An Italian banker, Gilberto Baschiera, is considered a modern-day Robin Hood. Over 7 years, he secretly diverted 1 million euros to poorer clients from the wealthy ones so they could qualify for loans. He made no profit and avoided jail in 2018 due to a plea bargain.
100 Mind-Blowing Made Facts
Octopuses and squids have beaks. The beak is made of keratin – the same material that a bird’s beak and our fingernails are made of.
Violin bows are commonly made from horse hair.
Medieval chastity belts are a myth. A great majority of examples now existing were made in the 18th and 19th centuries as jokes.
There’s no period in “Dr. Pepper.” It was removed because the old logo font made it look like “Di: Pepper.”
Vanilla flavouring is sometimes made from something called castoreum, a scented oil which is naturally secreted by beavers’ butts.
Nobody knows how the Academy Awards came to be referred to as the Oscars. The earliest mention was in 1932 and was made official in 1939.
The popular LMFAO group that created the viral hit, Party Rock Anthem, is made up of an uncle-nephew duo.
Roselle, a guide dog, led her blind owner down 78 flights of stairs during 9/11. The descent took about an hour, and they both safely made it out.
In 2017, Adidas sold over 1 million pairs of shoes made from recycled ocean plastic, each pair taking 11 plastic bottles to make.
The first-ever documented feature film was made in Australia in 1906.
William Hung, made famous for his appearance on American Idol singing “She Bangs,” is a 73rd generation descendant of Confucius.
1912 saw the last Olympic gold medals made entirely out of gold.
Spam mail got its name from the canned meat after a Monty Python skit that made fun of Spam as tasting “horrible and being ubiquitous and inescapable.”
The first world leader to create a YouTube channel was the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who made his account in 2007.
Russia has the most man-made satellites in orbit, with 1,324. There is a total of 2,271, and the U.S. is in second place at 658.
Both KitKat and Rolo are produced globally by Nestlé, except in the U.S., where it’s made by their competitor, Hershey’s.
Since 1497, the United Kingdom has printed their laws on vellum, made from calf or goat skin. They continue to do this to uphold the tradition.
Calling “shotgun” when riding in a car comes from the term “shotgun messenger.” This term was used to refer to the guard who sat next to the Stagecoach driver. The guards would use a shotgun to keep robbers and criminals away. It made its way into society due to Hollywood’s love of Western flicks.
Hanson made a beer called “Mmmhops.” They give away a free song with every bottle.
Originally, cigarette filters were made out of cork, the look of which was incorporated into today’s pattern.
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.
False eyelashes were invented in 1916 when a producer wanted to enhance an actress’s eyes in a movie. The lashes were made of human hair.
In the 1830s, the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, wanted to disassemble the Giza Pyramids and use them as pre-cut building materials. Thankfully, the Quantity Surveyor for the project fudged the figures and made it look like it would cost too much to save them.
Anna Bagenhold fell through a frozen stream while she was skiing and was stuck for over an hour. She made a full recovery and became the person to survive the lowest body temperature ever recorded at 56.7 °F (13.7 °C), even though she was clinically dead.
The whole Harry Potter series contains 199 chapters, 4,224 pages, and 1,090,739 words and has been made into 19 hours and 39 minutes of the film.
The King of Macedon threatened Sparta with, “If I bring my army into your land, I will raze your city.” The Spartans replied: “If.” No attempt was made to capture the city.
The British tried to invent a ship made out of wood pulp and ice during World War II. Called Project Habakkuk, it was shelved due to costs.
There’s a planet mostly made from diamonds. Called 55 Cancrie, it’s around twice the size of Earth and some 40 light-years away from us within the Cancer constellation.
The first hand-held mobile phone call was made on April 3rd, 1973, in NYC.
The Eiffel Tower was originally made for Barcelona.
McDonald’s once made bubblegum-flavored broccoli.
There’s a planet made almost entirely of diamonds.
The O&H Danish Bakery in Racine, Wisconsin, makes 7,000 Kringles a day during the holiday season and has made landfall in all seven continents. A Kringle is Wisconsin’s State Pastry, originally hails from Northern Europe and is a sweet variation on a pretzel.
The building One Times Square was built in 1904 as the headquarters for the New York Times. It’s been home to the New Year’s Eve Ball Drop Celebration since 1907, when the first New Year’s Eve ball was made of iron and wood, one hundred 25-watt bulbs and weighed 700 pounds. Today’s ball is 12 feet in diameter and weighs almost six tons with 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles bolted to 672 LED modules attached to the aluminium frame.
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 Singapore Sling cocktail was created in 1915 in Singapore by Raffles Hotel bartender Ngiam Tong Boon. It’s typically made with gin, pineapple juice, grenadine, lime juice and cherry brandy, among other ingredients.
The world’s first animated feature film was made in Argentina. Even if you know a lot of Disney trivia, you might assume that the honour of the first animated feature film belongs to Walt Disney’s 1937 movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But 20 years earlier, a full-length animated feature film was made in Argentina. It was a political satire called El Apóstol made up of 58,000 drawings and had a running time of 70 minutes, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
The Philippines consists of 7,641 islands. The Philippines is an archipelago, which means it’s made up of a group of islands—7,641 islands, to be exact. That figure does not include the thousands of sandbars and other landforms that emerge during low tide.
Human beings can use only a small fraction of Earth’s water. In school, we were taught that most (specifically, 71 per cent) of the planet’s surface is covered in water. While that’s true, humans can use only 0.007 per cent of that water, according to National Geographic. That’s because only about 2.5 per cent of Earth’s water is freshwater, and only 1 per cent of that is accessible. The rest is made up of glaciers and snowfields.
The first time the word “period” was used on TV about menstruation was in 1985. It came via a line in a Tampax commercial: “Feeling cleaner is more comfortable. It can change the way you feel about your period.” And the actor who made pop culture history was Courtney Cox of Friends fame.
McDonald’s once made bubblegum-flavored broccoli. This crazy McDonald’s fact will have your taste buds crawling. Unsurprisingly, the attempt to get kids to eat healthier didn’t go over well with the child testers, who were “confused by the taste.”
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.
The longest English word is 189,819 letters long. We won’t spell it out here, but the full name for the protein nicknamed titin would take three and a half hours to say out loud. While this is, by far, the longest word in English, the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary has 45 letters, and the longest made-up word has just 28. Just a few more interesting facts for your next cocktail party!
Paint used to be stored in pig bladders. The bladder would be sealed with a string and then pricked to get the paint out. This option wasn’t the best because it would often break open. American painter John G. Rand was the innovator who, in the 19th century, made paint tubes from tin and screw caps.
Japan released sushi-inspired Kit Kats. For a limited time in 2017, Tokyo’s Kit Kat Chocolatory shop made three types of chocolate bars that were inspired by sushi but didn’t taste like raw fish. The tuna sushi was raspberry, the seaweed-wrapped one tasted like pumpkin pudding, and the sea urchin sushi was the flavour of Hokkaido melon with mascarpone cheese. All were made with puffed rice, white chocolate, and a bit of wasabi.
The inventor of the tricycle personally delivered two to Queen Victoria. In 1881, Queen Victoria was on a tour on the Isle of Wight when her horse and carriage could not keep up with a woman riding a tricycle. Intrigued by the bike, the queen proceeded to order two. She also asked that the inventor, James Starley, arrive with the delivery. Though you might associate tricycles with toddlers, Queen Victoria made them cool among the elite at the time.
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 MGM lion roar is trademarked. At the start of any movie made by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, the iconic lion roars at the audience. While MGM has gone through several iterations of lion mascots, the sound of the roar is always the same. The company trademarked the “sound mark” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in the 1980s.
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.
Bees can make coloured honey. In France, there’s a biogas plant that manages waste from a Mars chocolate factory, where M&Ms are made. Beekeepers nearby noticed that their bees were making “unnatural shades of green and blue” honey. A spokesperson from the British Beekeepers’ Association theorized that the bees eating the sugary M&M waste caused the coloured honey.
3 Musketeers bars got their name because they used to come with three flavours. The original 3 Musketeers bars of the 1930s came in three packs, with a different nougat flavour in each: vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry. World War II rations made that triple threat expensive, so the company cut down to one.
The world’s smallest wasp is smaller than an amoeba. The Megaphragma mymaripenne wasp has the same body parts as any other bug (brain, wings, eyes, and more) but is a fifth of a millimetre long, making it smaller than most amoebas, which are made of just one cell.
Some single-celled organisms are bigger than a wasp. Two can play that game. The Caulerpa alga is made of just one cell but can grow up to 12 inches long.
The first aeroplane flew on December 17, 1903. Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with their first powered aircraft, aka the first aeroplane.
The Night’s Watch cloaks in Game of Thrones were made from Ikea rugs. The show bought the rugs, shaved them down and then dyed them to make the cloaks.
Candles were once eaten in famines. They used to be mainly made from beef fat or beeswax, and so they were often stolen in famines for people to eat.
During the 2024 Summer Olympics, four sports made their debut. Climbing, breaking, skateboarding, and surfing.
For a spirit to be classed as tequila, it needs to be made from the blue agave plant. It’s made from the centre of the agave plant, which is called the piña.
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.
The name for the Pringles shape is a hyperbolic paraboloid. The saddle shape of a Pringles chip is known in math as a hyperbolic paraboloid. Pringles were made in this shape because it allows the chips to be stacked easily and kept in place during packageing.
Tinder made its first match in Antarctica in 2014. Tinder made its first match on the continent of Antarctica in 2014. The match in question was between two research scientists. You could pretty much find a match for you anywhere with these new dating apps.
Insects are attracted to light because of the moon. Bug behaviour can be especially strange, but scientists predict that night insects (like moths) are attracted to lights because they used the light of the moon to navigate the Earth way before artificial lights were made.
The sound of a Star Wars lightsaber is the combined sound of a film projector and noise from an old TV. Sound designer Ben Burtt created the iconic whooshing sound of lightsabers almost accidentally. The sound made when lightsabers make an impact resulted from TV feedback on a shieldless microphone – which Burtt discovered on accident while looking for something to add to the projector hum.
During World War II, the Oscar awards were made of painted plaster. The prestigious Oscar awards were made of painted plaster for three years following the metal scarcity of WWII. After the war, the Academy offered to replace the plaster figures with gold-plated metal ones.
M&M’s stands for “Mars & Murrie’s.” The two ‘M’s on this candy staple represent the names of Forrest E. Mars Sr., (founder of Newark Company), and Bruce Murrie (son of Hershey Chocolate’s president William F. R. Murrie). One of the little-known fun facts about M&M’s is that it’s made with Hershey’s chocolate. Another fun fact? It’s a copycat product! Mars only had an idea for the product from seeing its British predecessor, Smarties.
A laughing epidemic made 14 schools close in East Africa. In 1962, a laughter epidemic broke out in Tanganyika (now known as Tanzania). It started with three young girls and the uncontrollable laughter spread to neighboring villages. Symptoms included crying, fainting, rashes, and pain. All in all, it made 14 schools close.
The world’s quietest room is located at Microsoft’s headquarters in Washington state. In Building 87 of Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington lies the quietest room in the world. With a record-breaking background noise of -20.35 dBA, this room is 20 decibels below the minimum of human hearing. It is so silent that if you stay in it for long enough, you’ll start to hear your heartbeat, a deafening ringing in your ears, and the grinding of your bones. To achieve absolute silence, the room was constructed with an onion-like structure made of six layers of concrete and steel.
Dodge made the first engines used by Ford. The Dodge Brothers Company built every part of the earliest Ford car except the seats and tyres.
The Terminator script was sold for a dollar. James Cameron is an award-winning director who made his name with hits such as Titanic, Avatar, and The Terminator. However, his life wasn’t always that grand. In fact: to get his breakout hit made with The Terminator, he sold the script for US$1 and a promise that he’d get to direct.
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone. The Ancient Egyptians used wooden or stone headrests as pillows. They believed it helped with body vigour, blood circulation, and warding away demons.
A Boeing 747 airliner is made of over 6,000,000 separate parts. The Boeing 747-8 is known as the world’s longest aircraft. It takes four months to finish building.
The tallest tower of cupcakes ever made is over 35 feet. On Sep 23, 2017, Cupcakes of Hope (ZAF) built a tower of cupcakes standing 35 ft 4” (10.77 m) tall in Vereeniging, South Africa.
The sound of the automatic doors opening on the U.S.S. Enterprise is made by a toilet. One of the fun facts about the rich world of Star Trek is the story behind the U.S.S. Enterprise’s doors: The distinct sound is the sound of a Russian train’s toilet flushing.
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton learned how to make soap in Fight Club. The 90s cult classic had one of its most iconic scenes when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton’s characters made soap. They learned for real.
The Pokemon Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are based on Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Pokemon is an RPG known for its world-building, which includes creating Pokemon inspired by animals, objects, space, and – turns out – even renowned martial artists. Generation 1’s Fighting type Pokemon Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan were made as homages to the great kung fu masters.
T-shirts were originally made for unmarried men who didn’t know how to sew buttons on collared shirts. However, people didn’t pay much mind to T-shirts until the 1950s.
Only ¼ of the Sahara Desert is sandy. When you think Sahara, you’d probably think of something out of The Lion King or National Geographic: stretches of dry, barren sands. However, this is not the case. One of the fun facts about the Sahara desert is that it’s hardly made up of sand! Most of it is covered in gravel with mountains and oases.
A one-armed player scored the winning goal in the first World Cup. Héctor Castro played for the Uruguay soccer team during the first-ever 1930 World Cup. In the last round between Uruguay vs Argentina, Castro scored a last-minute goal that made Uruguay the first-ever winner of the World Cup.
The plastic tips of shoelaces are called aglets. These tips can also be made of metal. Its purpose is to help make the lace easier to hold when running through the holes of the shoes.
Apple once had a clothing line. They mainly consisted of graphic tees with cheesy designs on them. Ironically, they would’ve made a bigger hit today than in 1986.
3 Musketeer chocolate bars used to have 3 flavours. These candy bars came in three breakable pieces and were originally made for sharing. Each candy bar contained a different flavour – strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla.
The ‘?!’ punctuation mark has a term. It is called an interrobang and was invented during the 1960s. This combination of punctuation made it easy for advertisements to express emotional questions. The interrobang originally looked like both marks were overlapped (‽).
The largest living organism is an aspen grove. This grove is referred to as Pando and can be found in the state of Utah. The grove is made up of 47,000 identical quaking aspen trees that cover over 106 acres.
The fedora was originally a hat made for women. Over time, it became acceptable for men to wear them as well. Today, both men and women wear them mainly for fashion purposes.
The Baseball Hall of Fame had a secret inductee. In 1988, a surreptitious addition to the Baseball Hall of Fame was made without anyone knowing. A bar owner visiting the hall slipped a photo of his father in a baseball cap into one of the glass cases. This photo remained in the hall for over 6 years before being discovered.
Vantablack has a trademark. Anish Kapoor had won the executive rights to the world’s darkest shade of black and stated that only they could use it. Outraged, the creator of the pinkest pink made the colour available for everyone but Kapoor. Now that’s a colourful war.
The Mayo Clinic made glow-in-the-dark cats while trying to find a cure for AIDS. This was mainly due to the specific protein in their bodies that was fluorescent green. They also used this protein to discover if their tests worked out or not. Glowing was a sign that the tests were successful.
The Antarctic glaciers are made up of 3% penguin urine. Due to the extreme temperatures in this region of the world, the urine cannot evaporate. Hence how they freeze and mould with the glaciers around them.
Violin bows are made from horsehair. A single violin bow uses around 160-180 strands of hair. They are all then attached next to each other to form a ribbon. Thick and kinked hairs are removed so that the bow remains smooth and straight.
A Norwegian Island made dying illegal. It is illegal to die in Svalbard because they are unable to safely bury the deceased due to the permafrost ground. When people on this island are about to die, they are brought to mainland Norway to pass away there.
Ben & Jerry’s made a graveyard for their former flavours. These flavours all consist of discontinued ice cream flavours. Each flavour has its photo as well as its life span. Each one even has its epitaph for people to remember it by.
The calling shotgun for the front passenger seat comes from a messenger. The original term is the shotgun messenger and it was a term used to call the person who sat next to the driver. These messengers would act as guards and use a shotgun to prevent criminals from getting too close. Due to Hollywood’s influence, this term eventually made its way into our society.
The match was invented after the lighter. The first match was made in 1826. However, the first cigarette lighter was made in 1823.
Arizona forbids camel hunting. This act has been made illegal within Arizona’s borders. Any misdemeanours towards camels are also forbidden.
The Apollo 11 crew pre-made autographs for insurance. The Apollo 11 crew was prepared for the chance that they may not be able to return from their voyage. In an attempt to financially prepare their families, they signed many trinkets that their families could sell if the mission failed.
Shakesphere’s epitaph is cursed. In 1616, Shakespeare died at the age of 52 and was buried in a tomb. The epitaph featured on his grave was made to ward off grave robbers.
The tooth of an elephant weighs around 9 pounds. Their teeth are made from ivory which is a white material for the tusks and teeth of animals. This is covered with an outer layer of enamel that closely resembles the coating on human teeth.
The oldest condom ever found dates back to the 1640s. Evidence of this was found in a cesspit at Dudley Castle. The condom was made from the innard of animals and fish which was a common material for early birth control.
Bulls are colour-blind. This means that a bull is not irritated by the colour red, but mostly due to the movement made by matadors. Bulls are unable to see colours within the red-green spectrum.