History & Culture

President George W. Bush was a cheerleader during high school and university.

As a teenager, Obama took drugs including marijuana and cocaine

There are scrolls from the Edo period of Japan that suggest fart battles took place. The drawings show men blasting farts at other men, women, and even a cat.

Larry Walters tied 42 weather balloons to his lawn chair and rose to 16,000 feet over Los Angeles.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off!

The shortest war on record was fought between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.

Condoms were originally made of animal intestines or linen.

In 1896, Walter Arnold received the world's first speeding ticket for driving 8mph in a 2mph zone through Paddock Wood, Kent—he was chased down by a policeman on a bicycle!

In 1386, a pig in Falaise, France was publicly executed by hanging for killing a child. The pig was even dressed in human clothes for the execution.

In 15th-century Ottoman Turkey, a woman could legally divorce her husband if he failed to provide her with enough coffee.

Within a century of Muhammad's death, Islam had spread across half the known world, from Spain to the borders of China.

Barack Obama was nicknamed "Barry O'Bomber" by some teammates at Punahou High School for his enthusiastic jump shot, though he spent most of his senior championship season on the bench

Until President Kennedy was killed, it wasn't a federal crime to assassinate the President.

Barack Obama collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics

Historically, sweat has been an active ingredient in perfume and love potions.

The abbreviation Xmas isn't irreligious. The letter X is a Greek abbreviation for Christ.

Famous billionaire Howard Hughes stored his own urine in large bottles.

Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender.

Ancient gladiators were mostly vegetarians whose diet consisted mainly of grains, beans, and dried fruit, washed down with a vinegar and plant ash tonic.

New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to grant all women the right to vote in national elections, in 1893.