40 Fun Facts About White

Beneath the thick white-looking fur of a polar bear, what colour is the animal's skin?

Black skin lies under a polar bear's coat and soaks up heat. The fur only looks white: its outer guard hairs are actually transparent.

Which British monarch is credited with popularising the white wedding dress after wearing one to marry in 1840?

Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in white satin trimmed with Honiton lace. Royal brides before her usually chose heavy brocade worked with silver thread.

Which classic board game's rules give the first move to the player with the white pieces?

Chess hands White the opening move, an edge worth 52 to 56 percent of the points in recorded games. In Othello and Gomoku the darker side goes first.

Which marine mammal is known to hunt great white sharks, flipping them over to eat their energy-rich livers?

Orca pods turn great whites belly-up, which puts the shark into a paralysed state called tonic immobility. The prize, the liver, can be over a quarter of the shark's body weight.

The White Cliffs of Dover on England's south coast owe their colour to which soft rock?

Chalk formed there from the skeletons of tiny floating algae that settled as white mud on a Late Cretaceous sea floor. The dark streaks in the cliff face are bands of flint.

Which of the seven dwarfs in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs never speaks a word?

Dopey was drawn up as a chatterbox, but no voice actor suited him, so he mimes instead. He proved the most successful of the dwarf characters.

Which American crooner's 1942 recording of White Christmas is the world's best-selling physical single?

Bing Crosby's version has sold an estimated 50 million copies. He first sang it on his radio show on Christmas Day 1941, a few weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

During the First World War, British women handed white feathers to men out of uniform as a symbol of what?

Cowardice was the charge, and the campaign aimed to shame men into enlisting. The phrase dates from the late 18th century and came out of cockfighting, a common entertainment in Georgian England.

Which band's self-titled 1968 double album is better known as the White Album for its plain sleeve?

The Beatles put nothing on the cover but the band's name, embossed. Early copies each carried a stamped serial number, a joke about a numbered edition that ran to millions.

White smoke from a temporary chimney on which Vatican building announces the election of a new pope?

Sistine Chapel conclaves burn the cardinals' ballots after voting. Chemicals are added to colour the smoke, and since 2005 the bells of St Peter's ring as well to confirm the result.

Which English scientist used a glass prism to show that white light is a blend of all the colours?

Isaac Newton split sunlight with one prism, then used a lens and a second prism to merge the colours back into white. He also gave the band of colours its name, the spectrum.

The mechanical great white shark in Jaws was nicknamed Bruce after which person in Steven Spielberg's life?

His lawyer, Bruce Ramer, lent the name to all three prop sharks. They broke down so often in salt water that Spielberg chose mostly to suggest the creature rather than show it.

Which Arctic whale, nicknamed the sea canary for its high-pitched calls, is completely white as an adult?

Beluga calves are born grey and whiten as they grow. The species has no dorsal fin, which lets it swim easily beneath sea ice.

Which Grand Slam tennis tournament enforces a strict all-white dress code for its players?

Wimbledon allows only small accents of colour on players' clothing. Its tennis balls were white too until 1986, when yellow ones came in to stand out on colour television.

Which sea captain hunts the white whale that bit off his leg in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick?

Ahab commands the whaling ship Pequod and walks on a false leg carved from a whale's jawbone. The novel was a commercial failure and out of print when Melville died.

Which president became the first to live in the White House when he moved in during November 1800?

John Adams moved in on 1 November 1800, when the capital shifted from Philadelphia. Every president after him has used the house as a home.

Which Mughal emperor commissioned the white marble Taj Mahal as a tomb for his wife Mumtaz Mahal?

Shah Jahan ordered it in 1631, the year Mumtaz Mahal died giving birth to their 14th child. His own tomb lies in the same building.

Which actor played chemistry teacher turned drug lord Walter White in the television series Breaking Bad?

Bryan Cranston won four Emmys for the part. Network executives hesitated to cast him because he was known for comedy as the dad in Malcolm in the Middle.

Mont Blanc, the 'white mountain' and highest Alpine peak, straddles the border of France and which country?

Italy and France have long disputed who owns the summit. Italian officials say the border splits the peak along the watershed, while French officials place the whole top inside France.

Which crisp, airy dessert is made by whipping egg whites with sugar and baking the foam slowly?

Meringue stands up because beating unfolds the proteins in egg white into a stiff foam. It forms the base of a pavlova and the top of a lemon pie.

White blood cells, which defend the body against infection, are known by which scientific name?

Leukocytes are made in the bone marrow and patrol both the blood and the lymphatic system. A doctor counts them because their number often signals disease.

Albinism leaves an animal with white fur or pale feathers because its body cannot produce which pigment?

Melanin is the only pigment most mammals have, so a mammal that cannot make it has no other colour to fall back on. The classic albino also has pink pupils.

Which small predator's pure white winter coat, long used to line coronation cloaks, is known as ermine?

Stoat pelts were sewn together to line medieval coronation cloaks, with the dark tail tips left hanging as a pattern. British peers' ceremonial robes are traditionally trimmed with the fur.

Which Manhattan street earned the nickname the Great White Way from the glare of its electric signs?

Broadway was ablaze with electric advertising signs by the 1890s. The nickname is said to have been lifted from the title of a 1901 novel about a voyage to the Antarctic.

In England's Wars of the Roses, which side fought under the badge of a white rose?

The Yorkists used the white rose from early in the conflict. Their rivals' red rose was introduced only after Henry Tudor won at Bosworth in 1485, so the famous pairing is largely hindsight.

Betty White played the naive Rose Nylund in which sitcom about four older women sharing a home in Miami?

The Golden Girls nearly had her in a different part: producers first wanted Betty White as man-hungry Blanche and Rue McClanahan as Rose, then swapped them.

Which Spanish football club is nicknamed Los Blancos, 'the whites', after its all-white home kit?

Real Madrid has kept a white home shirt throughout its history. The look so impressed Leeds United manager Don Revie that he switched his own club to an all-white strip.

In the Tour de France, the white jersey is worn by the leading rider in which category?

Young riders, those under 26, compete for it. From 1968 to 1975 the white jersey instead marked the best all-rounder across the overall, points and climbing contests.

In The Lord of the Rings, which character dies fighting a Balrog in Moria and is sent back clothed in white?

Gandalf returns as head of the order of wizards, the rank the traitor Saruman had held. Scholars have likened his return in white to the transfiguration of Christ.

Which former Soviet republic in Eastern Europe has a name often translated as White Russia?

Belarus comes from Belaya Rus, and several rival theories explain the 'white'. One holds that it described the Rus lands the Tatars never conquered.

The inventor of the white correction fluid Liquid Paper, Bette Nesmith Graham, had a son in which band?

The Monkees' guitarist Michael Nesmith was her son. She developed the fluid while working as a secretary in the 1950s and sold her company to Gillette in 1979.

Which word for an office-seeker comes from the Latin for 'white-robed', after the togas such Romans wore?

Candidate comes from the Latin candidatus. Office-seekers in ancient Rome wore a gleaming, specially whitened toga, presumably to show the purity of their intentions.

A 'white elephant', meaning a costly burden, recalls sacred animals kept by the monarchs of which region?

Southeast Asia's monarchs in Burma, Siam, Laos and Cambodia kept them as sacred beasts that laws shielded from labour. A gift of one was costly to keep and could not be given away.

Which US president sent the Great White Fleet of sixteen battleships on a voyage around the world in 1907?

Theodore Roosevelt wanted to show the world America's new naval power, and the ships called at ports on six continents. Their hulls were painted white, the navy's peacetime colour.

Which metal's dioxide is the most widely used white pigment, found in paint, sunscreen and toothpaste?

Titanium dioxide owes its brightness to a very high refractive index, which makes it scatter light strongly. It has been mass-produced since 1916 and also whitens paper, plastics and pills.

White Day, when men return the gifts they received on Valentine's Day, began in 1978 in which country?

Japan marks White Day on 14 March, a month after a Valentine's Day on which women give chocolate to men. A confectionery trade body launched it as an 'answer day'.

Like every shark's skeleton, the skeleton of a great white is made mainly of which soft tissue?

Cartilage is soft and does not preserve well. The jaws are strengthened with a mineralised form of it that juvenile great whites lack, which is why they have to eat softer food.

Which astrophysicist's name is given to the mass limit, about 1.4 Suns, for a stable white dwarf star?

Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for his studies of how stars evolve. A dying star heavier than his limit cannot settle as a stable white dwarf.

Which pioneer of abstract art painted White on White, a tilted white square on a white ground, in 1918?

Kazimir Malevich meant the white to stand for infinity and the slight tilt of the square to suggest movement. He founded the movement behind it, Suprematism.

Which British band's 1967 debut single A Whiter Shade of Pale spent six weeks at number one in the UK?

Procol Harum built the song around an organ melody modelled on Bach. It is one of the few singles to have sold more than 10 million copies.