During WWII, a U.S. naval destroyer won a battle against a Japanese submarine by throwing potatoes at them. The Japanese thought they were grenades.
100 Mind-Blowing Won Facts
A woman was elected to the House of Representatives four years before women even won the right to vote.
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.
In 2015, Ariana Grande won two MTV Millennial Awards for the “Global Instagrammer of the Year” and “International Hit of the Year” with her single “One Last Time.”
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.
Competitive art used to be an Olympic sport. Between 1912 and 1948, the international sporting events awarded medals for music, painting, sculpture and architecture. Shame it didn’t catch on, the famous pottery scene in Ghost could have won an Olympic medal as well as an Academy Award for the best screenplay.
Walt Disney currently holds the most Academy Awards. Disney won 26 Oscars throughout his career and was nominated a total of 59 times.
Beyoncé is the most awarded artist at the Grammys. She’s been nominated for 88 awards and won a whopping 32.
Raphael Nadal holds the title for the most Grand Slams ever won on Clay. He won the French Open 14 times.
Billie Eilish’s ‘No Time to Die’ is the most awarded song in history. It won 36 awards, including the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Song, and the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
A man once won a horse race after he died. This one will have you saying, “What the fact?!” but this dark fun fact takes “winning spirit” to another level. Frank Hayes was a jockey who suffered a fatal heart attack mid-race. However, his horse still led and finished the race in first place. As such, Hayes was the first and only jockey to win a race posthumously in 1923.
Elvis only won 3 Grammys. The King of Rock and Roll had 18 #1 hits in his career but only bagged 3 awards out of his 14 nominations. Instead, the record for the most Grammy wins belongs to George Solti, the longtime leader of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, at 31 Grammy awards.
People used to answer the phone with “ahoy”. Back during the 1800s phone greetings were inspired by the Simpsons when Mr. Burns would pick up the phone with “Ahoy-hoy”. Thomas Eddison, however, wanted users to use ‘Hello’ instead. We know who won that argument.
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.
A jockey from 1923 managed to finish a race after dying. During the middle of a race, the jockey suffered from a heart attack. However, his horse was able to finish the race on its own and won. This event in history is the first and only time it has ever occurred since.
The longest recorded tennis match lasted for 11 hours. This took place at Wimbledon 2010. John Isner won this match against Nicolas Mahut and took over 3 days to complete.
In Russia, competitive slapping is a sport. In March 2019, Russia held its first-ever competitive slapping contest. The winning contestant must deliver the hardest slap and endure the longest time being slapped. The contest was tournament-style, with winners for each match facing other winners until one man was left standing. The first-ever champion turned out to be Vasiliy Kamotskiy, nicknamed Pelmen or “Dumpling.” the 370-pound man won 30,000 Russian Ruble (US$470).
A fortune cookie once predicted the lottery, and 110 people won. In 2005, a shocking 110 people won second place in a Powerball drawing, with each one describing a fortune cookie for their lucky digits. Usually, only 4 or 5 people win second place. However, upon investigation, no foul play was involved.
The first-ever winner of Survivor got jail time for tax evasion. Richard Hatch won US$1 million after the first-ever season of Survivor. However, he failed to declare his winnings on his taxes. As such, he served four years in prison.
There’s a sport for making weird faces. A gurn or chuck is a particularly funny facial expression. The typical “gurn” involves protruding the lower jaw as forward as possible, completely covering the upper lip with the lower lip. Anne Woods of the U.K. has won 27 gurning championships from 1977-2010, which makes her the record-holder for the most gurning world championships won.
The oldest stripper started at 60 years old. Age is just a number, and Bernie Barker proved it to a tee. The former real estate agent) got into stripping in 2000 when he was 60. To him, stripping was a way to get in shape after beating prostate cancer. Throughout his career, he won over 40 contests. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 66 in 2007.
Marvel action figures helped ToyBiz save money. In the U.S., dolls based on human figures are taxed more heavily than other toys. Owning the rights to several Marvel Comics characters, ToyBiz successfully convinced the court that X-Men and Fantastic Four action figures should be taxed less. Their argument? The action figures were based on mutants, not humans. Following their appeal, the toy company won a reimbursement on the year’s taxes and cut their rate in half.
The movie is based on the novel “Schindler’s Ark” by Thomas Keneally. Keneally’s book, which won the Booker Prize in 1982, served as the inspiration for Spielberg to bring this incredible story to the big screen.
“Schindler’s List” won seven Academy Awards. The film received widespread critical acclaim and recognition, earning Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Art Direction.
Peyton List has won several awards. Her outstanding performances have earned her accolades, including the Young Hollywood Award for Breakthrough Performance.
In 1923, a jockey suffered a fatal heart attack mid-race. His horse finished and won the race, making him the first and only jockey to win a race after death.
Jeannette Rankin was elected to the House of Representatives four years before women had won the right to vote.
American swimmer Michael Phelps, who is known to be left-handed, holds the record for the most Olympic medals won by any athlete, with 28 Olympic medals, including 23 golds.
Walt Disney has won the most Academy Awards. The House of Mouse has won 26 Oscars and was nominated 59 times.
In the Olympics, competitive art was once an official sport. Between 1912 and 1952, artists won medals in architecture, music, painting and sculpture.
Walt Disney has won the most Academy Awards. He’s earned 26 of them.
The most medals won for Olympic basketball (male or female) are both held by women: Teresa Edwards and Lisa Leslie with four gold medals each.
The first rap song to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song was Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” It rapidly became one of Eminem’s most successful singles, staying at the top of the charts for 23 weeks running (that in itself won the song a Guinness World Record!). Eminem didn’t attend the Academy Awards as he thought he wouldn’t win, so instead spent the evening at home sleeping and watching cartoons with his daughter. One of his producers ended up accepting the award on Eminem’s behalf.
The 1927 Liberian general election was the most rigged in world history. People are quick to claim an election was rigged when their ideal candidate isn’t chosen, but the people of Liberia had something to complain about back in 1927 genuinely. While there were only 15,000 registered voters, Charles King of the True Whig Party somehow managed to rake in 243,000 votes! Despite the results being falsified, the True Whig Party still won the election.
The first college football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton (then known as the College of New Jersey) in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers won.
Havoc! One of the few known medieval battlefield orders is the cry of ‘Havoc!’. Havoc released the army from any formation and gave freedom to loot, and was an order only ever to be given when it was utterly certain that a battle was won and discipline was no longer required. It was considered so dangerous that it was expressly forbidden without permission from the army’s commander. A wrongly timed cry of havoc could cost a battle and there were severe punishments for crying havoc without permission – sometimes extending to beheading.
Wrestler president. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was a skilled wrestler and reportedly won 300 bouts and had only one known defeat.
Extraterrestrial prize. The (dwarf) planet Pluto was named by an 11-year-old schoolgirl who won the naming competition.
Deep Blue was the first AI robot, made in 1996. It was a chess-playing computer which won its first game against a World Champion on 10 February 1996.