119 Fun Facts About Middle School

Which gas do plants release as a by-product of photosynthesis?

Oxygen: the plant splits water molecules and releases their oxygen, so the gas comes from water rather than from the carbon dioxide it takes in.

Which part of the cell is nicknamed the 'powerhouse of the cell'?

Mitochondrion: it even carries its own DNA, inherited from the mother, and that DNA resembles a bacterium's, a clue to where mitochondria came from.

Which chemical element has the symbol Na?

Sodium: Na comes from natrium, a name taken from natron, the salt ancient Egyptians used to dry out mummies.

Who discovered cells in 1665 by looking at a slice of cork under a microscope?

Robert Hooke: what he actually saw were only the walls of the cork's cells, which he likened to the pores of a honeycomb.

DNA is made of four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine and which other?

Thymine: it always pairs with adenine across the double helix, and it was named after the calf thymus glands it was first isolated from.

Which chemist published the first widely accepted periodic table in 1869?

Dmitri Mendeleev: he left gaps for undiscovered elements and predicted their properties, and gallium, found in 1875, filled one of those gaps.

Which gas makes up about 78% of the air we breathe?

Nitrogen: most living things can't use it straight from the air, so life depends on bacteria that convert it into compounds plants can absorb.

How many bones does an adult human skeleton have?

206: a newborn has far more, and the number falls as many of them fuse together while a child grows.

Where is the human body's smallest bone?

Ear: in the condition otosclerosis, its tiny stapes becomes stuck in place, so it can't vibrate and hearing suffers.

In a thunderstorm, why do you see distant lightning before you hear its thunder?

Sound travels far more slowly than light, taking about five seconds to cover a mile, so counting after a flash tells you roughly how far away it struck.

Which planet is the largest in the Solar System?

Jupiter: when Galileo spotted four moons circling it, he showed that not everything in the sky orbits Earth.

Mercury is closer to the Sun, so why is Venus the hotter planet?

Its thick atmosphere traps heat, and Venus spins so slowly that one turn on its axis takes 243 Earth days, longer than its 225-day year.

What are the names of Mars's two small moons?

Phobos and Deimos: Phobos creeps about 2 metres closer to Mars every century, so in tens of millions of years it will crash into Mars or break up into a ring.

Which element does the Sun make in its core by nuclear fusion?

Helium: astronomers spotted it in sunlight during an 1868 eclipse, decades before it was found on Earth, so its name comes from the Greek word for the Sun.

Which astronaut stepped onto the Moon right after Neil Armstrong?

Buzz Aldrin: their Apollo 11 crewmate Michael Collins flew all the way to the Moon but never walked on it, circling alone in the command module Columbia.

What do the interior angles of any flat triangle add up to?

180 degrees, but only on a flat surface: the angles of a triangle drawn on a sphere, such as a globe, always add up to more.

Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to what?

Its diameter: around 250 BC, Archimedes trapped pi between 223/71 and 22/7 by drawing 96-sided polygons inside and outside a circle.

What is the only even prime number?

2: every larger even number can be divided by 2, so it has a factor other than 1 and itself and can't be prime.

Whose theorem says the square on a right triangle's hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the other two sides?

Pythagoras's name is on it, but Babylonian mathematicians were using the rule more than a thousand years before he was born.

In Roman numerals, which letter stands for 500?

D: the letter is said to be half of CIↃ, an early way of writing 1,000.

Which SI unit was defined by a metal cylinder near Paris until 2019?

Kilogram: the cylinder and its official copies gradually drifted apart in mass, so scientists redefined the unit using the Planck constant.

John Adams died on July 4, 1826, the Declaration's 50th anniversary, on the same day as which founder?

Thomas Jefferson: the two old political rivals had rebuilt their friendship through years of letters before dying on the same day.

Which amendment in the Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech and religion?

The First Amendment: Congress sent the states twelve amendments and this one was third, but the first two weren’t ratified in 1791, so it moved to the top.

Which leader sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States?

Napoleon Bonaparte sold it after his army failed to crush a slave revolt in Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, and a new war with Britain loomed.

Which US Secretary of State negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia?

William Seward: Russia preferred to sell to the United States rather than risk losing the colony to its great rival, Britain.

Which president was in office when the Civil War began at Fort Sumter?

Lincoln: his election had led seven slave states to leave the Union, and four more followed once the fighting began.

Which biblical nickname did Harriet Tubman earn for guiding enslaved people to freedom?

Moses: she returned to slave territory again and again to lead people out, and later said she never lost a passenger.

In which city did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat?

Montgomery: her arrest set off a bus boycott lasting more than a year, which ended when the Supreme Court ruled segregated buses unconstitutional.

At which event did Martin Luther King Jr. give his 'I Have a Dream' speech?

The March on Washington was organized partly to pressure the Kennedy administration into backing a strong federal civil rights bill.

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

France: the French people paid for the statue, but Americans had to fund its pedestal, and Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper appeal rescued it when money ran out.

Who was the first American woman to fly in space, in 1983?

Sally Ride later served on the presidential commission that investigated the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986.

On its maiden voyage, the Titanic was sailing from Southampton to which city?

New York: the Titanic never arrived, but the rescue ship Carpathia turned back and carried its survivors into New York on 18 April 1912.

Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis in a secret annex in which city?

Amsterdam: Otto Frank survived Auschwitz and published Anne’s diary after the war.

Which animal suckled the twins Romulus and Remus in Rome's founding legend?

A she-wolf: King Amulius had ordered the baby twins killed, but they ended up beside the river Tiber, where she found and nursed them.

The first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896 in which city?

Athens: Greek runner Spyridon Louis, who was not expected to win, took the first Olympic marathon and became a national hero.

Which river is most often ranked as the longest in the world?

The Nile: its yearly floods spread rich silt along its banks, letting ancient Egypt grow crops in the middle of a desert.

Which is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceans?

Pacific: Ferdinand Magellan named it the 'peaceful sea', reportedly because his ships found calmer waters there than on the stormy route behind them.

Which is the largest hot desert in the world?

The Sahara: winds carry its dust across the Atlantic Ocean, where the minerals help feed the plants of the Amazon rainforest.

Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall, is in which country?

Venezuela: its English name honours American pilot Jimmie Angel, who flew over the falls in 1933 and logged the sighting.

Which continent is, on average, the coldest, driest and windiest?

Antarctica: if its whole ice sheet melted, global sea levels would rise by nearly 60 metres.

Which purpose-built city became Australia's capital as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne?

Canberra: under the deal written into Australia's constitution, the capital had to be in New South Wales but at least 100 miles from Sydney.

The Grand Canyon in Arizona was carved by which waterway?

The Colorado River began carving the canyon only about 5 to 6 million years ago, yet the oldest rocks it exposes are nearly two billion years old.

In Charlotte's Web, what kind of animal is Wilbur?

A pig: when Wilbur is headed for slaughter, Charlotte weaves words like 'SOME PIG' into her web to persuade the farmer to spare him.

In Louis Sachar's Holes, where is Stanley Yelnats sent to dig holes as punishment?

Camp Green Lake is a dry desert with no lake, and the Warden secretly has the boys dig to find outlaw Kate Barlow's buried treasure.

In Lois Lowry's The Giver, what does it really mean when someone is 'released'?

They are put to death: Jonas learns the truth when he watches a recording of a newborn twin being released with a lethal injection.

In Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, whom is Brian flying to visit when his plane crashes?

His father: Brian's parents have recently divorced, and he carries 'the Secret', having seen his mother with another man.

Which author created the Percy Jackson series?

Rick Riordan: the first Percy Jackson book began as a bedtime story he made up for his oldest son.

Where in England was William Shakespeare born?

Stratford-upon-Avon: in his will, Shakespeare left his wife his 'second best bed with the furniture'.

Which company bought Minecraft and its maker Mojang in 2014?

Microsoft paid $2.5 billion for Mojang, and Minecraft's founders moved on to start new projects.

What is the in-game currency of Roblox called?

The platform was built by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and opened to the public in 2006.

What breed of dog is Bluey?

Blue Heeler: creator Joe Brumm took many of the show's stories from watching his own two young daughters play.

Which is the fastest land animal?

Cheetah: it can hold its top speed only over short distances, so it stalks close to its prey before it charges.

Which sea animal has three hearts?

An octopus: the heart that pumps blood around its body stops beating while it swims, so it mostly gets around by crawling.

In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Miles Morales travels the multiverse alongside which character?

Gwen Stacy: after her secret identity comes out at home, she leaves her universe to join a secret society of Spider-People led by Miguel O'Hara.

Stranger Things is set in the 1980s in a fictional town in which US state?

Indiana: the story begins when a boy, Will Byers, vanishes from the small town of Hawkins, home to a secretive government lab.

Which company makes Fortnite Battle Royale?

Epic Games first built Fortnite as Save the World, a paid mode about defending a base, then released the battle royale mode free on its own.

What is the name of the middle-schooler who writes the diary in Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

Greg Heffley keeps scheming to win the status he thinks he deserves in middle school, and nearly every plan backfires.

In the Netflix series Wednesday, what is the school for outcasts that Wednesday attends called?

Nevermore Academy: after she is expelled from her old school, her parents send her to the boarding school where they fell in love.

What was the title of Olivia Rodrigo's debut album, released in 2021?

Sour: after its hit 'Good 4 U' was compared to Paramore's 'Misery Business', two Paramore members were added as its co-writers.

MrBeast helped raise more than $30 million for ocean clean-up through which fundraiser he co-founded?

The money went to Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup; he had earlier co-founded Team Trees to plant 20 million trees.

In Among Us, what are the players called who secretly try to kill the crewmates?

Impostors: Among Us came out in 2018 to little notice, then became a hit two years later after Twitch streamers began playing it.

Which two companies produced The Super Mario Bros. Movie?

Chris Pratt voiced Mario and Jack Black stole the show as Bowser.

Which new emotion takes over Riley's mind in Pixar's Inside Out 2?

Anxiety: she ousts Joy and the other original emotions, sending them off to the back of Riley's mind.

Which character volunteers to take her younger sister's place in The Hunger Games?

Katniss Everdeen: she has long fed her family by hunting illegally, the skill she relies on in the arena.

BTS debuted in 2013 under which company?

Big Hit Entertainment later renamed itself Hybe and bought Scooter Braun's American company, Ithaca Holdings.

The magical Madrigal family in Disney's Encanto lives in which country?

Colombia: every child in the Madrigal family receives a magical gift except Mirabel, yet she may be the family's last hope.

Before her pop career took off, Sabrina Carpenter played Maya Hart on which Disney Channel show?

Girl Meets World: in this Boy Meets World sequel, Cory Matthews is the history teacher of his own daughter, Riley, and her best friend, Maya.

Who plays Percy in the Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians?

Walker Scobell: his Percy, a 12-year-old demigod, is accused by Zeus of stealing his lightning bolt and must cross America to find it.

In KPop Demon Hunters, what is the rival boy band whose members are secretly demons called?

The Saja Boys are rivals to Huntrix, K-pop stars Rumi, Mira and Zoey, who secretly use their powers to protect fans from demons.

Despite the word 'year' in the name, a light-year is a unit that measures what?

Distance is what a light-year measures: the stretch light covers in one Julian year, roughly 9.46 trillion kilometers.

In The Legend of Zelda games, which green-capped hero does the player control across Hyrule?

Link is the hero, not Zelda: creator Shigeru Miyamoto designed him as a normal boy with a destiny to fight great evil, and he usually ends up saving the princess.

Which African animal uses a tongue about 45 centimeters long to pull leaves from acacia trees?

Giraffe necks hold just seven bones, the same number as a human neck. The neck is long because each bone is stretched, not because there are more of them.

The blue whale, the largest animal ever known, feeds almost entirely on which sea creatures?

Krill are small crustaceans that the whale catches by lunge feeding: it charges a swarm with its mouth wide open, then squeezes the water out through its baleen plates.

Which toy company took its name in 1934 from the Danish phrase for 'play well'?

Lego comes from 'leg godt', and the company started out making wooden toys. Its famous interlocking plastic bricks only arrived in 1949.

Which position does Harry Potter win on the Gryffindor Quidditch team during his first year?

Seeker is the one position that can end a match: catching the Snitch scores 150 points and stops the game. Harry was the first first-year in a century to make a house team.

Which of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the oldest and the only one still largely intact?

The Great Pyramid of Giza, built as a tomb for the pharaoh Khufu, was also the tallest human-made structure on Earth for more than 3,700 years.

Which city, facing Quebec across a river from Ontario, did Queen Victoria pick as Canada's capital?

Ottawa won out partly for safety: perched on a cliff and far from the American border, it was easier to defend than the bigger rival cities.

Which world, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006?

Pluto owes its name to Venetia Burney, an eleven-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford who loved classical mythology and suggested it over breakfast when she heard the news.

Which shape do honey bees build from beeswax, again and again, to form the cells of a honeycomb?

The hexagon is the thrifty choice: a hexagonal grid has the shortest total walls of any way to split a flat surface into equal cells, a fact only proven in 1999.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, which dragon sleeps on stolen treasure under the Lonely Mountain?

Smaug has one weak spot, a chink in his armor that Bilbo notices. A thrush carries the news to Bard, whose arrow then kills the dragon.

In The Lightning Thief, which Greek god claims Percy Jackson as his son at Camp Half-Blood?

Poseidon broke a promise by fathering Percy: the three eldest male gods had sworn an oath not to have children, which is why the boy's birth causes so much trouble.

In The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, which wealthier gang is the sworn rival of Ponyboy's greasers?

The Socs is short for 'Socials', the upper-middle-class kids of Tulsa. Hinton began the novel at 15 and wrote most of it as a 16-year-old high school junior.

In Number the Stars, Annemarie helps Jewish families flee occupied Denmark for which neutral country?

Sweden took in about 7,500 of Denmark's 8,000 Jews in the real wartime rescue behind the story, carried across by sea with help from the Danish resistance.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which sweet does the White Witch use to win over Edmund?

Turkish delight, plus the promise of being made a prince, is enough to make Edmund betray his brother and sisters to the Witch.

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which small workers help Willy Wonka run the factory?

Oompa-Loompas were rescued by Wonka from a land of dangerous monsters and are paid in cocoa beans. They burst into song each time a child comes to grief.

Which author-illustrator created Captain Underpants and the spin-off Dog Man graphic novels?

Dav Pilkey first drew Captain Underpants as a schoolboy, at the hallway desk where teachers sent him for misbehaving in class.

Which pen name did Samuel Clemens use for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn?

Mark Twain was a riverboat leadsman's cry meaning two fathoms, water deep enough for a steamboat. Clemens picked it up while working as a pilot on the Mississippi.

In R. J. Palacio's Wonder, which school does Auggie Pullman join after years of homeschooling?

Beecher Prep is where Auggie, taught at home by his mother for years, finishes fifth grade by winning the Henry Ward Beecher Medal for strength of character.

In which Italian city did Shakespeare set the feuding Montagues and Capulets of Romeo and Juliet?

Verona's ruler, Prince Escalus, banishes Romeo from the city on pain of death after a street fight between the two families turns deadly.

Which precious metal has the chemical symbol Au, taken from its Latin name aurum?

Gold is so soft and easy to work that a single gram can be beaten into a sheet covering one square meter.

Which gemstone, a crystal of pure carbon, is the hardest natural material known?

Diamond mostly formed 150 to 250 kilometers down in Earth's mantle. Its atoms pack more tightly than in any other known substance, which is what makes it so hard.

Which scientist set out three laws of motion and a theory of gravity in a 1687 book, the Principia?

Isaac Newton often said the idea came to him while watching an apple fall from a tree, though the tale that the fruit bounced off his head is a later invention.

Which naturalist's voyage aboard HMS Beagle led to the theory of evolution by natural selection?

Charles Darwin noticed on the Galápagos Islands that mockingbirds differed from one island to the next, an early clue that species might not be fixed.

Which bird of prey is often called the fastest animal alive for hunting dives of over 320 km/h?

The peregrine falcon soars high, then drops in a steep dive called a stoop, striking one wing of its prey so that it isn't hurt by the impact.

Which Soviet satellite became the first artificial object to orbit Earth when it launched in 1957?

Sputnik 1 was a polished metal sphere just 58 cm across. Its radio pulses lasted three weeks, and its launch set off the Space Race with the United States.

Which volcanic rock is so full of gas bubbles that it floats on water, sometimes for years?

Pumice from undersea eruptions can gather into floating rafts big enough to be a hazard for ships, drifting until the stone finally soaks through and sinks.

Which element, the lightest of all, makes up about 75 percent of the normal matter in the universe?

Hydrogen means 'water-former': Henry Cavendish found that burning the gas produces water, and that discovery gave the element its name.

Which bone, running from the hip to the knee, is the longest in the human body?

The femur is the only bone in the thigh. Its top fits into a socket in the pelvis, and its lower end meets the shinbone and kneecap.

Which blood type do hospitals use in emergencies because it can be given to almost any patient?

O negative blood suits almost every patient, so it is the emergency standby, and blood banks warn that it is overused and often in short supply.

Which ship carried the Pilgrims from England across the Atlantic to the New World in 1620?

Mayflower ended up sailing alone: a second ship, the Speedwell, proved unseaworthy and had to be left behind in England.

Which civilization built the mountain citadel of Machu Picchu in Peru in the 15th century?

The Inca abandoned the citadel about a century after building it, and it only won worldwide fame in 1911 through the American historian Hiram Bingham.

Which American pilot became, in 1932, the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic?

Amelia Earhart had first crossed the same ocean in 1928 only as a passenger. Four years later she flew it alone and won the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Which Egyptian pharaoh's tomb was discovered in 1922 by a team led by Howard Carter?

Tutankhamun died at about 19, and his tomb held more than 5,000 artifacts, a find that set off a worldwide craze for ancient Egypt.

Which Roman general and dictator was assassinated by senators on the Ides of March in 44 BC?

Julius Caesar was killed by a group of senators led by Brutus and Cassius, who feared he was about to make himself king.

Which Portuguese explorer led the first voyage around the world but died in the Philippines?

Ferdinand Magellan was killed in battle at Mactan in 1521, so it was Juan Sebastián Elcano who brought the surviving crew home to Spain a year later.

Rebel barons forced King John of England to seal which document at Runnymede in 1215?

Magna Carta is Latin for 'Great Charter'. Neither side kept its promises and the Pope annulled it, yet it is still remembered for promising swift and fair justice.

Germany's invasion of which country on 1 September 1939 marked the beginning of World War II?

Poland had an alliance with Britain, which declared war on Germany two days later. The Soviet Union then invaded from the other side on 17 September.

Near which town did the Wright brothers make the first controlled powered flight in December 1903?

Kitty Hawk gets the credit, though the Flyer actually took off four miles to the south at Kill Devil Hills. The brothers learned their craft in a bicycle shop in Ohio.

In Greek mythology, which hero killed the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull monster of Crete?

In the usual telling, Theseus found his way back out of the Labyrinth by following a thread given to him by Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos.

Which European microstate is the smallest country in the world?

Vatican City covers just 44 hectares and is ruled by the pope. It is the smallest country by population as well as by area.

Which river carries more water to the sea than any other river on Earth?

The Amazon pours out more water than the next seven largest independent rivers combined, and two of the world's top ten rivers by flow are its own tributaries.

Which self-governing territory of Denmark is the largest island in the world?

The sagas say Erik the Red chose the name Greenland to attract settlers, although an ice sheet covers about 81 percent of the land.

Which salt lake between Jordan and Israel has shores at the lowest land elevation on Earth?

The Dead Sea is nearly ten times as salty as the ocean, dense enough that swimming feels like floating and so harsh that plants and animals cannot flourish in it.

Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, is a dormant volcano in which country?

Tanzania is home to the whole of Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain on Earth, which rises about 4,900 meters from the plateau at its base.

Which term describes words such as 'racecar' and 'madam' that read the same backwards as forwards?

Palindrome comes from Greek roots meaning 'again' and 'running'. Whole sentences can do the trick too, such as 'A man, a plan, a canal – Panama'.

Which number, a 1 followed by 100 zeros, was named by a mathematician's nine-year-old nephew?

Googol was coined in 1920 by young Milton Sirotta. It dwarfs the count of elementary particles in the observable universe, which Carl Sagan put at around 10 to the power of 80.

Which mathematician gives his name to the sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, where each term sums the two before?

Fibonacci, also known as Leonardo of Pisa, used the sequence in a 1202 book to work out how fast a population of rabbits would grow.

In chess, which piece moves only along diagonals and so never leaves its starting color of square?

The bishop began life as the alfil, or 'elephant', a medieval piece that leapt exactly two squares along any diagonal and could jump over a piece in its way.

In The Empire Strikes Back, which Jedi Master trains Luke Skywalker on the swamp planet Dagobah?

Yoda was a puppet in the 1980 film, voiced and operated by Frank Oz. In the next film, Return of the Jedi, he dies at the age of 900.