50 Fun Facts About Things That Come in Fours

Which of the four suits in a deck of cards has the most ornate ace, a relic of an English tax?

Spades got the fancy ace because English law once required that card to carry the printing house's insignia, and makers kept the flourish long after the rule was dropped.

Which of the four chambers of the human heart pumps oxygen-rich blood through the aorta to the whole body?

The left ventricle has thicker walls than its right-hand twin, because it must push blood around most of the body while the other only has to reach the lungs.

Which of the four Beatles was the last to join, replacing drummer Pete Best in the summer of 1962?

Ringo Starr was poached from another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and first played as a Beatle at a horticultural society dance.

Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, a set of violin concertos published in 1725, opens with which season?

Spring comes first, and Vivaldi labelled what the music paints: its second movement carries the instruction that one part is a barking dog.

Which of the four presidents carved on Mount Rushmore is the only one who served in the 20th century?

Roosevelt, the Theodore who took office in 1901, was chosen to stand for the nation's development; the other three faces stand for its foundation, expansion and preservation.

In the Book of Revelation, which of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rides a pale horse?

Death is the only one of the four riders the text names outright, and the only one who carries nothing; instead Hades follows close behind him.

Three leaves of a four-leaf clover are said to stand for faith, hope and love; what does the fourth mean?

Luck is the fourth leaf's meaning, and it is hard won: only about one clover in 5,000 grows the extra leaf.

Which of the four houses of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books has a badger as its mascot?

Hufflepuff wears yellow and black to match its badger, and prizes hard work, patience, justice and loyalty over cleverness or daring.

Which of the four ABO blood types is the universal red cell donor when it is also Rh-negative?

Type O red cells carry neither the A nor the B antigen, so a recipient's antibodies find nothing on them to attack.

Which carmaker's badge of four linked rings recalls the 1932 merger of four companies into Auto Union?

Audi is Latin for 'listen', a translation of founder August Horch's surname, and his earlier firm, Horch, was another of the four that merged.

The only one of tennis's four Grand Slam tournaments played on clay courts is held in which city?

Paris stages it at Stade Roland Garros, a stadium named not after a tennis champion but after a French pilot of the First World War.

Which of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wears a purple mask and fights with a long wooden staff?

Donatello is the brains of the four: in the 1987 cartoon he invents the team's gear, including the Turtle Van and the Turtle Blimp.

Most medieval European T-O world maps were drawn with which of the four cardinal directions at the top?

East took the top of most of them, so Asia, drawn as large as Europe and Africa combined, filled the upper half, and many put the Garden of Eden up there.

Which of the four bases of DNA is swapped for uracil when the genetic code is copied into RNA?

Thymine always pairs with adenine across the double helix, held by two hydrogen bonds, and RNA simply uses uracil in its place.

The four Galilean moons, which Galileo reported to the world in 1610, orbit which planet?

Jupiter's four big moons were first called the Medicean Stars by Galileo, in honour of Cosimo de' Medici, whom he had once tutored in mathematics.

Which of the four fundamental forces of nature is the feeblest, yet rules the motion of planets and galaxies?

Gravitation wins at cosmic scales because it always attracts and never repels, while positive and negative electric charges mostly cancel each other out.

In the ancient theory of the four humours, a person ruled by blood was said to have which temperament?

Sanguine people were ruled by blood, thought to make them brave, hopeful and loving, while too much yellow bile made the choleric type quick to anger.

Which of the four Gospels of the New Testament do most scholars believe was the first to be written?

Mark is thought to have come first because Matthew and Luke both appear to expand on it, which is why the three share so much material.

Which of the four strokes must be swum first in an individual medley race under World Aquatics rules?

Butterfly opens the individual event, but a medley relay starts with backstroke instead, because that swimmer has to begin in the pool rather than dive in.

A standard string quartet is made up of two violins, a cello and which other instrument?

The viola completes the line-up that Joseph Haydn helped make standard, which is why he is often called the father of the string quartet.

Which of the four main lobes of the human brain contains the primary auditory cortex, the centre for hearing?

The temporal lobe sits behind the temples and also holds the hippocampus, the structure the brain needs in order to make new memories.

Which of the four compartments of a cow's stomach is the first and largest, where microbes ferment grass?

The rumen holds 25 gallons or more in a grown cow, and the half-digested cud it softens is sent back up to the mouth to be chewed a second time.

Which of the four types of human teeth, sometimes nicknamed eye teeth, are shaped for tearing food?

Canines tear food while incisors cut it and the back teeth crush it, though human ones are small and blunt beside the fangs of many other mammals.

Which of the four time zones of the contiguous United States has Chicago as its largest American city?

Central Time is where the system began: all four zones were introduced in Chicago at noon on 18 November 1883, with time signals sent out by telegraph.

Which state meets Utah, Colorado and New Mexico at the Four Corners Monument, the only such point in America?

Arizona shares the spot with two tribal governments as well: the Navajo Nation, which runs the monument, borders the Ute Mountain Ute reservation there.

The Union Jack has no symbol for one of the UK's four nations; which city is that nation's capital?

Cardiff's country, Wales, was omitted because it counted as part of the Kingdom of England when the first union flag was designed in 1606.

Which of the four ghosts in Pac-Man is programmed to ambush the player rather than simply give chase?

Pinky's original Japanese name meant 'ambusher', and the other three were named for chasing, being fickle and playing dumb.

Which of the four March sisters in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is the tomboy who longs to be a writer?

Jo was Alcott's portrait of herself: the author recalled being a tomboy too, one who liked running foot-races and climbing trees.

In The Three Musketeers, which hotheaded youth joins Athos, Porthos and Aramis to make a fourth?

D'Artagnan was a real soldier: Charles de Batz de Castelmore served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard and fell at the siege of Maastricht.

Which pop group, winners of the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, is named after its four members' first initials?

ABBA stands for Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid, and the name began as a play on words: Abba was already a well-known Swedish fish-canning company.

Which singer fronted the Four Seasons, the New Jersey group whose story is told in the musical Jersey Boys?

Frankie Valli's quartet took its name from a New Jersey bowling alley, after failing an audition to play the lounge there in 1960.

At which Jewish festival does the youngest child at the table traditionally ask the Four Questions?

Passover's Seder meal is built on fours: besides the questions, there are four cups of wine to drink, taken while leaning back.

Which season of the Christian year is counted down by lighting four candles on a wreath, one more each Sunday?

Advent wreaths often hold a fifth candle in the middle, a white one that is only lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Which of China's Four Great Inventions began in the Han dynasty as a fortune-telling device made of lodestone?

The compass started out as a lodestone spoon that geomancers used for divination, and it was not adopted for navigation until the 11th century.

Which of the four assassinated US presidents was shot at a Washington railroad station months into office?

Garfield lingered for 79 days, and in all that time the only official act he managed was signing an extradition request for a forger who had fled to Canada.

Which runner broke the four-minute barrier for the mile for the first time, at Oxford in May 1954?

Roger Bannister held the record for just 46 days before a rival beat it, and he retired from athletics that year to pursue a career in neurology.

Which institution is nicknamed the fourth estate, a phrase Thomas Carlyle credited to Edmund Burke?

The press earned the name, in Carlyle's telling, when Burke said the reporters' gallery mattered far more than all three estates of Parliament.

Which American illustrator painted the Four Freedoms, a series printed in The Saturday Evening Post in 1943?

Norman Rockwell's four canvases then toured the country, and the exhibition and its bond drives raised over $132 million for the war effort.

What is the name for a four-line stanza, the verse form Nostradamus used for his prophecies?

The quatrain is one of poetry's most widespread forms, found from ancient China and India to Persia, home of the quatrains credited to Omar Khayyam.

Which falling-block puzzle game takes half its name from the Greek for four, as every piece is four blocks?

Tetris joins 'tetra' to tennis, the favourite sport of its creator, the Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov.

Which of the four rocky inner planets is the hottest in the Solar System, though not the closest to the Sun?

Venus runs hotter than its sunward neighbour because its thick, toxic atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect.

Which of the four Vedas, the sacred Sanskrit texts of Hinduism, is the oldest?

The Rigveda may be the world's oldest religious text still in use: verses from its 1,028 hymns are recited at Hindu weddings to this day.

Which Roman emperor created the Tetrarchy, splitting rule of the empire among four co-emperors from AD 293?

Diocletian later became the first Roman emperor to step down by choice, retiring to his palace on the Dalmatian coast to tend his vegetable gardens.

Which German engineer, once a grocery salesman, developed the four-stroke engine in 1876?

Nicolaus Otto showed no interest in using his engine for transport, and after the two fell out his manager Gottlieb Daimler left the firm, with Wilhelm Maybach following him.

Which poet wrote Four Quartets, a set of four long poems that includes Burnt Norton and Little Gidding?

T. S. Eliot wrote three of the four during the Second World War, with air raids falling on Britain; the first takes its name from a manor house.

Which general was the last ruler in Rome's Year of the Four Emperors and founded the Flavian dynasty?

Vespasian went on to begin the Colosseum, funding the amphitheatre with spoils taken from the Temple after the siege of Jerusalem.

The four Hs of the 4-H youth organisation stand for head, heart, hands and which other word?

Health shares the 4-H emblem with the other three: a green four-leaf clover with a white H on each leaf, based on a club pin designed in 1910.

Which former actress, the wife of Mao Zedong, was the most prominent member of China's Gang of Four?

Jiang Qing had acted under the stage name Lan Ping before marrying Mao, and within a month of his passing in 1976 she and her three allies were arrested.

Which of the four voice parts in a barbershop quartet usually carries the main melody?

The lead sings the tune from second place, because a barbershop tenor harmonises above it, often in a soft falsetto so as not to drown it out.

Which of Japan's four main islands is the largest, home to Tokyo and to Mount Fuji?

Honshu is the seventh-largest island in the world and holds roughly four in every five people in Japan.