200 Random Facts Presented Without Context

This list of random facts bounces around from history to science, pop culture to geography. You'll bone up on your trivia and maybe even be inspired to Google why Poland was once partitioned out of existence.
In case you forgot, The List Show is a trivia-tastic, fact-filled show for curious people. Subscribe here for new Mental Floss episodes every Wednesday: / @mentalfloss
Image Credits
Getty Images
Guy de Maupassant (Print Collector)
Eiffel Tower (Hulton Archive)
Rubenesque (Print Collector)
Rubens (Heritage Images)
Gateway Arch (Davel5957)
TWA (littleny)
Jackson Parliament (WPA Pool)
Glenda Jackson (Mike Lawn)
Hawkes (Hulton Archive)
Heminway (Central Press)
Kalevala (Culture Club)
QWERTY (drnadig)
Louis Vuitton (Apic)
St. Patrick (ibusca)
Richard III (duncan1890)
Goldwater (Keystone)
Wenham Lake (Hulton Archive)
Germany (pawel.gaul)
Burger and dog (moonery)
Bubble bath (stevecoleimages)
Almonds (4kodiak)
Peaches (AustinArtist)
Henry IV (Culture Club)
Chet Hanks (Amy Sussman)
Shark (Dave J Hogan)
Trees (ChrisHepburn)
Pugs (IdeaMomentLight)
Pugs (AndrewJohnson)
Hearst (Hulton Archive)
Dewey (ibusca)
Beehtoven (Print Collector)
Springer (Getty Images)
Blue whales (tane-mahuta)
Bowling balls (DaveLongMedia)
Ferrules (Marco Rosario Venturini Autieri)
Giraffes (GLDavies)
ZZ Top (Brian Rasic)
Nails (skodonnell)
Coffee (Ranta Images)
Kebab (Adam Berry)
Alice Roosevelt (Culture Club)
Holsteins (ThinkDeep)
Violin (Picsunv)
Shuttlecock (Claus Fisker)
Eleanor Roosevelt (Terry Winter)
Amela Earheart (Topical Press Agency)
Wust (BSR Agency)
Mozart (Hulton Archive)
Saguaro (Josh Brasted)
Raleigh (Print Collector)
Cage (Frazer Harrison)
Lincoln (Getty Images)
Federer (Clive Brunskell)
Howley (Focus on Sport)
Armstrong (A. Jones)
Morgan (Print Collector)
Shelley (Hulton Archive)
Byron (Hulton Archive)
Fincher (Alberto E. Rodriguez)
Lucas (Amy Sussman)
Unicorn (JohnFScott)
MLK (Dozier Mobley)
Yoda (Spencer Platt)
Pringles (Joe Raedle)
Queen Victoria (Culture Club)
Glabella (JohnnyGreig)
JQ Adams (Traveler1116)
Wife carrying (Timo Harktikainen)
letter i (no_limit_pictures)
Hasselhoff (David M. Bennett)
Baby elephant (El Pics)
Edward III (Culture Club)
Soccer Ball (Don Morley)
Eiffel Tower2 (Chesnot)
Connery (Tom Maelsa)
Angelou (Gene Lester)
Manilow (Michael Putland)
Medals (William Vanderson)
Lugosi (United Archives)
Everest (LAKSHA SHERPA)
Churchill (Fox Photos)
Flowers (borchee)
Twelve Tables (Heritage Images)
Bear market (Chris Hondros)
Dali (George Konig)
Vespasian (Heritage Images)
More2 (Heritage Images)
More (Hulton Archive)
Boleyn (Print Collector)
Swayze (United Archives)
Klien (Mark Thompson)
Cherry spitter (Ralph Orlowski)
Sulky (grafficx)
Graf (Pascal Rondeau)
Alcott (Matt King)
De Groot (Paul Crock)
Bulldogs (Ben Gabbe)
Will and Anne (Heritage Images)
Rodent (hiramtom)
Ungulates (Julian Herbert)
Herschel (Photos.com)
Rontgen (Nicola Perscheid)
Newton (Hulton Archive)
Leibniz (Print Collector)
Volta (Print Collector)
Amundsen (Illustrated London News)
Nellie Bly (Apic)
ABBA (United Archives)
Celine Dion (Independent News and Media)
Cato the Elder (Hulton Archive)
Chimborazo (ecuadorplanet)
Catherine (Christine_Kohler)
St. Petersburg (ArtMarie)
Diaz (Hulton Archive)
Juarez (Hulton Archive)
Gengis Khan (Hulton Archive)
Attila (Fototeca Storica Nazionale)
Catherine the Great (Heritage Images)
Pepys (Culture Club)
Zaius (Charley Gallay)
Simon Bolivar (Print Collector)
Nancy Astor (Gill)
Nightingale (Print Collector)
Booker T. Washington (Hulton Archive)
Claudius (Hulton Archive)
Tamerlane (Hulton Archive)
Tamerlane Delhi (Stuntelaar)
Elliott Roosevelt (Leonard Burt)
Bond in 1980 (John Pineda)
Bernardo O'Higgins (Print Collector)
Kim Il Sung (Three Lions)
Kim Jong Il (Getty Images)
Cesta (Jam Media)
Fronton (GAIZKA IROZ)
Periodic table (Duntaro)
Ganymede (NASA)
Sinclair Lewis (Culture Club)
Toni Morrison (Leonardo Cendamo)
George Sand (Heritage Images)
Tolstoy (Heritage Images)
Paine (Hulton Archive)
Greene (Kean Collection)
Henry Lee (Howcheng)
White storks (BORIS ROESSLER)
Fadiouth (David Degner)
Pepper growing (Julia Liebscher)
Stephen's hand (EyesWideOpen)
Belarus (wsfurlan)
De Gaulle (Print Collector)
Wagners (Fritz Luckhardt)
Rousseff (Alexandro Auler)
Sadat (Keystone)
Samuel Chase (Heritage Images)
Public Domain
World map (NASA)
Jupiter (NASA)
Holst (Herbert Lampert)
Wikimedia
Oreos (Evan-Amos)
To Have and Have Not (Liberty Publishing)
Manitoulin (Gretarsson)
Collins (Bibliothèque nationale de France)
de Kooning (Smithsonian)
Acton's book (SchroCat)
Red Vineyards (Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts)
Coxwell (Tibet Nation)
Escobar (Colombian National Police)
Einstein (LOC)
Jarvis (Hello World)
Proust (Morn)
Alexandra (GabrielDorneles)
Blackened teeth (Horst Grabner)
Felton (LOC)
Caraway (LOC)
Queen Anne (National Portrait Gallery)
Chopin (Waterborough)
CC 2.5
Owl pellet (Snowyowls)
CC 4.0
Baur (Jmoran18251)

[@dstinnettmusic]

“Hey, That old 500 facts video with John is getting a lot of traffic from the algorithm for some reason.” Erin: HOLD MY KEYBOARD!

[@MentalFloss]

I mean...

[@quizzer]

and then it gets 54k views in 6 weeks

[@dstinnettmusic]

@@quizzer I miss John tbh. He brought an energy and wistful wisdom that is hard to replicate.

[@magneticpupful]

Honestly this 'no context' theme is the most pleasurably captivating episode that this channel has created to date.. Please make these a new standard. the breezy tangentilness is very refreshing and lovely not knowing what's going to come next

[@MentalFloss]

Ha, thanks for the feedback! I'm not sure if this will be the new standard, per se, but I'm quite sure we'll make more vids in this vein.

[@marieclairelebel]

On the other hand, I much prefer getting context

[@122172639]

There's an app I really enjoy called "Ultimate Facts." You can click for more context (oftentimes a lot of it) or just keep the little nugget they offer you without exploring in great depth... They've curated a really wonderful collection. (It's free... also works without using data if you're offline/in a dead zone though I'm sure it'd eventually need to refresh to cycle through the million facts or so.)

[@jwharvey7167]

@@MentalFloss I'm sorry but that is a no from me. If you tell me some fact with no context, it is just words. There are a number of other channels that present this way or with the wrong or limited context. Your program has always stood above the rest for presenting well researched information in nice size bites. Do not lose that which made this channel great.

[@MentalFloss]

​@@jwharvey7167 We'll definitely continue to make more of the in-depth videos you're referring to (we have an episode of Food history coming out today that I'm especially proud of). And when we do release videos on the sillier/more trivial end of things, like this one (which I have to admit was more fun to make than I expected), we'll be sure to title them in a way so that audiences can choose their own adventure, so to speak.

[@Varizen87]

PERU!!! I've sat here for several minutes trying to name countries, and then I started singing the Animaniac's song Yakko Sings All the Countries of the World to think of more countries, and then I hit Peru and BAM!! I had it. I knew it had to be shorter than Typewriter (the longest word you can write on 1 row) and it couldn't be the bottom row as there are no vowels, and the middle row was unlikely since I only had A to work with, so I figured it had to be on the top row with a short name.

[@MentalFloss]

When in doubt, start singing Animaniac songs.

[@miriamrosemary9110]

Nice! I also thought it'll probably be relatively short, and then tried to think of countries with only A's for vowels, hoping to either find one or eliminate the middle row and then go with the top row :) Sadly, I gave up pretty quickly, but good for you!

[@jphilb]

Apparently without context or a pause to catch your breath. Going to have to watch this a few times. 😁

[@joebilat]

After the Vietnam War, Army Special Forces medics wanted to continue practicing medicine and petitioned the AMA. The position is commonly known as Physicians Assistants, and over 10% of PAs are former Special Forces medics

[@redalertlaserbeak7244]

You never mentioned the best part about the first fact! Guy de Maupassant would eat lunch everyday *at the Eiffel Tower* because, according to him, that's the only place in all of Paris where you don't have to look at it.

[@christinegengaro8931]

That is fantastic!!

[@JWentu]

[SPOILER?] I dont know if it is the only one but I see Peru in the first row. I didnt even try with the third row since there are no vowels

[@MentalFloss]

Impressive! Plus the conscientiousness to do the spoiler thing, bravo!

[@shofstall6]

Alaska is the only state in a row

[@mojosbigsticks]

The ship's horn on the Queen Mary is a lower bass A

[@EvilGenius007]

No Big Ten alum has ever been elected President or Vice President, but Michigan alum Gerald Ford held both positions.

[@tisjester]

Gerald Ford was never elected President.

[@geoffroi-le-Hook]

He was born a King.

[@-.leah.-]

5:03 I understood "the n*z* party band" as I pictured a party rock band like "WHEN I SAY SEIG, YOU SAY HEIL!!" 🤣

[@FluffyEmmy1116]

long lists of random facts about anything and everything are my favorite lists ^_^ Also, Peru

[@callabeth258]

The awkward moment when you shout Peru!!!! At 12:40am… in a duplex…. I hope I didn’t wake my neighbours!

[@happyfacefries]

One of my favorite facts actually has two. During to the filming of Raiders of the Lost Arc, almost to the entire cast an do crew ate locally and got very sick. When they are in the the marketplace, it was supposed to have a swordfight scene with Indy and the assassin. Harrison Ford had very bad diarrhea so it was changed to just shooting the assassin. The only person who didn't eat the local food was Steven Spielberg who ate food out of a can. The cast and crew kind of laughed because he was eating cold food, but Steven has the last laugh.

[@rhekman]

:39 "PERU" fits on the top row of a QWERTY keyboard.

[@jamzst]

During the filming of the original 1968 movie 'Planet of the Apes' on the first day of filming on the Ape City set, when the lunch break came around all extras were directed to the tables where caterers had set up their meals. Surprisingly, and with no instructions or directions to do so, extras made up as chimpanzees grouped together, as did gorillas and orangutans.

[@St.Linguini_of_Pesto]

Therefore proving in an odd, the longway 'round sort of way, humans are a _piece_ of nature.. we are not above it.

[@AveryMilieu]

Delivery so FAST that I had to slow the playback speed to 75% to understand what you were saying.

[@ZoeAndACat]

Peru is the country

[@mikesands4681]

yeah that was easy

[@leumas75]

On my old Olympia that my grandfather bought for use aboard several ships in WWII (Pacific), you could JUST about type Turkey on one line because the K is bent up like a SOB.

[@CorneliusCody]

I’m listening to this as I go to bed and figured it out and had to coke like the first comment I saw who got it right

[@leumas75]

@@CorneliusCody “Coke like?” Is that slang for having to snort a keybump of cocaine to wake yourself up enough to type that comment? Or does RC Cola = Coke like? So confused.

[@xBRProductionsx]

@@leumas75 same with Puerto Rico but with the c

[@Cheesybiscuit404]

I immediately had to pause cause I went "hold on Erin that's too fast" 😂

[@derekfnord]

Bobby Richardson, of the 1961 New York Yankees, is both the only player from the losing team ever named World Series MVP, and the only second baseman ever named World Series MVP.

[@JuicyCrone]

That Chet Hanks one! *Screaming* 🤣🤣

[@BlasphemousBill2023]

That was fun:) My random fact: “girl” didn’t intend gender originally, it was just a term for young person. I Wonder when and why it changed!

[@dstinnettmusic]

I don’t know when, but the old timey notion that women are perpetually child-like tracks with that idea.

[@umwha]

I would say that the way girl is historically used it was applied along the lines of sex not gender as the ide of gender identity as something different from sex was only invented by dr Money a few decades ago

[@Darxide23]

Chaucer was the first known person to use the word in the 1300s and it was spelled "gyrl." Male children were called "knave girls" and female children were called "gay girls." It started to shift towards meaning only female children in the 1400s and by the mid 1500s it had completely changed to it's current meaning of a female child with "boy" being used as it is now.

[@thegreatgazoo2334]

"Man" used to mean "human" and the words for man and woman were "were" and "wif."

[@MrDDiRusso]

Studies show that humans eat more bananas than monkeys. It's true! I can't remember the last time I ate a monkey. 😋

[@GregoryParkerPayne]

The country of typewriter.

[@dstinnettmusic]

LBJs Beagles is peak dad joke. I can imagine his smug smile when one of them peed on the floor “get Him in here!”

[@Cirqueen]

My absolute favorite fact: there are no snakes in New Zealand. (Second favorite fact: there are more lakes in Canada than in the rest of the world combined).

[@zofiaswiatek1576]

Loved the Polish facts! Thanks for including them. ❤️

[@stephenphillips931]

The first female state senator, Martha Hughes, defeated her husband for the seat.

[@xaesalyszimpkee]

I need more lists like this. Forget needing some sort of theme for a list just give me chaos of it all

[@Felix6MCMLXXX]

In the city of New Ulm Minnesota, the Sioux laid sedge to the whole city except for 1 building. I would say why, but rules of the game.

[@miriamrosemary9110]

Now I want context for many of them! Where do I find the context?? 😅

[@richardmcdonnell5367]

What about Eire or is that cheating?

[@CheatOnlyDeath]

The acronym/initialism JWST for the James Webb Space Telescope has as many syllables as the full name.

[@brian.willett]

I work in a hospital. Cracks me up people using the acronym GSW to "shorten" gunshot wound. 3 syllables vs 5 lol.

[@Obi-WanMaroney]

@@brian.willett Kinda like WWW vs world wide web. 9 syllables vs 3.

[@PecanSandees23]

The Good Ship Lollipop is a plane.

[@neil5280]

I was so pleased when I figured I could spell EUROPE only using the top row, but then I reread the challenge: One country, not a collection of countries. Is the answer PERU?

[@MentalFloss]

Sí!

[@RobertFortin1405]

@@MentalFloss I found Alaska

[@FewVidsJustComments]

“Only one countey’s name can be spellled using one keyboard row” Me, after thinking about it for a while while staring at my keyboard: * swaps the q and a keys * It’s Eritrea!”

[@DynamixWarePro]

Some scenes in the movie Barry Lyndon were shot using a Carl Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7 lens. The lens was designed specifically for NASAs Apollo Lunar program so they could get photographs of the dark side of the moon.

[@AdMiKa]

A couple of random facts that I know of, presented without context: - Taco Bell wouldn't be here if it weren't for McDonald's. - The moon is the only reason life as we know it exists on this planet.

[@davidseymour6447]

President Zachary Taylor could spit tobacco juice into a spittoon from across the room.

[@DemonEyes23]

Heard about the rabbit thing on scishow tangents. You are correct Mary toft is 1000000x worse than putting an egg back into a chicken.

[@samuelplyler1511]

The platypus is one of the only two venomous mammals that are venomous.

[@josephcosenza4016]

Ummm humans are both venomous and poisonous.

[@St.Linguini_of_Pesto]

@@josephcosenza4016 just what I was thinking.

[@ferngirltlc]

Giraffes have as many bones in their necks as humans do

[@andrewgehl9109]

The state vegetable of Oklahoma is the watermelon

[@Aboz]

Yak butter is the principal export of Tibet.

[@DOHC1FY]

The brain named itself.

[@zhanyiwong9722]

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky hated Overture 1812, which is one of the most recognised piece composed by himself.

[@HeBreaksLate]

This feels like all the facts that ended up on the cutting room floor from previous list videos.

[@markdodd1152]

Pretty hard to top old bacon face

[@magister343]

North Korea may be the only Necrocracy now, but the Inka empire was officially ruled by several dead emperors at once. The Spanish even managed to pit some of its dead rulers against the living ones.

[@XtomJamesExtra]

107: False, modern flowers appeared 130 million years ago in the fossil records, but because of two distinct evolutionary events, the earliest possible flowers likely date back to 319 million years ago.

[@jerrybear6440]

Thank you so much....

[@interwebtubes]

Nice piece, Many thanks 👍👍👍👍

[@geoffroi-le-Hook]

J appears in the German periodic table for Iodine.

[@Sarappreciates]

Old Bacon-Face! 🤣😂

[@warren958]

Enrique of Malacca was probably the first person to circumnavigate Earth.

[@MichaelParisi]

Thank you to the Animaniacs for the list of country names in my head. I didn’t have to sing far: PERU

[@Siansonea]

Jack Ryan, the man who invented the Barbie doll's bendable leg mechanism in the early 1960s, was later married to Zsa Zsa Gabor.

[@coolguyhino92]

I love how subtle number 37 is

[@stephaniehight2771]

A crocodile is more closely related to a chicken than to a snake.

[@VibrateGirl101]

Is THAT why Melman in Madagascar is so panicky and needs medicine all the time?!

[@corywilliams2255]

182. Bear in mind that author George Sand's actual given name was Mary Ann Evans.

[@AlexDogwalker1234]

Bear in mind that if they went around mentioning everybody's real names, they would NEVER end.

[@_Super_Hans_]

Peru and I was the first person to say it but the internet is just slow here so just ignore everyone who said it before me. What do I win now please

[@geoffroi-le-Hook]

prophecy (-see) : noun / prophesy (-sigh) : verb

[@Douglas_Blake_579]

Wow, that was fun, but I feel rather beat up... The lifetimes of Chief Sitting Bull and Albert Einstein overlapped.

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

Peru! (I didn't look into the answers, honestly!) St Patrick was Welsh, btw 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[@danielraiber3639]

In Oklahoma, Sooner's were people who claimed land before the start of the Oklahoma land run. The capital of Oklahoma used to be Guthrie until residents from Oklahoma city stole the great seal and moved it to OKC. Oklahoma's state flower used to be Mistletoe (now the state floral emblem) which is a fungus. Oklahoma's state vegetable is the watermelon. Oklahoma as a land locked state has a "No Whaling" law. Nothing will ever beat, Lobster's pee out of their eyes

[@johngreene0129]

There is a county in Georgia called "Taliaferro," but it's pronounced "Toliver." I wonder which way Booker pronounced it...

[@colerinne3021]

2:54 few!

[@ryankolter6271]

Cakes can be baked without eggs and come out remarkably similar in texture and taste.

[@simonsaysism]

Relatedly - when instant cake mixes were first invented, all you had to do was add water, mix, and bake. Despite their convenience, they didn't perform very well because they felt TOO easy. Later formulations asked the user to add eggs and oil, to make it feel like they were actually contributing to the process.

[@magneticpupful]

I do believe that you're incorrect when you said that most bulldogs were born by C s andection because in fact I do believe that it's all bulldogs are born by C-section at least the American kind

[@danielraiber3639]

The name "Bulldog" with out specifications on a specific breed not only covers the english bulldog but also all of the bully breeds like the american pitbull, the american bulldog, and th mastiff which are all normally giving birth naturally unless there is a complication. So saying that "most" bull dogs are born via C-section would be proper and correct.

[@VillagerJeff]

Peru

[@TidalShadow]

The nation of Peru fits the 10th fact's question.

[@ish_3]

Thanks for ruining it

[@NakedGrizzly]

@@ish_3 seriously, i was still trying to figure it out on my own i should have known

[@tobycortes]

awesome!!!!

[@catastrophic3]

The longest attack of hiccups lasted 68 years

[@Aldo_raines]

The majority of people have an above average number of limbs.

[@blue_manatee3895]

0:46 Peru

[@castielsgranny4308]

There are several names spelled very differently from how they sound. It's weird, and fairly annoying. Example: Taliaferro is pronounced "Tolliver." (Bonus: Beauchamp is pronounced "Beecham.") It's like a plot started centuries ago to ensure we in the future embarrassed ourselves. There are many more of these, and looking them up is entertaining!

[@christinegengaro8931]

Samuel Pepys tripped me up for years.

[@KarlTheGiant1]

is it Peru?

[@丫o]

So Jerry Springer was born by leaving a smaller tube for a bigger one. Huh.

[@YeeSoest]

Saftig is also just plain old german, I'm not sure if the word is actually from yiddish when yiddish derived mostly from german which already calls juicy "saftig"...kinda odd

[@dylanadams1455]

second fact about ZZ Top - that 50 year run was the single longest lasting lineup of a band on record.

[@tanmayroy1489]

Hugo Chavez once called George W Bush the Devil, at the 2006 UN General Assembly. His speech referred to the fact by mentioning 'it smells of sulphur' in here.

[@ambergetsbutterflies]

Emperor penguins can be up to 4.3ft tall.

[@JayFlowie]

There's some context still here.

[@jonatchley6045]

To pick a small nit: the name Taliaferro is traditionally pronounced 'Tolliver'...

[@crsproductions2003]

Zebras cannot sleep alone

[@jonathanarledge7006]

Maybe a "lil" context?

[@122172639]

Emily Spinach is a FANTASTIC name for a pet snake-its cadence reminds me of Jiminy Cricket. I don't know anything about Alice Roosevelt except for who her father was and, thanks to this video, that she had GREAT fashion sense and a GREAT taste for snake names. That photo could be improved upon, though... had they included her Spinachy Emily... who surely was Madam General Spinach, Emily for short.

[@crsproductions2003]

0:45 PERU

[@Apophis324]

I think my brain needs a reboot.. I did enjoy hearing that tall people score better on IQ tests than short people. Maybe I'll someday find out why. And what is the space between your eyebrows called.. when you have a monobrow?

[@invisibleninja86]

Peru! I'm glad it was something in the Americas; I'm pretty terrible at geography otherwise.

[@reppepper]

The last two syllable of prophesying are supposed to rhyme with sighing, not seeing.

[@The_Other_Ghost]

Erin is the best.

[@MuscarV2]

The words for marriage and poison is the same in Swedish.

[@usernameed]

It’s Peru! That’s the country that can be typed using only one row on a standard QWERTY keyboard

[@TheBrothersBlue]

Peru🇵🇪

[@carlos.-.618]

Michael J. Fox’s middle name is Andrew.

[@Echoesthroughu]

Cah-lee-vuh-lah. Kalevala.

[@reppepper]

Thank you for using “comprises” sensibly i.e. not as a synonym of composes.

[@Slothptimal]

At 36, you're 60% of 60. Not a huge fact but it makes people feel very old.

[@dehydratedwater9806]

I'm 103% of 60

[@marymaxine3769]

The cast and crew of Titanic were drugged with PCP during a dinner break.