50 Fun Facts About Tricky

What is the capital city of Australia?

The purpose-built capital was a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne; Parliament moved there in 1927.

Which country has the most pyramids?

The Kushite rulers of Nubia built around 255 steep-sided pyramids at sites such as Meroë, more than twice Egypt's total.

According to NASA, how visible is the Great Wall of China to the naked eye from low Earth orbit?

The claim that it is the only human structure visible from space dates back to the 1700s, long before anyone had been there.

Where does the image of Vikings wearing horned helmets mostly come from?

Contemporary texts mention helmets often but never horns; the look was popularised by Richard Wagner's productions in the 1800s.

Botanically speaking, the peanut is what kind of plant?

Its pods develop underground, which is why it is also called the groundnut; true nuts like hazelnuts grow on trees.

Which of these fruits is a berry in the strict botanical sense?

Botanical berries develop from a single ovary and include grapes, tomatoes and cucumbers; the strawberry's 'seeds' are actually the fruits.

In the 1893 case Nix v. Hedden, the US Supreme Court ruled that, for tariff purposes, the tomato is what?

The justices agreed it is a fruit botanically but said the tariff law used the everyday meaning of the words.

Roughly how long is a goldfish's memory span?

They can be trained to respond to shapes, colours and sounds, and will learn to take food from a keeper's hand.

Which of these is classed as a desert, and is in fact the largest cold desert on Earth?

About 98% of it is ice sheet; the central plateau gets only around 50 mm of precipitation a year.

How did Albert Einstein actually perform in mathematics as a schoolboy?

He enrolled in the maths and physics teaching programme at Zurich's polytechnic at 17; the 'failed maths' story is a durable myth.

In Mary Shelley's novel, who or what is Frankenstein?

Victor Frankenstein builds his creature from stolen body parts; the monster itself is never given a name in the book.

Strictly speaking, what is Big Ben?

The tower itself was called the Clock Tower until 2012, when it was renamed the Elizabeth Tower for the Diamond Jubilee.

What colour is an aircraft's 'black box' flight recorder?

The colour is mandated so searchers can spot the unit in wreckage; an early British model was even nicknamed the 'Red Egg'.

In which country was the board game Chinese checkers invented?

It appeared in 1892 as Stern-Halma; the 'Chinese' name was a 1928 marketing idea by American game makers Bill and Jack Pressman.

In Denmark, Norway and Sweden, what is a Danish pastry called?

Austrian bakers are thought to have brought the laminated-dough techniques to Denmark, hence wienerbrød.

Fortune cookies, a US Chinese-restaurant staple, most likely came from immigrants from where?

Several California immigrant groups claim to have popularised them in the early 20th century, but they are not Chinese in origin.

The koala is often called a bear, but it is actually what kind of animal?

Like kangaroos, koalas give birth to tiny joeys that finish developing in a pouch.

The orca, or killer whale, is the largest member of which family?

Different orca populations specialise in different prey, from fish and rays to seals and even other whales.

Which planet has the hottest surface in the solar system?

Its thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere traps heat, pushing the surface to about 464 °C, hotter than closer-in Mercury.

What does a camel actually store in its hump?

Metabolising the fat yields some water as a by-product, which is probably how the water-storage myth began.

Roughly how much of the human brain do people actually use?

Brain mapping shows every region has a function and is active nearly all the time; the 10% figure traces to misread ideas from William James and others.

What is the actual risk from the poinsettia, the red-leaved Christmas plant, to children and pets?

Its reputation as a killer plant is a durable myth; at worst it can cause mild stomach upset.

The myth of lemming mass suicide was cemented by staged footage in a 1958 documentary from which studio?

White Wilderness won an Oscar; the lemmings in it were reportedly pushed off a cliff by the crew.

Thomas Crapper is often credited with the flush toilet. What did he actually patent?

He held nine patents in all and invented the U-bend in 1880, but the flush toilet predates him by centuries.

The line 'let them eat cake' is usually pinned on Marie Antoinette. Where does it actually first appear?

Rousseau wrote it in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years old and had never set foot in France.

What did educated Europeans in Columbus's time generally believe about the shape of the Earth?

The idea that medieval scholars thought the world was flat is a 19th-century invention, spread partly by Washington Irving.

How were the nineteen people executed as witches at Salem in 1692 put to death?

One more man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death with stones for refusing to enter a plea.

Which US president is the only one to have spoken English as a second language?

He grew up in Kinderhook, New York, where most residents spoke Dutch, and learned English at school.

What happens to the top of the Eiffel Tower on a hot, sunny day?

The metal on the sunlit side expands more than the shaded side, so the tower bends very slightly away from the sun.

Bombay duck, a pungent dried delicacy of Anglo-Indian cooking, is what?

The lizardfish is caught around Mumbai, dried in the sun and traditionally coated in asafoetida.

Guinea pigs are neither pigs nor from Guinea. Where were they first domesticated?

They were originally raised for meat, and are still eaten and used in folk medicine in the region today.

The digits 0 to 9 are often called Arabic numerals. Where was the system actually invented?

Indian mathematicians devised it between the 1st and 4th centuries; it reached Europe via Arab scholars, hence the name.

The turkey is native to the Americas. How did the bird end up with a name that matches a Eurasian nation?

The genus name Meleagris is Greek for guineafowl, preserving the mix-up.

How many years did the Hundred Years' War between England and France actually last?

Historians date it from 1337 to 1453, though it was really a series of conflicts with long truces in between.

In which month of the modern Gregorian calendar did Russia's October Revolution take place?

Russia still used the Julian calendar in 1917, so 25 October there was 7 November everywhere else.

What did Abner Doubleday, declared baseball's inventor in 1908 fifteen years after his death, actually do for a living?

The Civil War general never claimed to have invented the game, and baseball historians have thoroughly debunked the story.

Catgut, once used for violin strings, is usually made from the intestines of which animals?

There is no record of it ever being made from cats; the name may come from 'kit', an old word for a fiddle.

What is missing from white chocolate that makes many purists say it is not really chocolate?

It is made from cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids; the term was first recorded in 1917 describing a Swiss Army ration.

Why is a bullfighter's muleta red?

Bulls are dichromatic and cannot pick out the colour; it is the movement of the cloth that draws the charge.

What is the most common reason a chameleon changes colour?

Camouflage plays a part, but darker shades mainly help a chameleon absorb heat and brighter ones send messages to rivals and mates.

What colour is deoxygenated blood inside your veins?

Veins look bluish through skin because of how light penetrates tissue, not because the blood changes colour.

Do toilets and sinks drain in opposite directions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres?

The shape of the basin and any leftover motion in the water swamp the Coriolis effect by orders of magnitude.

Measured from its underwater base to its summit, which mountain is taller than Mount Everest?

The Hawaiian volcano rises about 10,200 metres from the sea floor, though only 4,207 metres of that is above sea level.

The summit of which mountain is the farthest point on Earth's surface from the planet's centre?

Earth bulges at the equator, so the 6,263-metre Ecuadorian volcano beats Everest by about two kilometres.

Which is the most densely populated country in the world?

About 38,000 people live in just over two square kilometres; only Vatican City is smaller by area.

Which is the only country in the world with a population under 1,000?

Its 44 hectares held about 882 residents in 2024, making it the smallest state by both area and population.

What was Cleopatra's first language?

Her Ptolemaic dynasty descended from one of Alexander the Great's Macedonian generals; she was the only one of them known to have learned Egyptian.

German chocolate cake is named for Samuel German, not Germany. Where did the cake originate?

German was an English-American chocolate maker whose 1853 sweet baking chocolate was used in the 1950s recipe.

The schoolroom 'tongue map' is a myth. What is actually true of how the tongue works?

The map grew from a 1942 misreading of a 1901 German paper on taste thresholds; some areas are merely slightly more sensitive.

Chop suey, often called an American invention, has been traced to which Chinese region?

Tsap seui, 'miscellaneous leftovers', was common in the home district of many early Chinese immigrants to the US.