Fun Facts Flashcards
(30 cards)
What was the name of the first movie, and in what year?
Roundhay Garden Scene (1888)
The world’s earliest surviving motion-picture film, showing actual consecutive action is called Roundhay Garden Scene. It’s a short film directed by French inventor Louis Le Prince. While it’s just 2.11 seconds long, it is technically a movie.
Who wrote The Alchemist?
Paulo Coehlo (Kwel-oh) First published in 1988
What is Deipnophobia?
De-ip-nophobia is the fear of dinner party conversations.
Your stomach doesn’t growl, it…
wambles.
The light emitted by 200,000 galaxies makes our universe a shade of beige. Scientists call the color…
“Cosmic latte.”
Eigengrau (eh-gen-grauh) is the color we see when we do what?
Open our eyes in a dark room.
Caffeine withdrawal is classified as a mental disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-V handbook.
….
What is the national animal of Scotland?
The unicorn.
Egregious
Outstandingly bad; shocking.
“egregious abuses of copyright”
‘Mellifluous’ is a sound that is pleasingly smooth and musical to hear.
muh-li-floo-uhs
The Japanese word ‘Kuchi zamishi’ is the act of eating when you’re not hungry because your mouth is lonely. We do this all the time.
Here’s something to chew on that’s zero calories.
What is the longest book in the world?
A book called ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’ by Marcel Proust contains an estimated 9,609,000 characters, making it the longest book in the world. The title translates to “Remembrance of Things Past”.
It rains diamonds on Saturn and Jupiter.
When storms form, the planets produce lightning like here on Earth. lightning causes methane in the atmosphere to decompose, producing hydrogen and elemental carbon. As the carbon falls towards the planet, it may bond together forming graphite, and as the pressure builds up closer to the planet’s core, that graphite may be compressed into diamond.
Con·tig·u·ous
sharing a common border; touching.
“the 48 contiguous states”
next or together in sequence.
“five hundred contiguous dictionary entries”
A mammal of an order whose members are born incompletely developed and are typically carried and suckled in a pouch on the mother’s belly. Marsupials are found mainly in Australia and New Guinea, although three families, including the opossums, live in America.
Well-known marsupials include kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, opossums, wombats, Tasmanian devils, and the extinct thylacine. Some lesser-known marsupials are the dunnarts, potoroos, and the cuscus.
Shrapnel
Fragments of a bomb, shell, or other object thrown out by an explosion. 4% of the sand on Normandy beach is made up of shrapnel from D-Day that has broken down.
Ultracrepidarian
One who is presumptuous and offers advice or opinions beyond one’s sphere of knowledge.
The Coolidge effect is the progressive decline in a male’s propensity to mate with the same female combined with a heightened sexual interest in new females.
A sexual phenomenon named after President Calvin Coolidge.
il·lu·mi·na·ti
/iˌlo͞oməˈnädē/
People claiming to possess special enlightenment or knowledge of something.
her·e·tic
a person believing in or practicing religious heresy.
her·e·sy
belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine. opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted.
“cutting capital gains taxes is heresy”
capital gain
When you sell a capital asset for more than you paid for it, the result is a capital gain. Capital assets include stocks, bonds, precious metals, jewelry, and real estate.1 The tax you’ll pay on the capital gain depends on how long you held the asset before selling it. Capital gains are classified as either long-term or short-term and are taxed accordingly.
her·o·ine
a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. the chief female character in a book, play, or movie, who is typically identified with good qualities, and with whom the reader is expected to sympathize. (in mythology and folklore) a woman of superhuman qualities and often semidivine origin, in particular one whose deeds were the subject of ancient Greek myths.
in·gen·u·ous
disingenuous
(of a person or action) innocent and unsuspecting.
“he eyed her with wide, ingenuous eyes”
someone who’s described as disingenuous might be faking naiveté; insincere.
