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75 Trivia Facts That Sound Made Up Until You Check Them Twice

By
Laura Pedersen
A young woman sitting on the floor of a library, reading a book intently.

The Thing About Trivia Facts Nobody Warns You About

The Oxford English Dictionary added the word “factoid” in 1973 to describe something that isn’t true but gets repeated so often people assume it is. Norman Mailer coined it. And now most people use “factoid” to mean a small, true fact , which is the exact opposite of what it was invented to describe. That little irony sits at the heart of every trivia facts collection worth its salt. Half the challenge isn’t knowing the answer. It’s trusting yourself when the answer sounds like a lie.

I’ve watched rooms full of confident, intelligent people shout wrong answers with absolute conviction, then refuse to believe the correct one even after I’ve read it out loud. That’s the sweet spot. That’s where these 75 questions live. Some of them are easy enough to give you momentum. Some will start a fight at your table. And a few will genuinely change the way you think about something you see every day.

The Ones That Sound Like Lies

1. What common fruit’s seeds contain a compound that, when digested, can produce small amounts of hydrogen cyanide?

I’ve asked this at bar trivia and watched someone panic about the smoothie they had for lunch. The amount is so negligible you’d need to eat an absurd quantity of crushed seeds for it to matter, but the fact itself never fails to make people sit up straighter.

Show Answer
Apples. Most people guess cherries or apricots , and they’re not wrong that those contain the same compound, but the question asks about the common fruit, and apples are the one sitting in nearly every kitchen. The compound is amygdalin.

 

2. Which planet in our solar system has a day longer than its year?

This one sorts the room immediately. People who know a little astronomy get tripped up because their brain jumps to the gas giants. People who know a lot smile quietly.

Show Answer
Venus. It takes about 243 Earth days to rotate once on its axis but only about 225 Earth days to orbit the Sun. And it rotates backwards, just for good measure.

 

3. True or false: Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

This is the trivia fact that broke my brain the first time I heard it. I use it as an opener at events because it recalibrates everyone’s sense of time before the night even starts.

Show Answer
True. The Great Pyramid was completed around 2560 BC. Cleopatra died in 30 BC. The Moon landing was 1969 AD. She’s about 500 years closer to Neil Armstrong than to the builders of the pyramid she’s associated with.

 

4. What percentage of the Earth’s water is fresh water: roughly 3%, 15%, or 30%?

People consistently overestimate this. Something about living on a blue planet makes them generous.

Show Answer
Roughly 3%. And most of that is locked in glaciers and ice caps. The amount of accessible fresh water is less than 1% of all water on Earth. The common wrong answer is 15%, because 3% just feels too low.

 

5. Honey found in Egyptian tombs dating back over 3,000 years was found to still be what?

This one always gets a reaction. People guess “intact” or “present.” The answer is better than that.

Show Answer
Edible. Honey’s low moisture content and acidic pH create an environment where bacteria essentially can’t survive. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient tombs that were still perfectly good to eat.

 

6. What animal has fingerprints so similar to humans that they’ve been confused at crime scenes?

I love this question because it makes people picture a police lineup with animals in it. The answer is surprisingly mundane once you hear it.

Show Answer
Koalas. Their fingerprints are virtually indistinguishable from human ones, even under a microscope. Primates like chimps are the common wrong answer, but their prints are actually distinguishable.

 

7. How many times does the average human heart beat in a single day: approximately 10,000, 50,000, or 100,000?

The middle option is the trap. People think 100,000 sounds too dramatic, so they play it safe.

Show Answer
Approximately 100,000. At an average of 70 beats per minute, that’s about 100,800 beats in 24 hours. The “safe” answer of 50,000 is the most common wrong guess.

 

History Wearing a Disguise

8. Which was invented first: the lighter or the match?

This question has started more arguments at my events than almost any other. People are so sure they know the answer that they’ll bet on it.

Show Answer
The lighter. Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner invented a hydrogen lighter in 1823. The first friction match wasn’t invented until 1826 by John Walker. Three years apart, but the order shocks everyone.

 

9. What was the shortest war in recorded history, lasting approximately 38 to 45 minutes?

I always pause after saying “38 to 45 minutes” and let the room do the math on how that’s even possible.

Show Answer
The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896. The Sultan of Zanzibar refused to step down, the British opened fire, and it was over before lunch. Zanzibar surrendered after their one ship was sunk and the palace was shelled.

 

10. Oxford University is older than which major world civilization?

The phrasing is deliberately broad here. I want people to aim too recent.

Show Answer
The Aztec Empire. Teaching existed at Oxford as early as 1096, while the Aztec civilization is generally considered to have begun with the founding of Tenochtitlan in 1325. People usually guess something like “the Roman Empire,” which is far too old.

 

11. In what year did the last known widow of a Civil War veteran die: 1979, 2003, or 2020?

This is one of those trivia facts that makes the Civil War feel uncomfortably recent.

Show Answer
2020. Helen Viola Jackson married a Civil War veteran in 1936 when she was 17 and he was 93. It was largely a caregiving arrangement. She didn’t tell anyone about it for decades. She died in 2020 at age 101.

 

12. Nintendo was founded in what year: 1889, 1929, or 1965?

The room always splits evenly on this one. Nobody trusts the real answer.

Show Answer
1889. They made handmade playing cards. Nintendo was nearly 100 years old before they ever made a video game. The most common wrong answer is 1965, because people anchor to the era of electronic games.

 

13. What everyday object was originally sold as a wallpaper cleaner before becoming a children’s toy?

This one rewards lateral thinking. The people who get it usually have kids.

Show Answer
Play-Doh. It was manufactured by a cleaning products company to remove coal residue from wallpaper. When coal heating declined, they remarketed it as a toy after a teacher started using it for art projects.

 

14. The Great Fire of London in 1666 is officially recorded as having killed how many people?

I’ve seen people guess in the thousands. The official number makes them furious.

Show Answer
Six. The official death toll is six, though historians widely believe the actual number was much higher , deaths among the poor and undocumented simply weren’t counted. The gap between the official record and reality tells you a lot about who got counted in 1666.

 

15. What was the first product to have a barcode scanned at a checkout: a magazine, a pack of gum, or a can of soup?

The can of soup is the trap answer because people think of Campbell’s and Andy Warhol and it just feels right.

Show Answer
A pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum. It was scanned at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974. That specific pack is now in the Smithsonian.

 

Your Body Is Stranger Than You Think

16. What is the strongest muscle in the human body relative to its size?

People always want to say the tongue, but that’s not even a single muscle. The real answer is one you use every single day without thinking about it.

Show Answer
The masseter, or jaw muscle. It can close your teeth with a force of up to 200 pounds on the molars. The tongue is actually a group of eight muscles working together, not one muscle.

 

17. Approximately how many times does the average person blink per minute?

And now you’re thinking about blinking. You’re welcome.

Show Answer
15 to 20 times per minute. That’s roughly 1,200 times per hour and up to 28,800 times in a waking day. Each blink lasts about a tenth of a second, meaning you spend roughly 10% of your waking hours with your eyes closed.

 

18. What organ in your body can regenerate itself even after up to 75% of it has been removed?

Most people get this one. It’s the percentage that makes them lean back in their chairs.

Show Answer
The liver. It can regrow to its full size from as little as 25% of its original tissue. This is why living-donor liver transplants are possible. The Greek myth of Prometheus, whose liver was eaten daily by an eagle and regrew each night, turns out to be weirdly accurate.

 

19. How many bones does a newborn baby have: more than, fewer than, or the same as an adult?

The confident people in the room always get this wrong. They assume growth means gaining bones.

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More. A newborn has about 270 bones, while an adult has 206. Many bones fuse together as a child grows. The skull alone starts as several separate plates that eventually join.

 

20. What color does your blood appear when it’s inside your veins, as seen through tissue?

This question is really asking: do you believe the thing you were told in school, or what you can see with your own eyes?

Show Answer
Dark red. Blood is never blue. It’s bright red when oxygenated and darker red when deoxygenated. Veins appear blue through your skin because of how light penetrates tissue and how your eyes perceive wavelengths, not because the blood itself is blue. This is one of the most persistent myths in education.

 

21. What part of the human body has no blood supply and gets its oxygen directly from the air?

This one gets quiet, thoughtful answers. People work through it out loud, which I love.

Show Answer
The cornea. It’s the only part of the body that receives oxygen directly from the atmosphere rather than through blood vessels. This is also why contact lenses need to be breathable.

 

22. How long is the total length of all blood vessels in the average adult human body: 1,000 miles, 10,000 miles, or 60,000 miles?

Nobody picks the right answer because it sounds physically impossible.

Show Answer
Approximately 60,000 miles. That’s enough to wrap around the Earth more than twice. Most of this length comes from capillaries, which are microscopically thin. The common wrong answer is 10,000 miles, which feels generous enough to be right.

 

Animals That Don’t Play by the Rules

23. What animal can survive being frozen solid and then thaw back to life?

People think of tardigrades immediately, but I’m asking about something you might find in your backyard.

Show Answer
The wood frog. During winter, up to 65% of its body water freezes. Its heart stops, it stops breathing, and it has no brain activity. When spring arrives, it thaws and hops away. It produces a kind of antifreeze in its cells that prevents ice crystals from destroying its organs.

 

24. What is the only mammal capable of true flight?

This one separates the people who read carefully from the people who shout first.

Show Answer
Bats. Flying squirrels glide , they don’t achieve powered flight. Bats are the only mammals that actually fly. The common wrong answer is flying squirrels, and people will argue about it.

 

25. An octopus has three of what organ that humans have only one of?

This is a great warm-up question because the answer makes people want to know more.

Show Answer
Hearts. An octopus has three hearts: two pump blood to the gills, and one pumps it to the rest of the body. The systemic heart actually stops beating when the octopus swims, which is why they prefer crawling.

 

26. What animal sleeps an average of only two hours per day?

Everyone guesses something small and frantic, like a hummingbird. The answer is the opposite.

Show Answer
The giraffe. They sleep in very short bursts, often standing up, and rarely for more than a few minutes at a time. Being tall and slow to get up makes deep sleep a survival risk on the savanna.

 

27. A group of flamingos is called a what?

Collective nouns for animals are trivia gold because the English language was apparently designed by poets who’d had too much wine.

Show Answer
A flamboyance. Which is, honestly, perfect.

 

28. What animal has been shown to recognize itself in a mirror, besides great apes and dolphins?

There are several correct answers here, but the one that surprises rooms the most is the one I’m after.

Show Answer
Elephants. They pass the mirror self-recognition test, which is considered a measure of self-awareness. They’ll use a mirror to inspect marks placed on their bodies that they couldn’t otherwise see. Some species of fish and ants have also shown mirror responses, though those results are more debated.

 

29. How far can a snail travel in one hour: 25 feet, 75 feet, or 150 feet?

People think snails are slower than they actually are. Which is saying something.

Show Answer
Approximately 75 to 150 feet, depending on the species. The garden snail averages about 75 feet per hour. That’s 0.03 miles per hour. People usually guess 25 feet, underestimating even the snail.

 

30. What creature’s heart is located in its head?

This one gets groans when I reveal the answer because it feels like it should have been obvious.

Show Answer
A shrimp. The heart of a shrimp is located in its head. Their anatomy is structured differently from vertebrates, with vital organs concentrated in the cephalothorax.

 

Numbers That Don’t Feel Real

31. How many possible unique games of chess exist: more or fewer than the number of atoms in the observable universe?

This is the question that makes math people and chess people both go quiet.

Show Answer
More. The Shannon number estimates roughly 10^120 possible chess games. The observable universe contains an estimated 10^80 atoms. Chess is, mathematically speaking, larger than the physical universe.

 

32. What is the most commonly spoken language in the world by total number of speakers, including non-native speakers?

This one depends on how recently your data was updated, and people get heated about it.

Show Answer
English, with roughly 1.5 billion total speakers. Mandarin Chinese has more native speakers, but English leads in total speakers when you include those who learned it as a second language. People who answer Mandarin aren’t wrong about native speakers , they’re just answering a slightly different question.

 

33. How many earths could fit inside the Sun: roughly 130, 1,300, or 1.3 million?

Scale in space is something the human brain just refuses to process honestly.

Show Answer
Approximately 1.3 million. The Sun’s volume is so vast that it dwarfs everything else in the solar system combined. People usually guess 1,300 because a million of anything feels wrong.

 

34. What percentage of the ocean floor has been mapped in detail: about 5%, 25%, or 50%?

We’ve mapped more of Mars than we have of our own ocean floor, and that fact should bother everyone.

Show Answer
About 5% at high resolution (as of recent surveys, broader mapping has covered more, but detailed mapping remains around 20-25%). The deep ocean is harder to survey than outer space in many ways because sonar has to deal with pressure, temperature gradients, and sheer distance.

 

35. How many possible combinations exist for a standard Rubik’s Cube?

I don’t expect people to get the exact number. I just want them to feel the weight of it.

Show Answer
43,252,003,274,489,856,000 , that’s over 43 quintillion. And yet, any configuration can be solved in 20 moves or fewer. Mathematicians call this “God’s number.”

 

36. What is the most stolen food in the world?

This question always produces the most creative wrong answers I’ve ever heard.

Show Answer
Cheese. About 4% of all cheese produced globally is stolen. It has high value, is easy to resell, and is difficult to trace. There’s an entire black market for stolen cheese in some countries.

 

37. How many trees are on Earth: roughly 400 million, 3 billion, or 3 trillion?

People consistently underestimate trees and overestimate stars. It’s a beautiful human quirk.

Show Answer
Approximately 3 trillion. A 2015 study published in Nature estimated 3.04 trillion trees on Earth, which is about 400 trees for every person alive. That’s roughly seven times more than previous estimates had suggested.

 

Geography Will Humble You

38. What is the driest continent on Earth?

Africa gets thrown out first every time. The Sahara looms large in people’s imaginations. But dry doesn’t mean hot.

Show Answer
Antarctica. It receives less than 2 inches of precipitation per year on average, making it technically a desert. The Sahara gets about 3 inches. People conflate “dry” with “hot,” and Antarctica breaks that assumption completely.

 

39. What country has the most natural lakes in the world?

This feels like it should be Russia, given its sheer size. It’s not.

Show Answer
Canada. It contains more than half of the world’s natural lakes , over 2 million of them. Finland, often called “the Land of a Thousand Lakes,” has about 188,000. Canada has roughly 11 times that.

 

40. What is the only continent with land in all four hemispheres?

This requires people to mentally draw the equator and the prime meridian at the same time, which is harder than it sounds.

Show Answer
Africa. It crosses both the equator (Northern and Southern Hemispheres) and the prime meridian (Eastern and Western Hemispheres). People often guess Asia, but Asia doesn’t extend into the Western Hemisphere.

 

41. What is the longest river in Europe?

The Danube gets shouted out almost instantly. The Rhine gets a few votes. Neither is correct.

Show Answer
The Volga, at approximately 2,194 miles. It flows entirely within Russia. The Danube is second at about 1,770 miles. People forget about the Volga because it doesn’t flow through Western Europe, where most trivia players’ mental maps are centered.

 

42. Russia spans how many time zones?

People know it’s a lot. They rarely know the actual number.

Show Answer
Eleven. Russia spans 11 time zones, from UTC+2 to UTC+12. When it’s midnight in Kaliningrad on the western edge, it’s already 10 AM the next day in Kamchatka on the eastern edge.

 

43. What is the smallest country in the world by area?

A layup. But I include it because it sets up the next question, and sometimes you need to let the room breathe.

Show Answer
Vatican City, at about 0.17 square miles (44 hectares). It has a population of roughly 800 people and its own postal service, radio station, and army (the Swiss Guard).

 

44. What country has the most time zones, including overseas territories?

And here’s where the people who just answered “Russia” with confidence get a surprise.

Show Answer
France. Including its overseas territories (French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Réunion, etc.), France spans 12 time zones. Russia has 11. This is one of the most satisfying follow-ups in all of trivia.

 

45. What is the most visited country in the world by international tourist arrivals?

Americans always guess the United States. It’s not even close.

Show Answer
France, with approximately 90 million international visitors per year in recent pre-pandemic counts. Spain is typically second, and the United States third. Paris alone draws more tourists than many entire countries.

 

Food and Drink Will Betray You

46. What fruit is technically a berry: a strawberry, a banana, or a raspberry?

Botanical classification exists purely to make people feel foolish at dinner parties.

Show Answer
A banana. Botanically, a berry is a fruit produced from a single ovary with seeds embedded in the flesh. Bananas qualify. Strawberries and raspberries do not , strawberries are “accessory fruits” and raspberries are “aggregate fruits.” Grapes, tomatoes, and avocados are also technically berries.

 

47. What is the most consumed beverage in the world after water?

Coffee drinkers are about to be very disappointed.

Show Answer
Tea. It’s consumed in virtually every culture on Earth and has been for thousands of years. Coffee is a distant second globally, though it dominates in certain regions. Coffee drinkers tend to assume their habit is universal.

 

48. Peanuts are not actually nuts. What are they?

A classic trivia fact, but I include it because there’s always someone at the table who didn’t know and it genuinely bothers them.

Show Answer
Legumes. They grow underground in pods, like beans and lentils. True nuts grow on trees. Almonds and cashews aren’t technically nuts either , almonds are seeds and cashews are drupes.

 

49. What spice was once so valuable it was used as currency and was worth more than gold by weight?

People split between saffron and the correct answer. Both have been absurdly valuable at different points in history.

Show Answer
Black pepper. In medieval Europe, peppercorns were used to pay rent, dowries, and taxes. The phrase “peppercorn rent” still exists in legal English to describe a nominal payment. Saffron is a strong guess , it’s still more expensive than gold by weight today , but pepper’s role as currency was more widespread.

 

50. What popular soda was originally invented as a medicine?

Several sodas have this origin story, but one is more famous than the rest.

Show Answer
Coca-Cola. John Stith Pemberton created it in 1886 as a patent medicine, marketed as a cure for headaches and fatigue. It originally contained coca leaf extract and kola nuts. 7-Up and Dr Pepper also had medicinal origins, but Coca-Cola is the textbook answer.

 

51. What country produces the most coffee in the world?

Colombia gets shouted out by everyone who’s ever seen a coffee commercial. It’s not Colombia.

Show Answer
Brazil, by a massive margin. Brazil produces about a third of the world’s coffee. Vietnam is second. Colombia is third. The marketing of “Colombian coffee” has been so effective that people genuinely believe Colombia leads production.

 

Science That Breaks Your Assumptions

52. What is the hardest natural substance on Earth?

Everyone knows this one. I include it because the next question lands harder with this one in front of it.

Show Answer
Diamond. It’s a 10 on the Mohs hardness scale. Nothing naturally occurring can scratch a diamond except another diamond.

 

53. Despite being the hardest natural substance, diamond is not the strongest. What material, found in certain sea creatures, is considered the strongest biological material ever tested?

And here’s where the diamond confidence gets complicated.

Show Answer
Limpet teeth. The teeth of limpets (a type of sea snail) are made of a mineral-protein composite that, under tensile testing, proved stronger than spider silk and comparable to the strongest man-made materials. They use them to scrape algae off rocks.

 

54. Light from the Sun takes approximately how long to reach Earth?

People know it’s measured in minutes. The question is whether they remember the right number of minutes.

Show Answer
About 8 minutes and 20 seconds. This means when you look at the Sun, you’re seeing it as it was over 8 minutes ago. If it disappeared right now, you wouldn’t know for about 8 minutes.

 

55. What element makes up approximately 78% of Earth’s atmosphere?

Oxygen is the wrong answer that comes out of people’s mouths before they can stop it.

Show Answer
Nitrogen. Earth’s atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen and only 21% oxygen. The remaining 1% is argon, carbon dioxide, and trace gases. Oxygen feels like the obvious answer because it’s the one we think about , but we’re swimming in nitrogen.

 

56. What common metal is the most abundant in the Earth’s crust?

Iron gets guessed first. Gold gets guessed by the jokers. The real answer is all around you.

Show Answer
Aluminum (or aluminium, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on). It makes up about 8% of the Earth’s crust by mass. Iron is second among metals at about 5%. Aluminum was once more valuable than gold because it was so difficult to extract from ore.

 

57. How old is the oldest known living tree on Earth: approximately 2,000, 5,000, or 10,000 years old?

Trees are patient. More patient than you’d guess.

Show Answer
Approximately 5,000 years. A bristlecone pine named Methuselah in California’s White Mountains is over 4,850 years old. Another bristlecone in the same region may be even older. These trees were alive when the Egyptian pyramids were being built.

 

58. What is the speed of sound in air at sea level, roughly: 340 mph, 767 mph, or 1,100 mph?

People confuse miles per hour with meters per second, and the numbers all start to blur.

Show Answer
Approximately 767 mph (about 343 meters per second at 20°C). The 340 figure is correct in meters per second, which is where the confusion comes from. People who remember “340” from physics class often forget the unit.

 

The Ones That Make You Say “Wait, Really?”

59. What color are the “black boxes” on commercial aircraft?

This is the trivia fact equivalent of a magic trick. The answer is hiding in plain sight.

Show Answer
Bright orange. They’re painted that color to make them easier to find in wreckage. No one knows exactly why they’re called “black boxes” , theories range from early prototypes being black to the name referring to the charred state after a fire.

 

60. How many states does the United States have that begin with the letter M?

I use this one to watch people count on their fingers and inevitably miss one.

Show Answer
Eight: Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Montana. Most people get to six or seven and feel confident. Montana or Maine is usually the one that escapes them.

 

61. What is the only letter that does not appear in any U.S. state name?

People start mentally running through the alphabet and it takes longer than they expect.

Show Answer
Q. Every other letter of the alphabet appears in at least one state name. X appears in Texas and New Mexico. Z appears in Arizona. But Q is entirely absent.

 

62. Humans share approximately what percentage of their DNA with bananas?

This is the question that makes people stare at the banana on the bar counter differently.

Show Answer
About 60%. We share roughly 60% of our genes with bananas because many fundamental cellular processes , energy production, cell division, basic biochemistry , are shared across all life. We share about 98.7% with chimpanzees, for context.

 

63. What everyday item was accidentally invented when a scientist was trying to create a super-strong adhesive?

The beauty of this question is that the answer is literally the opposite of what the inventor intended.

Show Answer
The Post-it Note. Spencer Silver at 3M created a weak, reusable adhesive in 1968 while trying to develop a strong one. It took another six years before his colleague Art Fry realized it could be used to make bookmarks that wouldn’t fall out of his hymnal.

 

64. A jiffy is an actual unit of time. How long is it?

People use this word constantly and have no idea it’s a real measurement.

Show Answer
In physics, a jiffy is the time it takes light to travel one centimeter in a vacuum , approximately 33.3564 picoseconds. In computing, it refers to the duration of one tick of the system timer, typically 10 milliseconds. Either way, it’s unimaginably short.

 

65. What is the national animal of Scotland?

I save this one for when the room needs a laugh. The answer is perfect and completely real.

Show Answer
The unicorn. Scotland adopted the unicorn as its national animal in the 12th century. In Celtic mythology, the unicorn symbolized purity, innocence, and power. The Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom still features a unicorn representing Scotland alongside a lion representing England.

 

66. What was the first toy to be advertised on television?

People guess Barbie, GI Joe, or Slinky. The real answer predates all of them.

Show Answer
Mr. Potato Head, in 1952. It was the first toy advertised directly to children on TV. The original version didn’t come with a plastic potato body , kids were expected to use a real potato. The plastic body was added in 1964.

 

Language and Culture Tricks

67. What is the longest word in the English language that uses each letter only once?

This is technically debatable depending on your dictionary, but there’s a widely accepted answer that satisfies most rooms.

Show Answer
“Uncopyrightable” , 15 letters, none repeated. “Dermatoglyphics” (the study of fingerprints) also has 15 unrepeated letters. Both are accepted. The fun is watching people try to think of longer ones and fail.

 

68. What word in the English language is most often spelled incorrectly?

Read the question again before you answer.

Show Answer
“Incorrectly.” It’s a trick question , the word most often spelled “incorrectly” is the word “incorrectly,” because every time you spell it, you’re spelling it incorrectly. If you caught the trick, you’re in the minority. If you didn’t, welcome to the majority. I’ve seen rooms split 50/50 between people who groan and people who applaud.

 

69. What is the most common surname in the world?

Smith? Jones? Not even in the top ten globally.

Show Answer
Wang (or Wong, depending on romanization). It’s estimated that over 92 million people share this surname, primarily in China. Li and Zhang are close behind. Smith is the most common surname in English-speaking countries, but globally it doesn’t come close.

 

70. What is the only word in the English language that ends in “-mt”?

This one makes people sit silently for a surprisingly long time.

Show Answer
“Dreamt.” It’s the past tense of “dream” in British English (“dreamed” being the American preference). No other common English word ends in -mt.

 

71. How many countries in the world have the color purple on their national flag?

People start mentally flipping through flags and realize they can’t picture purple on any of them.

Show Answer
Two: Nicaragua and Dominica. Purple dye was historically so expensive (it came from sea snails) that even royalty used it sparingly. Putting it on a flag was essentially unaffordable for most nations. This is one of those trivia facts where the reason behind the answer is more interesting than the answer itself.

 

The Final Stretch

72. How many muscles does it take to smile: 17, 26, or 43?

The old saying is “it takes more muscles to frown than to smile.” The actual science is messier.

Show Answer
It depends on the type of smile, but a genuine smile uses roughly 12 muscles , the zygomatic major and orbicularis oculi being the main ones. A frown uses about 11. The popular claim that frowning uses 43 muscles is a myth with no clear origin. None of the multiple-choice options I offered are quite right, which is the point , the real answer resists clean numbers.

 

73. What was the first message ever sent over the internet (ARPANET)?

People guess “Hello” or “Hello World.” The real answer is funnier and more human than that.

Show Answer
“Lo.” The intended message was “LOGIN,” sent from UCLA to Stanford on October 29, 1969. The system crashed after the first two letters. So the first message ever transmitted over what would become the internet was an accidental fragment , “Lo” , which, as one of the programmers later noted, was oddly poetic. “Lo and behold.”

 

74. What is the only food that, according to scientists, could sustain a human being alone for an extended period without significant nutritional deficiency?

This is debated, and I like that it’s debated, because it means the table argues about it long after the answer is revealed.

Show Answer
Breast milk (for infants) is the most nutritionally complete single food, but for adults, potatoes come closest. They contain almost all essential nutrients except vitamin A and certain fatty acids. In the 19th century, many Irish families survived primarily on potatoes and buttermilk. No single food is truly complete for adults, but potatoes are the best candidate.

 

75. What is the total weight of all ants on Earth compared to the total weight of all humans?

I close with this one because it’s the kind of fact that changes the way you walk outside afterward. People guess ants weigh less. They picture individual ants and forget to multiply. Here’s the thing about trivia facts: the best ones don’t just tell you something you didn’t know. They rearrange something you thought you understood. You walk past ants every day. After this answer, you won’t look at them the same way.

Show Answer
Roughly equal, or by some estimates, ants outweigh humans. There are an estimated 20 quadrillion ants on Earth, with a combined biomass of approximately 80 million tons. Humans weigh in at around 400 million tons collectively, so more recent estimates put humans ahead , but older calculations that used higher ant population estimates had ants winning. Either way, the fact that it’s even a conversation is the point. You are, pound for pound, roughly as present on this planet as the ants beneath your feet.

 

Laura Pedersen
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