80 Fun Facts About True or False

Which of these claims about lightning is TRUE?

The Empire State Building is hit about 23 times a year, because tall conductive things are exactly what lightning prefers.

Which statement about the Great Wall of China is TRUE?

No Apollo astronaut reported seeing any specific human-made object from the Moon; the myth predates spaceflight entirely.

Which claim about Napoleon Bonaparte is TRUE?

His "shortness" is partly a confusion between French and English inches, and partly British caricature.

Which claim about camels is TRUE?

The water a camel banks is carried in its bloodstream; the hump is a calorie reserve.

Which statement about Viking warriors is TRUE?

The horns were a 19th-century costume idea, popularised by opera productions of Wagner.

Which of these is a TRUE statement about bats?

Only about 70% of bat species echolocate; the big fruit bats mostly do not, and have excellent night vision.

Which claim about goldfish is TRUE?

Goldfish can be trained to respond to sounds and colours weeks after learning them.

Which claim about Albert Einstein is TRUE?

He did fail an entrance exam to the Zurich Polytechnic at 16, but he aced the maths and science sections.

Which claim about Marie Antoinette is TRUE?

Rousseau attributed the line only to "a great princess"; the queen was a child in Vienna at the time.

Which claim about the Salem witch trials is TRUE?

Nineteen people were hanged and one was pressed to death with stones; burning was a European practice.

Which claim about George Washington is TRUE?

His dentures used ivory, metal and human teeth; stained ivory may be why they looked like wood.

Which claim about the US Declaration of Independence is TRUE?

John Adams predicted July 2 would be the great anniversary festival; the printing date won instead.

Which claim about Benjamin Franklin is TRUE?

His turkey remarks were a private joke in a letter to his daughter about the eagle's character.

Which claim about Isaac Newton is TRUE?

He watched an apple fall in his mother's garden; nothing suggests it landed on him.

Which claim about Julius Caesar is TRUE?

Such surgery was fatal to the mother in his day, so a living Aurelia rules the story out.

Which claim about the Egyptian pyramids is TRUE?

The idea of slave labour started with Herodotus; the workers' villages found at Giza suggest paid crews.

Which claim about Cinco de Mayo is TRUE?

Mexico celebrates independence on September 16; Puebla was a battle in 1862.

Which claim about the Gettysburg Address is TRUE?

The two-hour speech that day belonged to Edward Everett; Lincoln's took about two minutes.

Which claim about bulls and bullfighting is TRUE?

Cattle are dichromats; it is the movement and the threat of the fighter that provokes the charge.

Which claim about dogs is TRUE?

Panting does most of the cooling; the paw pads handle the actual sweating.

Which claim about hippos is TRUE?

Hipposudoric acid is the red pigment; hippos' nearest living relatives are actually whales.

Which claim about lemmings is TRUE?

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

Which claim about ostriches is TRUE?

Pliny the Elder probably started it; ostriches lower their heads to the ground when they feel threatened.

Which claim about a duck's quack is TRUE?

The echo is just hard to hear because the quack fades gradually; a British panel show still took the myth as its name.

Which claim about sharks is TRUE?

The myth was spread by a 1992 book used to sell shark-cartilage pills.

Which claim about chameleons is TRUE?

Colour is a social signal and a thermostat first; camouflage is a side benefit.

Which claim about the "boiling frog" story is TRUE?

The boiling-frog story survives as a metaphor, not as biology.

Which claim about houseflies is TRUE?

The 24-hour idea belongs to mayflies, some of which really do live for less than a day as adults.

Which claim about earthworms is TRUE?

Most halved worms simply die; a handful of species can regenerate a head.

Which claim about mature sunflowers is TRUE?

Young buds do track the Sun; once the flower opens it locks in place, usually facing east.

Which claim about hair and nails after death is TRUE?

Growth needs living cells and glucose; the retreating skin creates the illusion.

Which claim about shaving is TRUE?

Cut hair has a blunt end instead of a tapered tip, which just feels coarser.

Which claim about swallowed chewing gum is TRUE?

Gum is mostly indigestible, but it moves along at the same pace as everything else.

Which claim about what flows in human veins is TRUE?

Veins look blue because of how skin scatters light, not because of what is in them.

Which claim about sugar and children is TRUE?

Double-blind trials found no behavioural difference, even in kids labelled sugar-sensitive.

Which claim about a meal followed by a swim is TRUE?

One study did link drowning to alcohol, but never to lunch.

Which claim about vitamin C is TRUE?

There may be a small protective effect for people doing intense exercise in the cold, and that is about it.

Which claim about antibiotics is TRUE?

Antibiotics target bacteria; colds and flu are viral, which is why the prescription does nothing.

Which claim about cracking your knuckles is TRUE?

The pop is a gas bubble collapsing in the joint fluid, and studies find no link to arthritis.

Which claim about human ribs is TRUE?

Twelve pairs each; the Adam's-rib idea has no anatomical basis.

Which claim about coffee is TRUE?

Occasional drinkers may lose a little fluid; habitual drinkers have adapted.

Which claim about drinking alcohol is TRUE?

Warm blood rushes to the skin, which is exactly why you lose heat faster in the cold.

Which claim about Twinkies is TRUE?

The immortal-Twinkie joke is so common that people forget it was always a joke.

Which claim about fortune cookies is TRUE?

They most likely descend from Japanese crackers and were popularised in California.

Which claim about the word "sushi" is TRUE?

Kappamaki, the cucumber roll, is sushi with no fish at all.

Which claim about chili peppers is TRUE?

Capsaicin is concentrated in the white pith that holds the seeds, not the seeds themselves.

Which claim about MSG is TRUE?

"Chinese restaurant syndrome" has never held up under placebo-controlled testing.

Which claim about Santa Claus's red suit is TRUE?

Thomas Nast and other 19th-century illustrators had already settled the look.

Which claim about the name "Frankenstein" is TRUE?

Mary Shelley never names the creature; "Frankenstein's monster" came later.

Which claim about Mozart's death is TRUE?

The rumour spread after Salieri's death and became Pushkin's play and then Amadeus.

Which claim about the Beatles' 1965 Shea Stadium show is TRUE?

The Beatles themselves had played stadium shows in 1964, a year before Shea.

Which claim about the word "golf" is TRUE?

It most likely comes from a medieval Dutch or Scots word for a club or stick.

Which claim about the origin of baseball is TRUE?

The Doubleday story was manufactured by a 1907 commission; bat-and-ball games are far older.

Which claim about the Fisher Space Pen is TRUE?

Pencils shed conductive graphite and flammable shavings, which is a bad idea in a capsule.

Which claim about drying a wet phone in rice is TRUE?

Silica gel or even cat litter would beat rice, and open air is not far behind.

Which claim about a browser's private or incognito mode is TRUE?

Websites, ISPs and network owners see you as usual; only your local history goes unrecorded.

Which claim about the Sahara is TRUE?

The great sand seas are famous but cover a minority of the desert.

Which claim about the direction of the world's waterways is TRUE?

The Nile, Rhine, Ob, Lena and Orinoco all run north.

Which claim about the Amazon rainforest's effect on the air is TRUE?

Its own organisms breathe most of it back in; atmospheric oxygen built up over billions of years.

Which claim about the "dark side" of the Moon is TRUE?

"Dark" meant unknown; nobody saw it until spacecraft went round in 1959.

Which claim about our planet's orbit is TRUE?

Seasons come from axial tilt; the orbit's slight eccentricity actually works against them in the north.

Which claim about glass is TRUE?

Uneven old panes come from how the glass was made, not centuries of sagging.

Which claim about toads and your skin is TRUE?

Warts come from a human virus; a toad's bumps are glands.

Which claim about cats and catnip is TRUE?

The response is inherited, so a third of cats simply shrug at it.

Which claim about the dinosaurs is TRUE?

Over 11,000 species of avian dinosaur survive; the pterosaurs were close cousins, not dinosaurs.

Which claim about Christopher Columbus is TRUE?

Educated Europeans knew the Earth was round; Columbus had badly underestimated its size.

Which claim about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 is TRUE?

A reporter later admitted inventing the cow story, and the city council exonerated the O'Learys.

Which claim about US Prohibition is TRUE?

Manufacture, sale and transport were banned; drinking what you already had was not.

Which claim about Kennedy's famous 1963 line in West Germany is TRUE?

The line was correct German, and the crowd cheered; the doughnut joke came decades later.

Which claim about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) is TRUE?

Argentina's El Apóstol (1917) and Germany's Prince Achmed (1926) got there first.

Which claim about the Chevrolet Nova in Latin America is TRUE?

Spanish speakers read "nova" as "new", the same way English speakers do.

Which claim about the Bible's magi is TRUE?

Three is inferred from three gifts; the text says only that there was more than one.

Which claim about what Eve ate in Genesis is TRUE?

The apple crept in through Latin, where malum meant both "evil" and "apple".

Which claim about ancient Greek and Roman statues is TRUE?

The pigments wore away over centuries, leaving the white look that later sculptors copied.

Which claim about Space Invaders (1978) is TRUE?

The shortage story is repeated everywhere, and there is no evidence for it.

Which claim about tampered Halloween candy is TRUE?

The rare real cases involved family members, not anonymous neighbours.

Which claim about the presidential "nuclear football" is TRUE?

It carries codes and options; the button is a movie invention.

Which claim about the Chinese word for "crisis" is TRUE?

The first character does mean danger; the famous "opportunity" reading is a Western invention.

Which claim about bourbon whiskey is TRUE?

New York, California, Wyoming and Washington all distil bourbon legally.

Which claim about the origin of the Caesar salad is TRUE?

Restaurateur Caesar Cardini improvised it for guests during a busy holiday weekend.