101 Amazing Facts

1. In 2006, an Australian man tried to sell New Zealand on eBay. The price rose to $3,000 before eBay shut it down.

2. Google's founders were willing to sell to Excite for under $1 million in 1999—but Excite turned them down.

3. There was a third Apple founder. Ronald Wayne (pictured at home in 2010) sold his 10% stake for $800 in 1976.

4. Reed Hastings was inspired to start Netflix after racking up a $40 late fee on a VHS copy of Apollo 13.

5. In Japan, letting a sumo wrestler make your baby cry is considered good luck.

6. The actor who was inside R2-D2 hated the guy who played C-3PO, calling him "the rudest man I've ever met."

7. During WWI, German measles were called "liberty measles" and dachshunds became "liberty hounds."

8. When three-letter airport codes became standard, airports that had been using two letters simply added an X.

9. At one point in the 1990s, 50% of all CDs produced worldwide were for AOL.

10. Toy companies failed to duplicate the success of Theodore Roosevelt's teddy bear with William Taft's "Billy Possum."

11. Nutella was invented during WWII, when an Italian pastry maker mixed hazelnuts into chocolate to extend his chocolate ration.

12. In response to The Lorax, the forest products industry published Truax to teach kids the importance of logging.

See Also: 10 Stories Behind Dr. Seuss Stories

13. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for work when the first A-bomb hit, made it home to Nagasaki for the second, and lived to be 93.

14. A British man changed his name to Tim Pppppppppprice to make it harder for telemarketers to pronounce.

15. J.P. Morgan once offered $100,000 to anyone who could figure out why his face was so red. No one solved the mystery.

16. Prairie dogs say hello with kisses.

17. Before settling on the Seven Dwarfs we know today, Disney considered Chesty, Tubby, Burpy, Deafy, Hickey, Wheezy, and Awful.

18. A 2009 search for the Loch Ness Monster came up empty. Scientists did find over 100,000 golf balls.

19. After OutKast sang “Shake it like a Polaroid picture,” Polaroid released a statement that said, “Shaking or waving can actually damage the image.”

20. New Mexico State's first graduating class in 1893 had only one student—and he was shot and killed before graduation.

21. In the mid-1980s, Fergie of The Black Eyed Peas was the voice of Charlie Brown's sister Sally.

See Also: 21 Famous People Who Quietly Voiced Cartoon Characters

22. Jonas Salk declined to patent his polio vaccine. "There is no patent," he said. "Could you patent the sun?"

23. Only one McDonald’s in the world has turquoise arches. Sedona, AZ thought yellow clashed with the natural red rock.

24. The 50-star American flag was designed by an Ohio high school student for a class project. His teacher originally gave him a B–.

25. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the most commonly stolen vehicle in 2012 was the 1994 Honda Accord.

26. After leaving office, Lyndon Johnson let his hair grow out.

27. Crabs have their own version of the fist pump. Male crabs wave their claws in the air to attract females.

28. Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men is used by researchers to attract animals to cameras in the wilderness.

29. Sean Connery turned down the Gandalf role in Lord of the Rings. "I read the book. I read the script. I saw the movie. I still don't understand it."

30. E.B. White of Charlotte's Web fame is the "White" of Strunk and White, who wrote The Elements of Style.

31. Chock Full o' Nuts coffee does not contain nuts. It's named for a chain of nut stores that the founder converted into coffee shops.

32. 12+1 = 11+2, and "twelve plus one" is an anagram of "eleven plus two."

33. San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh played Screech's cousin on a 1996 episode of Saved by the Bell: The New Class.

34. At the height of Rin Tin Tin's fame, a chef prepared him a daily steak lunch. Classical musicians played to aid his digestion.

35. The Arkansas School for the Deaf's nickname is the Leopards. The Deaf Leopards.

36. If your dog's feet smell like corn chips, you're not alone. The term "Frito Feet" was coined to describe the scent.

37. A sex pheromone found in male mouse urine was named "darcin," for Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy.

38. Barry Manilow did not write his hit "I Write the Songs."

39. He did, however, write State Farm's "Like a Good Neighbor" jingle.

40. And "I am stuck on Band-Aids, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me."

41. Winston Churchill's mother was born in Brooklyn.

42. Officials in Portland, Ore., drained 8 million gallons of water from a reservoir in 2011 because a buzzed 21-year-old peed in it.

43. There's a basketball court above the Supreme Court. It's known as the Highest Court in the Land.

44. If you start counting at one and spell out the numbers as you go, you won't use the letter "A" until you reach 1,000.

45. On a 1999 episode of The West Wing, Nick Offerman ("Ron Swanson") played a man lobbying the White House to build a $900 million wolves-only roadway.

46. The medical term for ice cream headaches is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

47. After Leonardo da Vinci's death, King Francis I of France hung the Mona Lisa in his bathroom.

48. Redondo Beach, CA adopted the Goodyear Blimp as the city's official bird in 1983.

49. In 2001, Beaver College changed its name to Arcadia in part because anti-porn filters blocked access to the school's website.

50. Peeps Lip Balm is something that exists.

51. Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator on The Golden Girls.

52. Wendy's founder Dave Thomas dropped out of high school but picked up his GED in 1993. His GED class voted him Most Likely to Succeed.

53. Sleeping through winter is hibernation, while sleeping through summer is estivation.

54. In Spain, Mr. Clean is known as Don Limpio.

55. In Qaddafi's compound, Libyan rebels found a photo album filled with pictures of Condoleezza Rice.

56. The famous Aaron Burr “Got Milk?” ad from 1993 was directed by Michael Bay.

57. Marie Curie's notebooks are still radioactive. Researchers hoping to view them must sign a disclaimer.

58. Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins also wrote for Clarissa Explains It All.

59. In a 2008 survey, 58% of British teens thought Sherlock Holmes was a real guy, while 20% thought Winston Churchill was not.

60. The Scots have a word for that panicky hesitation you get when introducing someone whose name you can't remember: tartle.

See Also: 38 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent

61. William McKinley was on the $500 bill, Grover Cleveland was on the $1,000, and James Madison was on the $5,000.

62. In 1999, the U.S. government paid the Zapruder family $16 million for the film of JFK's assassination.

63. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know. But on average, a Licking Machine made at Purdue needed 364.

64. Janis Joplin left $2,500 in her will for her friends to "have a ball after I’m gone."

65. Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.

66. In the mid-1960s, Slumber Party Barbie came with a book called "How to Lose Weight." One of the tips was "Don’t eat."

67. Ben & Jerry originally considered getting into the bagel business, but the equipment was too expensive.

68. The first webcam watched a coffee pot. It allowed researchers at Cambridge to monitor the coffee situation without leaving their desks.

69. When asked if he knew the speed of sound, Einstein said he "didn't carry such information in my mind since it's readily available in books."

70. The last time a Republican was elected president without a Nixon or Bush on the ticket was 1928.

71. The original Space Jam website still exists.

See Also: 17 Ancient Abandoned Websites That Still Work

72. In 1979, Japan offered new British PM Margaret Thatcher 20 "karate ladies" for protection at an economic summit. She declined.

73. Before Google launched Gmail, "G-Mail" was the name of a free email service offered by Garfield's website.

74. Nikola Tesla on Thomas Edison: "He had no hobby, cared for no amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene."

75. Kentucky tweaked its Wildcat logo in 1994 after people complained the tongue was too phallic.

76. The final speech by Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird was done in one take.

77. In 1980, Detroit presented Saddam Hussein with a key to the city.

78. The "Where's the Beef?" lady (Clara Peller) lost her job in 1985 after doing a Prego ad in which she "found the beef at somewhere other than Wendy's."

79. Just before the Nazis invaded Paris, H.A. and Margret Rey fled on bicycles. They were carrying the manuscript for Curious George.

80. In Super Mario Bros., the bushes are just clouds colored green.

81. When fruit flies are infected with a parasite, they self-medicate with booze—they seek out food with higher alcohol content.

82. Crayola means "oily chalk." The name combines "craie" (French for "chalk") and "ola" (short for "oleaginous," or "oily").

83. The Pittsburgh Penguins made Mister Rogers an honorary captain in 1991.

See Also: 46 Things You Might Not Know About Mister Rogers

84. In 1493, Columbus thought he saw mermaids. They were "not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men." (Probably manatees.)

85. When the Westboro Baptist Church protested a soldier's funeral in Oklahoma, their tires were slashed. People in town refused to repair them.

CORY YOUNG/Tulsa World

86. An early ATM was deemed a failure because its only users were "prostitutes and gamblers who didn’t want to deal with tellers face to face."

87. Bob Ross on his Air Force career: “I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine…who screams at you for being late to work.”

88. Truman Show Delusion is a mental condition marked by a patient's belief that he or she is the star of an imaginary reality show.

89. In 1973, Mao Zedong told Henry Kissinger that China had an excess of females and offered the U.S. 10 million Chinese women.

90. Cookie Monster is not changing his name. In a 2012 episode he said, "We've got to stop this Veggie Monster rumor before me reputation ruined."

91. According to Amazon, the most highlighted Kindle books are the Bible, the Steve Jobs biography, and The Hunger Games.

92. A California woman once tried to sue the makers of Cap'n Crunch because Crunch Berries contained "no berries of any kind."

93. Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don't drift apart.

94. In 1986, Apple launched a clothing line.

95. Between 1900 and 1920, Tug of War was an Olympic event.

96. The word "unfriend" appeared in print all the way back in 1659.

See Also: 16 Words That Are Much Older Than They Seem

97. The Code of Hammurabi decreed that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed.

98. Wilford Brimley was Howard Hughes's bodyguard.

99. The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-V handbook classifies caffeine withdrawal as a mental disorder.

100. The SarcMark was invented by Paul Sak to emphasize a sarcastic phrase, sentence or message.

See Also: 13 Little-Known Punctuation Marks We Should Be Using

101. The light emitted by 200,000 galaxies makes our universe a shade of beige. Scientists call the color "cosmic latte."

For more amazing facts follow @mental_floss on Twitter. Images courtesy of Getty Images and Thinkstock. Ronald Wayne image via Karen T. Borchers/MCT/Landov.