80 Fun Facts About Family

Which is the largest planet in our Solar System?

You could fit about 1,300 Earths inside it.

What is the fastest land animal?

It can hit 58 to 65 mph, thanks to a flexible spine and long legs.

Which is the tallest animal alive today?

It is also the largest ruminant, chewing its cud like a cow.

Which is the largest and deepest ocean?

It covers more of the planet than all the land put together.

How many legs does a spider have?

Each leg has seven separate parts, and some spiders use their webs as giant ears.

What is the capital city of Australia?

It was purpose-built as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne.

Which planet is nicknamed the Red Planet?

The colour comes from rusty iron minerals in its dust.

What is the hardest natural material?

Its carbon atoms are packed more tightly than in any other known substance.

How many strings does a standard guitar have?

A twelve-string guitar doubles each of them up in pairs.

Which bird lays the largest eggs of any living land animal?

It is also the heaviest bird, weighing up to 320 pounds.

What is the largest animal that has ever lived?

It can reach around 100 feet long and weigh up to 200 tonnes.

What is the smallest country in the world?

It covers 109 acres and has fewer than 900 residents.

How many bones does an adult human have?

Babies start with about 270, but many fuse together as they grow.

Bees make honey mainly from what?

They can also use honeydew, the sugary secretions of aphids.

Who painted the Mona Lisa?

He was probably painting a Florentine lady called Lisa del Giocondo in 1503.

How many keys does a full-size piano have?

That is 52 white and 36 black keys, spanning just over seven octaves.

Which 1995 film was the first feature made entirely with computer animation?

It was also Pixar's first feature, with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as Woody and Buzz.

Which sport is played with a shuttlecock?

A smashed shuttlecock is one of the fastest-moving objects in any racquet sport.

How many rings are on the Olympic flag?

They stand for the inhabited continents, with the Americas counted as one.

In which city were the first modern Olympic Games held in 1896?

They were organised by the brand-new International Olympic Committee, founded by Pierre de Coubertin.

What is the largest hot desert in the world?

Only the frozen deserts of Antarctica and the Arctic are bigger.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from which country?

Its iron framework was built by Gustave Eiffel, of tower fame.

Which planet is famous for its bright system of rings?

The rings are mostly ice, and the planet has well over 200 known moons.

Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?

He and Buzz Aldrin spent two and a half hours outside the lunar module in July 1969.

How many days are there in a leap year?

The extra day keeps the calendar lined up with the seasons.

What is the currency of Japan?

Its symbol is ¥ and its code is JPY.

In Frozen, what is the name of Elsa's younger sister?

She sets off with Kristoff, Sven the reindeer and Olaf the snowman to find her.

Koalas eat almost nothing but the leaves of which tree?

The leaves are so low in energy that koalas sleep most of the day.

What colour is an emerald?

The colour comes from tiny traces of chromium or vanadium in the mineral beryl.

How many permanent (adult) teeth do humans usually have?

Children have 20 baby teeth first, all of which are replaced.

Which bird is the fastest animal on Earth when it dives?

Its hunting dive, or stoop, can top 200 mph.

What did the Titanic hit before it sank in April 1912?

It was on its maiden voyage to New York.

What is the longest bone in the human body?

It is also the largest and thickest bone you have.

Wild penguins live almost only in which half of the world?

Explorers named them after the great auk of the north, though the two are not related.

Mount Everest sits on the border between China and which other country?

Locals call it Sagarmāthā in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet.

Which country contains about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest?

Nine countries share the forest between them.

Guacamole is made mainly from which fruit?

The name comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacamōlli, meaning avocado sauce.

Big Ben is officially the nickname of what?

The tower it hangs in was renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012.

Which chess piece can only move diagonally?

Each player starts with two, one on light squares and one on dark.

Lego bricks come from a company based in which country?

The Lego Group is still privately owned and based in the town of Billund.

SpongeBob SquarePants lives in which underwater city?

He is a yellow sea sponge who lives in a pineapple.

What type of Pokémon is Pikachu?

The red sacs on its cheeks store the electricity.

How many colours are in the traditional rainbow sequence?

Isaac Newton picked seven, ending the sequence with indigo and violet.

Which are the only mammals that can truly fly?

The others only glide; bats flap and stay up.

Which planet is closest to the Sun?

It is also the smallest planet, and oddly only the second-hottest, because it has no atmosphere to trap heat.

What is the chemical formula for water?

Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

Which gas do plants take in from the air to make their food?

The process, photosynthesis, was discovered in 1779 by Jan Ingenhousz.

At what temperature does water boil at sea level, in Celsius?

Up a mountain it boils at a lower temperature, which is why tea tastes odd at altitude.

Which country overtook China in 2023 to become the world's most populous?

It has more than 1.4 billion people.

Pinocchio's nose grows whenever he does what?

His name may come from the Tuscan word for pine nut.

Which is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still largely standing?

It is also the oldest of the seven.

How many players does each soccer team have on the pitch?

That includes the goalkeeper, the only player allowed to use their hands in open play.

Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?

She is still the only person to have won Nobels in two different sciences.

The Beatles came from which English city?

The band formed there in 1960.

In The Wizard of Oz, what is the name of Dorothy's little dog?

The books never say his breed, but the illustrations made him a Cairn terrier in most people's minds.

Which former planet was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006?

It lives in the Kuiper belt, beyond Neptune, and now carries minor-planet number 134340.

Which 1937 film was the first full-length animated feature made in the United States?

Critics called it "Disney's Folly" before it became a smash.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is set in which Italian city?

Its Prince Escalus threatens death to anyone who breaks the peace again.

Graceland, Elvis Presley's mansion, is in which city?

It stands on a 13.8-acre estate on Elvis Presley Boulevard.

Sherlock Holmes's fictional London home is number 221B on which road?

For years a building society employed someone full-time just to answer his fan mail.

The Eiffel Tower was built as the centrepiece of a World's Fair in which year?

It also marked 100 years since the French Revolution.

Which is the hottest planet in the Solar System?

Its thick atmosphere traps heat, pushing the surface to about 464°C.

How many NBA championships did Michael Jordan win with the Chicago Bulls?

He was Finals MVP every single time.

Who is the most decorated gymnast in history?

She has 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals.

How many squares are on a chessboard?

They are arranged in an 8-by-8 grid of alternating light and dark squares.

The Golden Gate Bridge links which city to Marin County?

The strait it crosses is only about a mile wide.

Which is the longest river in the world, at about 4,400 miles?

Its source is defined as the farthest year-round stream in its basin.

The Great Wall of China was built mainly to keep out whom?

It is really a series of walls built by different Chinese states over many centuries.

Roughly how fast does light travel?

That is roughly a billion kilometres an hour, or seven trips round the Earth in a second.

From which English port did the Titanic set out on its maiden voyage?

It was bound for New York and never arrived.

At least how many moons are known to orbit the planet with the famous rings?

Only 63 of them have official names, and the count keeps rising.

Which country holds the second-largest share of the Amazon rainforest, about 13 percent?

Colombia is third with about 10 percent.

How many hearts does an octopus have?

One main heart pumps blood around the body while two smaller gill hearts push it through the gills.

The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef system, lies off the coast of which country?

It stretches more than 2,300 kilometres along Queensland and is made up of over 2,900 individual reefs.

Which is the largest continent by both land area and population?

It covers about 30 percent of Earth's land and is home to some 4.7 billion people.

The unicorn is the heraldic symbol of which country?

Legend held the unicorn to be the natural enemy of the lion, the symbol adopted by England's royals about a century earlier.

How many sides does a hexagon have?

The name comes from Greek words for 'six' and 'corner', and its inside angles always add up to 720 degrees.

Modern pizza evolved from flatbreads in which Italian city?

Before the 18th century such flatbreads were topped with garlic, salt, lard and cheese; the word 'pizza' was first recorded in AD 997.

In which fictional town do The Simpsons live?

Homer works as a safety inspector at the town's nuclear power plant, which suits his careless personality about as badly as you'd expect.

At what age do children start at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?

Rowling's boarding school takes pupils from eleven to eighteen, and any magical child in Britain gets an invitation.