the year before the movie came out, someone entered the command ‘/bin/rm -r -f *’ on the drive where the files were saved, and scenes started deleting. It would have taken a year to recreate what was deleted, but luckily another employee had a backup of the entire film on her laptop at home.
A waffle iron inspired one of the first pairs of Nikes. Bill Bowerman was a track and field coach in the 1950s who didn’t like how running shoes were made. He first created the Cortez shoe but wanted a sneaker that was even lighter and could be worn on a variety of surfaces. During a waffle breakfast with his wife in 1970, he came up with the idea of using the waffle texture on the soles of running shoes. Waffle-soled shoes made their big debut in the 1972 U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Eugene, Oregon.
The French-language Scrabble World Champion doesn’t speak French. New Zealand native Nigel Richards memorized the entire French Scrabble dictionary, which has 386,000 words, in nine weeks to earn his title. He has also won the English World Scrabble Championship three times, the U.S. national championships five times, and the U.K. Open Scrabble tournament six times. This comes 20 years after 28-year-old Richards first played the game.
Penicillin was first called “mould juice”. In 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming left a petri dish in his lab while he was on vacation—only to return and find that some liquid around the mould had killed the bacteria in the dish. This became the world’s first antibiotic, but before naming it penicillin, he called it “mould juice.”
The first stroller was engineered to be pulled by a goat (or animal of similar size). William Kent, a landscape architect, invented the first stroller for the third Duke of Devonshire in 1733. But upper-class parents were hardly expected to put effort into transporting their children around, so Kent designed his model to be pulled by a small animal, like a goat.
Nikola Tesla hated pearls. The electrical engineer paved the way for current system generators and motors; the way electricity gets transmitted and converted to mechanical power is thanks to his inventions. But despite his patience with scientific experimentation, he had no tolerance for pearls. When his secretary wore pearl jewellery one day, he made her go home.
Thomas Edison is the reason you love cat videos. After inventing the kinetograph in 1892, Edison was able to record and watch moving images for the first time. He filmed short clips in his studio, some of which feature famous people like Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill. But the real stars of these early videos are the Boxing Cats—adorable cats that he recorded in a boxing ring circa 1894.
Brad Pitt suffered an ironic injury on a film set. In Troy, based on Homer’s Illiad, Pitt plays the brave (and buff) Greek hero Achilles. Legend has it that Achilles could not be defeated unless hit in his heel. (It’s where we get the term “Achilles’ heel,” meaning a vulnerable point.) While filming an epic battle scene, Pitt ironically hurt his Achilles tendon—an injury that set back the film’s production by two months.
Martin Luther King Jr. got a C in public speaking. The world remembers Dr. King as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, and people often quote his “I Have a Dream” speech, which he delivered in 1963. Yet more than a decade before that legendary speech, while attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, he earned a C in public speaking during his first and second terms.
The Pope can’t be an organ donor. Pope Benedict XVI was issued an organ donor card in 1970. Once he ascended to the papacy in 2005, the card was invalid, reports the Telegraph. According to the Vatican, the Pope’s entire body must be buried intact because his body belongs to the universal Catholic Church.
A one-armed player scored the winning goal in the first World Cup. Héctor Castro, who accidentally cut off his right forearm while using an electric saw as a teenager, played on the Uruguay soccer team during the first-ever World Cup in 1930. In the last game between Uruguay and Argentina, Castro scored the winning goal in the last minute of the game. The final score was 4–2, making Uruguay the first country to win the World Cup title.
Ice pops were invented by an 11-year-old by accident. In 1905, an 11-year-old boy named Frank Epperson left soda powder and water outside overnight with its wooden stirrer still in the cup. The mixture had frozen in the chilly nighttime weather, and so the Epsicle was born. He sold the treat around his neighbourhood and a nearby amusement park and even patented the recipe. Years later, he changed the name to Popsicle because that’s what his kids called their pop’s concoction.
Dunce caps used to be signs of intelligence. Thirteenth-century philosopher John Duns Scotus believed that a pointed cap would help spread knowledge from the tip to the brain, and his “Dunsmen” followers wore them as a badge of honour. In the 1500s, though, his ideas became less popular and the meaning of the Duns cap was turned on its head, becoming something of a joke.
Adolf Hitler was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Don’t worry, the Swedish politician who sent the letter of nomination in 1939 meant it ironically and withdrew his nomination. In an even more ironic twist, Hitler had banned Germans from accepting the awards four years before his name was thrown in the ring.
Michelangelo wrote a poem about how much he hated painting the Sistine Chapel. One translation of the poem he sent to his friend begins: I’ve already grown a goitre from this torture, hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy (or anywhere else where the stagnant water’s poison). Doesn’t sound like he was too thrilled with his task.
NASA uses countdowns because of a sci-fi film. The countdown Fritz Lang used to create suspense in the rocket launch scene of his 1929 silent film Frau im Mond didn’t just change film history—it also inspired NASA to use countdowns before its blastoffs. It’s not exactly a race against the clock though.
“OK” most likely stands for fake words. In the 1830s, people jokingly spelt abbreviations incorrectly. One of the most famous: “All correct” turned into “orl korrekt,” and then of course into OK. Historians think it stuck because Martin Van Buren—known as Old Kinderhook, after his hometown in New York—supporters called themselves the OK Club when he was campaigning for reelection.
William McKinley was shot right after giving away his good-luck charm. President McKinley always wore a red carnation for good luck but sometimes gave it out as a memento. When greeting the crowd in 1901, he handed a 12-year-old girl, Myrtle, his the bloom off his lapel, saying “I must give this flower to another little flower.” Minutes later, he was fatally shot by a man in the crowd.
Louboutins’ iconic red soles were inspired by Andy Warhol. The 60s pop artist’s drawing Flowers caught the eye of the famous designer which gave him the idea to add the infamous sole to his designs.
Walt Disney currently holds the most Academy Awards. Disney won 26 Oscars throughout his career and was nominated a total of 59 times.
M&Ms are named after the businessmen who created them. But what do the M’s stand for? Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie didn’t have the best relationship as Mars leveraged Murrie out of his 20% share of the business before it became the biggest-selling sweet in the US. Ouch.
The office chair is believed to have been invented by Charles Darwin. The scientist had the idea to attach wheels to his chair so he could move around between his many tables.
Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times when he died. The Roman leader was killed by his fellow senators, including his former bestie Brutus.
Tomato ketchup was used as medicine for 16 years. Whether you love it or hate it, this condiment once had a place in the world beyond hotdogs. However, you’d be surprised to know that ketchup only had tomatoes in it starting in 1834. Before, ketchup was made with a mix of fish and mushrooms. When Dr John Cooke Bennet added tomatoes to the mix, he claimed that the antioxidants gave it a medicinal property. He had a pill salesman turn his tomato ketchup into pills and claimed it could treat diarrhoea, indigestion, jaundice, and rheumatism.
You can’t move or touch William Shakespeare’s bones. William Shakespeare’s legacy doesn’t stop at his plays and how many words he created – but even in the afterlife, he leaves a lasting display of his wit. Buried in 1616, the playwright was said to have written his tombstone inscription which reads: “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebearer, To digg the dust enclosed heare; Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.”