useless trivia

50 Pieces Of Completely Useless (But Entertaining) Trivia

The next time you need a conversation starter at a party, use these pieces of completely useless trivia from Ask Reddit.

1. Bears

“Bears eat a bunch of grass and twigs in the fall to prepare for hibernation. It creates a sort of plug in their bowels. This is so they don’t have to get up in the middle of the winter to shit. But, when they finally do wake up in the spring, They take a really massive tough shit.” — Seamlesslytango

2. Mammoths

“At the time the Pyramids were built in Egypt, Mammoths were still around. Sure, they were only alive on a small remote Island (Wrangel Island) and were only a small species of woolly mammoths, but they still existed at that time.” — TheBassMeister

3. Rats

“Czar Peter III of Russia caught a rat eating the cardboard fort he used for his toy soldiers. He caught it and, instead of just killing it straight off, he convened a court-martial, pronounced the rat guilty, and hanged it.” — DaddyCatALSO

4. Mary Shelley

“Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, lost her virginity on her mothers grave.

She also allegedly carried around her dead husbands heart.” — SnowglobeSnot

5. Time

“A second is called a second because it is the 2nd division of the hour by 60, the 1st division being a minute.” — elee0228

6. Vikings

“Vikings created a primitive form of steel by adding the ground up bones of animals to iron when forging weapons. Their belief was that the spirits of the animals would strengthen the iron, when really, the carbon in the bone dust bonded with iron to create steel.” — Aesen1

7. John Tyler

“President John Tyler, who was born in 1790, has two grandchildren still alive today.” — LadyEmry

8. Nipples

“Your earlobes line up with your nipples.” — MaterialGorl

9. Frogs

“Poisonous frogs in zoos often aren’t actually poisonous. They become poisonous through their diet and zoos don’t usually feed them the exact same things, so they become safe to handle.” — kaybet

10. Slinkies

“Stretched out at full length a slinky is 82 feet long.” — cmusch15

11. Koalas

“Koalas have chlamydia.” — rubbeh

12. Sign Language

“The official sign language of Madagascar is Norwegian Sign Language.

This also means that the majority (~85%) of practitioners of Norwegian Sign Language, are from Madagascar.” — Niqulaz

13. Arizona Cardinals

“The Arizona Cardinals are older than the state they reside in.” — DesertRebel

14. Henrik Ibsen

“Henrik Ibsen was visited in his sick bed, the visitor asked the nurse how he was doing. The nurse replied ‘he’s been doing much better actually’. Ibsen raised his hand and said ‘on the contrary!’ and promptly died.” — DukeInterior

15. Australia

“Kangaroos and Emu can’t walk backwards which is why they’re on the Australian coat of arms.” — sweatygunther

16. Sweden

“Sweden once had a 30th February after accidentally having 2 leap years when they didn’t mean to.” — CaptSmellsAmazing

17. Stars

“There are anywhere between 10 and 200 sextillion stars in the universe, that is a 2 with 23 zeros. If you compare this to grains of sand there are anywhere between 2 and 10 times more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the beaches in the entire world.” — Prondox

18. Tennesse

“There was a county in Tennessee that seceded from the state in protest of Tennessee joining the Confederacy during the Civil War and didn’t officially rejoin until 1986. It was known as the unrecognized State of Scott.” — DiedrichVK

19. Starfish

“Starfish do not have brains and are asexual.” — noahrgoudy

20. Bats

“Approximately a quarter of all known species of mammals are bats.” — SamCropper

21. Trees

“Sharks have existed on the planet longer than trees.” — ManiacFoSho

22. Stomach

“Without mucus your stomach would digest itself.” — Danmoh29

23. Owls

“You can see the eyeball of an owl through its ear.” — grayscaleneon

24. Land

“There’s a patch of land between Egypt and Sudan that neither nation claims as their own. They each insist that it belongs to the other.

Similarly, there is an island between France and Spain that changes owners every 6 months. February-July it is under the governance of Spain, and August-January it is governed by France.” — mstrkingdom

25. Scrabble

“Qat pronounced ‘cat’ is a small type of shrub and is also a perfect scrabble word because it’s a q without a u and there’s not many of those!” — Neatoteleto

26. Sponges

“If you force a living sponge through a fine mesh screen, it will rearrange itself in a few hours.” — OrganicGrowth77

27. Ransom

“The biggest ransom was paid to Spaniards holding Incan emperor hostage. The amount was basically a room filled with silver and gold. After they had been paid, Spaniards killed the emperor.” — 

28. OJ Simpson

“OJ Simpson was turned down for the lead role in Terminator because they didn’t think audiences would take him seriously as a cold blooded killer.” — darcyd810

29. Horses

“Horses can’t vomit.” — Rndomguytf

30. Swiss Army Knives

“The story of the Swiss Army Knife.

The Swiss company Victorinox invented and patented what we know today as the Swiss Army Knife around 1890. Another company, called Wenger, started making an identical knife around 1893. The Swiss government, which preferred the lower cost Wenger knives, decided to split the contract between the two companies. Victorinox became known as the original Swiss Army Knife and Wenger became known as the genuine Swiss Army Knife.” — saxophonefartmaster

31. Numbers

“If you spell out numbers 1-1000 (for example 8 = eight) you won’t encounter the letter “A” until you spell 1000 (one thousand).” — datbo420

32. Dogs

“Dogs have an actual bone in their penis called the os penis.” — Britsu

33. Words

Ohio is the only US state that doesn’t share a letter with the word ‘mackerel.'” — Abadops

34. UK

“One of the last pieces of land to be registered in the UK is the Land Registry itself.” — Articulatefish

35. Pringles

“Fredric Baur, inventor of the Pringles can, had his ashes buried in one.” — Back2Bach

36. Human Flesh

“According to some cannibals human flesh tastes like pork. Also human skin is very similar to pigs.” — AlfcatLannister

37. Sharks

“Sharks have balls.” — Violet-Breeze

38. Flamingos

“A group of Flamingos is called a flamboyance.” — lizardking99

39. Chickens

“Chickens eat snow during winter. Even if the water. Is. Right. There.” — SomeDumbGamer

40. Tic Tacs

“Tic tacs are almost completely made up of sugar, but since the FDA guidelines state that you can list something as sugar free if it has less than a gram of sugar per serving, and one serving is one single tic tac, they can say in the nutrition facts that its sugar free.” — idontplanonit

41. Karaoke

“Karaoke means empty orchestra.” — JohnTitorWillSaveUs

42. Sheriff

“The word sheriff is based on ‘shire reeve.’ Shire meaning county and reeve was a local government employee whose tax collecting duties eventually expanded to law enforcement.” — -Words-Words-Words-

43. Dinosaurs

“We live closer to the T-rex than the T-rex did to the Stegosaurus.” — LOrdStilton07

44. Pineapples

“Pineapples grow as a bush. For the longest time I thought they came from a tree.” — WavvyJones

45. Oscars

“Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro are the only two actors to win Oscars for playing the same character.” — TooSoonTurtle

46. Ferrets

“A group of ferrets is called a business!” — insertcaffeine

47. Earwigs

“Because they are so brittle, Earwigs have two penises in case the first breaks off.” — Dieselcircuit

48. WD-40

“WD-40 actually stands for Water Displacement and the 40th attempt to create it. It was originally created for the aerospace industry and was used on Atlas Rockets skins to prevent rust and corrosion.” — IgnotusPeverill

49. Cleopatra

“Cleopatra lived closer to the time of the moon landings than she did to the building of the Great Pyramids.” — andb1

50. Bodies

“Your skeleton is always wet.” — Gadget_SC2 Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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