96 Fun Facts About Funny

In 1932 the Australian military went to war against which animal, and lost?

Soldiers with Lewis guns were sent to cull the birds in Western Australia's Wheatbelt, but the flocks scattered into small mobile groups and the operation was abandoned amid public ridicule.

The only shot fired in a 1784 Dutch-Habsburg naval standoff hit what, giving the conflict its name?

The Habsburg ship Le Louis surrendered after that single shot, making it one of the least bloody wars ever fought.

The 1838 France-Mexico war is nicknamed after the profession of a Frenchman whose shop was looted. What was he?

Monsieur Remontel said Mexican officers had looted his shop in Tacubaya and demanded 60,000 pesos for a business valued at under 1,000.

Legend says Liechtenstein sent 80 soldiers to the 1866 Austro-Prussian War and how many came back?

The tale says they returned with a new Austrian friend in tow. Liechtenstein disbanded its army entirely two years later and has been neutral ever since.

According to legend, Caligula planned to give which political office to his horse Incitatus?

Ancient sources are clear it never actually happened; historians suspect the whole thing was a joke at the Senate's expense.

In 1698 Tsar Peter I of Russia introduced a tax on what?

Those who paid carried a copper or silver token showing a nose, mouth and whiskers as proof. Catherine the Great repealed the tax in 1772.

In January 1943 the US government briefly banned the sale of what?

It was a wartime conservation measure and lasted under two months; a New York housewife wrote to the Times that it was vital to the 'morale and saneness' of a household.

The astronomer Tycho Brahe lost part of his nose in a duel that started as an argument over what?

He wore a prosthetic nose for the rest of his life; a 2012 analysis of his exhumed remains found it was made of brass.

The first man across the line in the 1904 Olympic marathon was disqualified for doing what for part of the race?

Fred Lorz dropped out with cramps after nine miles, was driven back to the stadium, waved to the crowd and nearly received the gold from Alice Roosevelt.

Trainers kept 1904 Olympic marathon winner Thomas Hicks going with brandy, raw eggs and what?

The rat poison was used in small doses as a stimulant; Hicks was hallucinating and near collapse when he crossed the line.

Which sport did astronaut Alan Shepard play on the Moon during Apollo 14?

He used a Wilson six-iron head attached to a sample-scoop handle and, swinging one-handed in a stiff suit, hit two balls.

Chess boxing matches alternate rounds of blitz chess and boxing. How can a bout be won?

A match is eleven alternating rounds starting and ending with chess, and the same chess game continues across rounds.

The World Bog Snorkelling Championship is held each August in which country?

Competitors swim two lengths of a trench cut through a peat bog near Llanwrtyd Wells using flipper power only; conventional strokes are banned.

Wife-carrying, which has its own world championship, began in 1992 in which country?

It began in Sonkajärvi and has spawned national finals in the UK and the US, where one contestant once carried two wives at once and finished last.

Toe wrestling was invented in 1974 by British pub drinkers who wanted what?

The World Toe Wrestling Championship is still held annually in Derbyshire; the official rules ban stimulants.

At the annual Cooper's Hill event in Gloucestershire, competitors hurl themselves down a steep hill chasing what?

The 7 to 9 pound round of Double Gloucester is sent rolling down a slope of around 50 percent, and winners have come from as far as Japan and Egypt.

Which of these was an official Olympic event at every Games from 1900 to 1920?

It was counted as part of the athletics programme; in 1900 a mixed Danish-Swedish team took first place.

How did Eric 'the Eel' Moussambani win his 2000 Olympic 100 m freestyle heat despite the slowest time ever?

The swimmer from Equatorial Guinea had never seen a 50-metre pool before Sydney and had trained in a hotel pool between 5 and 6 am.

Why was the last 'timeless' cricket Test, Durban 1939, abandoned as a draw after nine days?

England were 654 for 5 chasing 696 when they left Durban to catch the ship, and timeless Tests were never played again.

In a 1994 Caribbean Cup qualifier, Barbados deliberately scored against themselves late in the game. Why?

Barbados needed to win by two; tied at 2-2 they could win by the doubled sudden-death goal, so Grenada then tried to score an own goal too while Barbados defended both ends.

An Olympic 'gold' medal is actually made mostly of which metal?

IOC rules require at least 92.5 percent silver plated with just 6 grams of gold, so its metal was worth around $494 in 2010.

Wombats are the only known animals to produce droppings of what shape?

The shape stops them rolling away when stacked to mark territory; the discovery won the 2019 Ig Nobel Prize for Physics.

Sea otters have a loose pouch of skin under each foreleg. What do they keep in it?

They prefer the left pouch, and the rock is a tool for cracking open shellfish and clams at the surface.

Mike, a Colorado chicken, became famous in 1945 for living 18 months after what happened to him?

The axe missed the jugular and left most of the brain stem, so he could still walk and perch; Fruita holds a Mike the Headless Chicken Day every May.

When the first preserved platypus reached Europe in 1799, scientists concluded that it was what?

The prevailing suspicion was that someone had stitched a duck's beak onto a beaver-like body.

How often does a three-toed sloth climb down from its tree to use the toilet?

It digs a hole and covers it afterwards. Nobody is sure why it takes the risk, since sloths on the ground are easy prey.

What was the favourite drink of Wojtek, the bear drafted into the Polish Army in WWII?

He held the rank of corporal, had his own paybook and serial number, and helped carry ammunition crates at Monte Cassino.

From 1997 until 2017 the town of Talkeetna, Alaska had an honorary mayor named Stubbs. What was Stubbs?

The tale that he won a write-in campaign is a myth, since the town has no real mayor, but he still drew 30 to 40 tourists a day.

In Switzerland it is illegal to keep just one of which pet?

The animals are considered social, so owning a single one is classed as harmful to its well-being.

The bird we call a turkey got its English name because of a mix-up with which other bird?

The name first referred to guineafowl, an African bird imported to Europe via Turkey; the French instead named the American bird after India.

Botanically speaking, which of these fruits is a true berry?

Grapes, tomatoes, bananas and aubergines make the botanical cut too, while the fruits with berry in their name generally do not.

The 'banana equivalent dose' is an informal unit used to explain what?

Bananas contain naturally radioactive potassium-40, so eating one is roughly one percent of an average day's background dose.

When William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, what did he want to call it?

Georgium Sidus honoured his patron King George III; the name Uranus did not become universal until 1850.

Andre Geim is the only person to win both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel. What won him the Ig Nobel in 2000?

Ten years later he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for graphene; the frog work reportedly helped inspire a Chinese lunar-gravity research facility.

The word 'muscle' comes from a Latin word meaning what?

The Romans thought a flexed biceps looked like a mouse moving under the skin.

Point Nemo in the South Pacific is so remote that the nearest humans are often who?

No shipping or air routes pass within 400 km, and the International Space Station is planned to be crashed there in 2031.

On the Gemini 3 flight in 1965, astronaut John Young smuggled what into orbit in his spacesuit pocket?

The crew took a few bites before crumbs became a concern; NASA later declared 'non-man-rated corned beef sandwiches' off limits.

Kinder Surprise eggs cannot legally be sold in the United States because of a law passed in which decade?

The 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act bans confectionery with a non-nutritive object inside; Kinder Joy, with the toy kept separate, arrived in 2017.

Hawaiian pizza, topped with pineapple and ham, was invented in which country?

Greek-born Sam Panopoulos created it in Chatham, Ontario in 1962 and named it after the brand of canned pineapple he used.

The Caesar salad was invented in 1924 in which city?

Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini ran the restaurant across the Mexican border to serve Americans dodging Prohibition, and threw it together during a Fourth of July rush.

German chocolate cake gets its name from what?

The cake comes from Dallas, Texas and uses German's Sweet Chocolate, a baking bar he developed for the Baker's company in 1853.

Fortune cookies served in Chinese restaurants most likely originated with immigrants from which country?

A similar cookie was made in Kyoto in the 19th century, and a San Francisco tea garden is credited with first serving the modern version.

Kopi luwak, one of the world's most expensive coffees, is made from beans that have been what?

The cherries ferment in the animal's gut and are collected from its droppings; the farming methods involved have drawn ethical criticism.

The durian fruit is banned on public transport in Singapore and Bangkok for what reason?

The odour can linger for days; one 19th-century writer said it smells like rotten onions until you taste it, after which you prefer it to all other food.

When it launched in the 1880s, Coca-Cola's two key ingredients were caffeine and what?

Fresh coca leaves were removed from the recipe in 1903; the drink still uses a cocaine-free coca leaf extract.

Bubble wrap was invented in 1957 by two men who were trying to make what?

Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes' three-dimensional plastic wallpaper flopped, and it took a few years to reposition it as packaging.

Play-Doh was first sold in the 1930s as what?

The Cincinnati product removed coal soot from walls; once homes switched to gas heating it was reborn as a toy.

The Slinky was invented after a naval engineer watched what happen?

Richard James spent a year finding the right steel; the first 400 Slinkys sold out in 90 minutes at Gimbels in 1945.

The Frisbee got its name from a Connecticut company that made what?

Yale students tossed the empty Frisbie Pie Company tins around campus, and Wham-O borrowed the name for its Pluto Platter in 1957.

Nintendo was founded in 1889 to make what?

Fusajiro Yamauchi's hand-painted hanafuda flower cards were popular with Kyoto's yakuza-run gambling parlours.

The world's first webcam, set up at Cambridge University in 1991, was pointed at what?

Researchers wanted to know whether the Trojan Room pot was empty before walking over; the pot later sold on eBay for £3,350.

The first item ever sold on eBay, for $14.83, was what?

When founder Pierre Omidyar checked that the buyer knew it was broken, the man replied that he collected broken laser pointers.

Amazon was founded in 1994 under which original name?

Bezos launched it as an online bookstore from Bellevue, Washington, and settled on the Amazon name a year later.

Bluetooth wireless technology is named after a tenth-century what?

Harald Bluetooth united the Danish tribes; the codename stuck when a trademark search on 'RadioWire' could not be finished in time, and the logo merges his runic initials.

The Michelin guide has been published since 1900 by a company that makes what?

The Michelin brothers gave the guide away free to encourage motorists to drive more and wear out their tyres faster.

The Guinness Book of Records was created in the 1950s to settle what?

Guinness boss Sir Hugh Beaver missed a shot at a golden plover, argued about the fastest game bird, and could find no book to settle it.

Nokia, the Finnish company famous for mobile phones, was founded in 1865 as what?

The name comes from the town where its second mill stood; the company later spent decades making rubber boots and cables.

Samsung began in 1938 as a small trading company dealing in what?

The Korean electronics giant only entered the electronics business in the late 1960s.

Before he built supercars to compete with Ferrari, what did Ferruccio Lamborghini manufacture?

Lamborghini Trattori, founded in 1948, still makes tractors today as a separate company.

In 1947 operators of the Harvard Mark II computer traced a fault to what, and taped it into the logbook?

The note read 'First actual case of bug being found'; the term bug was already engineering slang, so the entry was a pun.

The first YouTube video, from April 2005, shows Jawed Karim standing in front of what?

The 19-second clip 'Me at the zoo' mostly concerns the length of their trunks and has been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

The word 'spam' for junk email comes from a sketch by which comedy troupe?

In the 1970 café sketch nearly every menu item contains Spam and a chorus of Vikings drowns out conversation by singing the word.

The word 'nerd' first appeared in print in 1950 in a book by which author?

In If I Ran the Zoo, Gerald McGrew plans to collect 'a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too'.

'Dord' appeared in Webster's dictionary from 1934 to 1947 defined as 'density'. What was it?

An editor's slip reading 'D or d, cont./density' was meant to add density to the abbreviations for the letter D, but was typed up as a new word.

'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' is famous for being what?

It uses the city, the animal and the verb meaning to bully; the sentence works with any number of buffalos.

The 85-letter place name Taumatawhakatangihanga... belongs to a hill in which country?

The Māori name commemorates the explorer Tamatea playing his flute for a loved one; longer 92 and 105 letter versions also exist.

The 58-letter name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch was supposedly invented in 1869 as what?

The aim was to give the station the longest name in Britain; it now pulls in around 200,000 visitors a year to photograph the sign.

The 45-letter pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis was coined in 1935 to be what?

The National Puzzlers' League president invented it to top 'electrophotomicrographically', and it made it into the Oxford dictionary as a lung disease.

Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham to win a $50 bet that he could not write a book using how many different words?

His editor Bennett Cerf made the bet after The Cat in the Hat, which used 236 distinct words.

What single item did William Shakespeare leave his wife Anne Hathaway in his will?

The bequest was added less than a month before he died; scholars still argue about whether it was an insult or a tender gesture.

In 2021 an Austrian village changed its centuries-old name to Fugging. Why?

The signs cost about 300 euros each to replace and residents were tired of being mocked by visitors.

What is the grouping of Boring, Oregon, Dull, Scotland and Bland, Australia nicknamed?

The pairing began in 2012 after a Scottish cyclist passed through Boring; Boring's slogan is 'The most exciting place to live'.

Bir Tawil, a patch of desert between Egypt and Sudan, is unusual because it is what?

Each country's preferred border gives Bir Tawil to the other, because claiming it would mean giving up the far more valuable Halaib Triangle.

In 2019 the German city of Bielefeld offered one million euros for incontrovertible proof of what?

The 'Bielefeld conspiracy', a joke started on Usenet in 1994, has been referenced by Angela Merkel and adopted by the city's own marketing.

The New Mexico town of Truth or Consequences renamed itself in 1950 after what?

Host Ralph Edwards promised to broadcast the show's tenth anniversary from the first town to take its name; Hot Springs took him up on it.

Agloe, New York was invented by mapmakers in the 1930s as a copyright trap. What happened next?

When the rival map company was accused of copying, it pointed out that a business called Agloe now existed there, and the fake town became real.

In 2016 the British public voted to name a polar research ship Boaty McBoatface. What was it actually called?

The winning name was given to one of the ship's yellow submersibles instead; Attenborough had come fifth in the poll.

Mister Splashy Pants, winner of a 2007 Greenpeace naming poll with about 75 percent, is what?

The whale was being tracked by satellite to highlight Japanese whaling; Reddit and other sites piled in once the name gained a lead.

In a 2004 song, Cookie Monster revealed that before he ate his first cookie his name was what?

In the very first season he had been referred to as both 'tiny' and 'Harry'.

According to a series of 1960s novels, what is Barbie's full name?

Her parents George and Margaret live in the fictional town of Willows, Wisconsin.

When Mr. Potato Head launched in 1952, what did children have to supply themselves?

The kit was just pushpin parts; complaints about rotting vegetables and new safety rules led to a plastic potato body in 1964.

The mechanical shark in Jaws was nicknamed Bruce by the crew, after whom?

Three pneumatic sharks were built and malfunctioned so often that Spielberg mostly hinted at the shark instead, helped by John Williams' two-note theme.

Elliott lures E.T. with Reese's Pieces because the maker of which sweet turned the film down?

Mars thought the alien would frighten children; Hershey said yes and its profits rose 65 percent.

When Elvis Presley met President Nixon at the White House in 1970, what did he ask for?

Elvis wanted the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge to signal official backing for his campaign against drug culture among the young.

In 2002 the 72-year-old astronaut Buzz Aldrin punched a man in the jaw. What had the man done?

Conspiracy theorist Bart Sibrel had lured him to a hotel under false pretences and called him a coward, a liar and a thief; police declined to press charges.

Painter Bob Ross decided never to raise his voice on television after 20 years doing what job?

As a master sergeant he was 'the guy who screams at you for being late to work', and Alaska's mountains became his favourite subject.

John Cage's 1952 composition 4′33″ instructs the performers to do what for its three movements?

The 'silence' is filled by ambient noise, which Cage argued is the real music; the premiere caused an uproar.

Until a 2015 court ruling, a music publisher was collecting licence fees on which song?

Warner Chappell claimed the copyright would run to 2030; after losing, it agreed to pay back $14 million in fees.

Roughly what share of people prefer toilet paper to hang 'over' rather than 'under'?

The debate was the subject of a 1977 Ann Landers column that drew 15,000 letters, her most popular ever.

Which of the 28,800 bath toys spilled into the Pacific in 1992 still wash up on beaches?

The Friendly Floatees also included red beavers, blue turtles and green frogs, and oceanographers used them to map ocean currents.

The Air Guitar Championships in Oulu, Finland, state their purpose as promoting what?

The contest began in 1996 as part of the Oulu Music Video Festival and now draws national champions from around the world.

A 1919 wave that tore through Boston's North End at 35 mph was made of what?

A giant storage tank burst; residents swore the neighbourhood still smelled sweet on hot days for decades afterwards.

In 1962 a girls' school in Tanganyika had to close because of an outbreak of what?

Ninety-five of 159 pupils were affected and the contagion spread to nearby villages before fading out 18 months later.

Britain fought Spain from 1739 in a war named after which body part of a sea captain?

Robert Jenkins claimed Spanish coast guards had sliced it off in 1731; MPs used the tale to whip up war fever.

In 1866, San Francisco's self-declared Emperor Norton added which secondary title?

He had declared himself 'Emperor of these United States' in 1859 after going bankrupt, and the city played along for the rest of his life.

New York's eight-day Straw Hat Riot of 1922 targeted men who wore straw hats after which date?

The date was known as 'Felt Hat Day'; youths who snatched and stomped late-season boaters started the brawls.