70 Fun Facts About Middle School

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

It comes from splitting water molecules, and photosynthesis is what keeps Earth's atmosphere breathable.

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

The nickname was popularised by a 1957 Scientific American article; it makes the energy molecule ATP.

What is the chemical formula for water?

Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom; it is a polar molecule, which is why it dissolves so many things.

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

He named them cells because they reminded him of monks' rooms in a monastery.

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

The two strands coil into the famous double helix; uracil takes thymine's place in RNA.

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

He left gaps for elements nobody had found yet and correctly predicted their properties.

Roughly what percentage of Earth's atmosphere is the gas we breathe to stay alive?

Most of the rest is nitrogen; breathing pure oxygen at depth can actually cause seizures.

How many bones does an adult human skeleton have?

Babies are born with around 270; many fuse together as they grow.

How many bones is a human baby born with, roughly?

The skull alone starts as several separate plates that knit together in the first years of life.

What is the speed of light in a vacuum, to the nearest whole number of metres per second?

That works out to about a billion kilometres per hour, and light from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach us.

Which planet is the largest in the Solar System?

Its Great Red Spot is a storm that has been observed since 1831.

Which planet is the hottest in the Solar System?

Its thick atmosphere traps heat to about 464 °C, hotter than Mercury even though Mercury is closer to the Sun.

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

They are tiny and irregular; Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the Solar System, is on Mars too.

The Sun makes up about what share of all the mass in the Solar System?

It is roughly 330,000 times the mass of Earth.

Gravity on the Moon is about what fraction of Earth's?

Humans first landed there with Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969; it is still the only world beyond Earth people have visited.

What is the sum of the interior angles of any triangle?

That is a straight angle, or pi radians; on a curved surface like a sphere it can be more.

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

It is irrational, so it can never be written exactly as a fraction; 22/7 is a rough stand-in.

What is the only even prime number?

A prime is a whole number greater than 1 that is not the product of two smaller whole numbers, so every other prime is odd.

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

The hypotenuse is the side opposite the right angle; the 3-4-5 triangle is the classic example.

In Roman numerals, which letter stands for 500?

So 1912 is MCMXII: M is 1000, CM is 900, X is 10, II is 2.

How many base units does the modern metric system (SI) have?

They are the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole and candela.

On what date was the Declaration of Independence adopted by the Second Continental Congress?

Thomas Jefferson was its principal author and 56 delegates signed it.

The Bill of Rights is the name for how many amendments to the US Constitution?

They were ratified on December 15, 1791.

How much did the United States pay for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803?

That worked out to about $18 per square mile for 828,000 square miles, and President Jefferson mainly wanted the port of New Orleans.

How much did the US pay Russia for Alaska in 1867?

It became the 49th state on January 3, 1959, and is bigger than the next three largest states combined.

Abraham Lincoln was which number president of the United States?

He issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 and gave the Gettysburg Address that November.

About how many Underground Railroad missions did Harriet Tubman make to guide people to freedom?

She rescued around 70 people, including family and friends, and there have been plans since 2016 to put her on the $20 bill.

In which city did Rosa Parks refuse to give up her bus seat in 1955?

Her arrest sparked a year-long bus boycott led by a young Martin Luther King Jr.

At which 1963 event did Martin Luther King Jr. give his 'I Have a Dream' speech?

The Civil Rights Act followed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

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

Sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi designed it and Gustave Eiffel built the metal frame inside; it was dedicated in 1886.

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

She flew on the shuttle Challenger at 32, still the youngest American astronaut ever to go to space.

On its maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic was sailing from Southampton to which destination?

About 1,500 of the 2,208 people aboard died; the ship was built in Belfast by Harland and Wolff.

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

Her diary covers 1942 until the family's arrest in 1944.

According to legend, ancient Rome was founded in 753 BC by which twin?

He killed his brother Remus after a dispute and became sole founder, on the banks of the Tiber.

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

Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the IOC two years earlier, inspired by the ancient games at Olympia.

Which is the longest river in the world, at about 7,000 kilometres?

It flows north into the Mediterranean; the Amazon carries far more water and disputes the length record.

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

The Challenger Deep in its Mariana Trench goes down 10,928 metres, deeper than Everest is tall.

Which is the largest hot desert in the world?

At 9.2 million square kilometres it is beaten overall only by the cold deserts of Antarctica and the Arctic.

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

It drops 979 metres, about three times the height of the Eiffel Tower.

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

It is also the fifth-largest continent, about 40 percent bigger than Europe.

What is the capital city of Australia?

Sydney and Melbourne are far bigger, each with over five million people; the mainland is the world's smallest continent.

The Grand Canyon in Arizona was carved by which waterway?

It is 277 miles long and over a mile deep, exposing nearly two billion years of rock.

Earth's rigid outer shell is broken into how many major tectonic plates?

Plus many minor 'platelets'; the theory grew out of Alfred Wegener's idea of continental drift.

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

E. B. White's 1952 book pairs him with a barn spider named Charlotte who saves his life with words in her web.

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

It won the 1999 Newbery Medal; the 'lake' is a Texas desert where boys dig holes all day.

In The Giver, what job is 12-year-old Jonas chosen for?

Lois Lowry's 1993 novel starts in a community that seems perfect and slowly reveals what 'Sameness' costs.

In Hatchet, how old is Brian Robeson when his plane goes down in the wilderness?

Gary Paulsen wrote four sequels, starting with The River in 1991.

Which author created Percy Jackson after telling bedtime stories to his son?

The series is the first of four set in the Camp Half-Blood world.

How many plays did William Shakespeare write, including collaborations?

Plus 154 sonnets; he was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon and died on his 52nd birthday.

Which company bought Minecraft and its maker Mojang in 2014?

Markus 'Notch' Persson originally wrote the game in Java; the deal was worth $2.5 billion.

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?

The Australian show is set in a version of Brisbane; her dad is Bandit, her mum Chilli and her sister Bingo.

Which is the fastest land animal?

It can hit around 100 km/h and catch antelopes even with a 137-metre head start.

How many hearts does an octopus have?

One main heart plus two that pump blood through the gills; only the blue-ringed species are deadly to people.

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

Hailee Steinfeld voices her, and the pair run into a whole Spider-Society of Spider-People.

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

Hawkins is home to the secret lab where Eleven accidentally opens the wormhole to the Upside Down.

Which company makes Fortnite Battle Royale?

The battle royale mode was thrown together in about two months in 2017 and quickly outgrew the original Fortnite game.

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

He insists it is a journal, not a diary; author Jeff Kinney later gave best friend Rowley his own spin-off books.

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

It is her parents' old school, and it sits in the town of Jericho, Vermont.

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

It topped the Billboard 200 and included the number-one singles Drivers License and Good 4 U.

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?

The 2018 game by Innersloth exploded during 2020, when everyone learned to yell "sus".

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?

The story shifted during development from a talent show to Riley's hockey camp.

Panem, the setting of The Hunger Games, is made up of the Capitol and how many districts?

Suzanne Collins's dystopia is a post-apocalyptic North America; a rumoured thirteenth district turns out to matter a lot.

BTS debuted in 2013 under which company?

The name Bangtan Sonyeondan means "Bulletproof Boy Scouts", and the group formed in 2010 before its debut single album 2 Cool 4 Skool.

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

Every Madrigal except Mirabel receives a magical gift, and Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the songs.

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

Her sixth album, Short n' Sweet, topped the Billboard 200 in 2024 and won two Grammys.

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

Leah Sava Jeffries plays Annabeth and Aryan Simhadri plays Grover in the adaptation of the best-selling books.

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

The Sony Pictures Animation film became the most-watched original title in Netflix history within months of its June 2025 release.