{"id":13,"date":"2010-02-07T22:25:23","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T22:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/?p=13"},"modified":"2017-04-24T16:51:37","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T16:51:37","slug":"people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/people\/","title":{"rendered":"Fast facts about famous people"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trivia facts and fun factoids about famous people and not-so-famous people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jean Harlow was the first actress to appear on the cover of Life magazine, May 1937.<\/p>\n

Mary Katherine Campbell was the only woman to win the Miss America title twice, 1922 and 1923.<\/p>\n

Queen Isabella of Castile, who dispatched Christopher Columbus to find the Americas, boasted that she had only two\u00a0baths in her life – at her birth and before she got married.<\/p>\n

Cleopatra’s last name was Ptolemy, and she was Greek rather than Egyptian. <\/p>\n

The people killed most often during bank robberies are the robbers.<\/p>\n

The oldest person on record is Methuselah (969 years old).<\/p>\n

\"Walt

Walt Disney<\/p><\/div>\n

Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse, was afraid of mice.<\/p>\n

Adriaan van der Donck was the first and only lawyer in New York City in 1653.<\/p>\n

Burt Reynold’s father was the chief of police in West Palm Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n

Before writing 007<\/a> novels, Ian Fleming studied languages at Munich and Geneva universities, worked with Reuters in Moscow, and then became a banker and stockbroker.<\/p>\n

Until he was 18, Woody Allen read virtually nothing but comic books but did show his writing skills. He sold one-liners\u00a0for ten cents each to gossip columnists.<\/p>\n

Orville Wright numbered the eggs<\/a> that his chickens produced so he could eat them in the order they were laid.<\/p>\n

Julius Caesar was known as a great swimmer.<\/p>\n

Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth… and whose shame created the expression for ignominy, “His name is Mudd.”<\/p>\n

Charles de Gaulle’s final words were, “It hurts.”<\/p>\n

Sir Isaac Newton was an ordained priest in the Church of England.<\/p>\n

Hugh “Ward Cleaver” Beaumont was an ordained minister.<\/p>\n

Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle.<\/p>\n

Joseph Stalin’s left foot had webbed toes and his left arm was noticably shorter than his right.<\/p>\n

Joseph Stalin was 5’5″ (1.65 m) tall.<\/p>\n

Winston Churchill was 5’6″ (1.68 m) tall.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin is 5’7″ (1.7 m) tall.<\/p>\n

Although he is often referred to as the “little corporal” Napoleon<\/a> was of average height.<\/p>\n

Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.<\/p>\n

\"Al<\/a>

Al Capone<\/p><\/div>\n

Al Capone’s business card stated that he was a used furniture dealer.<\/p>\n

Al Capone died in prison from syphillis – despite being the first sufferer to be treated with antibiotics.<\/p>\n

Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain smoked forty cigars a day for the last years of his life.<\/p>\n

Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 when Haley’s Comet came into view, and passed away on April 10, 1910, a day after Haley’s Comet came into view again.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of “The Boy General” is one of the few women buried at the US Military academy at West Point, New York.<\/p>\n

Betsy Ross, who sew the first American flag, ran a munitions factory in her basement. Apparently she was born with a fully formed set of teeth.<\/p>\n

American composer Charles Ives spent much of his time and money advocating an amendment to the US Constitution that would prevent any US citizen from earning more than $20,000 per year. Pulitzer Prize winning Ives earned much more than that.<\/p>\n

\"Alexander<\/a>

Alexander Graham Bell<\/p><\/div>\n

When Alexander Graham Bell passed away in 1922, every telephone served by the Bell system in the USA and Canada was silent for one minute.<\/p>\n

Alexander Graham Bell<\/a> never phoned his wife or mother because they were deaf.<\/p>\n

King George I of England did not speak English<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anne Boleyn had six fingernails on one hand.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth I of England suffered from anthophobia, a fear of roses.<\/p>\n

The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a sword or by holding gloves.<\/p>\n

The British royal family changed their surname<\/a> (last name) from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, the name of their castle, in 1917.<\/p>\n

A Duke is the highest rank you can achieve without being a king or a prince.<\/p>\n

There are about 5,000 prince and princesses in each Saudi Arabian royal.<\/p>\n

John Rolfe married Pocahontas the Red Indian Princess in 1613.<\/p>\n

Pocahontas appeared on the back of the $20 bill in 1875.<\/p>\n

George Washington grew marijuana in his garden.<\/p>\n

Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph without mentioning that he was US President.<\/p>\n

It is said that on New Year’s Day, 1907, Theodore Roosevelt shook hands with 8,513 people.<\/p>\n

Ronald Regan sent out the army photographer who first discovered Marilyn Monroe.<\/p>\n

Robert Kennedy was killed in the Ambassador Hotel, the same hotel that housed Marilyn Monroe’s first modelling agency.<\/p>\n

Charlie Brown’s father was a barber.<\/p>\n

Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt were all cousins through one connection or another. (FDR and Eleanor were about five times removed.)<\/p>\n

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.<\/p>\n

Leonardo da Vinci<\/a> could write with the one hand and draw with the other simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Residents of the island of Lesbos, Greece are Lesbosians, rather than Lesbians.<\/p>\n

If you come from Manchester, you are a Mancunian. If you come from Birmingham, you are a Brummie.<\/p>\n

A person from Glasgow, is called a Glaswegian.<\/p>\n

A person from the country of Nauru is called a Nauruan; this is the only palindromic nationality.<\/p>\n

49.76% of the world population are female. In Quatar and UAE, less than 30% of the population are female. In the United States, 50.8% of the population are female. In Russia, 53.8% of the population are females.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re over 100 years old, there\u2019s an 80% chance you\u2019re a woman.<\/p>\n

The native tribe of Tierra del Fuego has a language so guttural it cannot have an alphabet.<\/p>\n

According to Istat and Eurofound data, of people aged 18 to 34, 65% of Italians, 49% of Spanish, 46% of Greek, 42% of Germans, 34% of French and 25% of Britons still live with their parents.<\/p>\n

The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.<\/p>\n

There are almost twice as many people in Rhode Island than there are in Alaska.<\/p>\n

If you were born in Los Alamos, New Mexico during the Manhattan project (when the first atomic bomb was made), your birthplace would have been listed as a post office box in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

A law in Iceland dating to 1615 requires citizens to shoot a Basque<\/a> on sight. The law was repealed only in 2014.<\/p>\n

Next to Warsaw, Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world.<\/p>\n

\"Peter<\/a>

Peter the Great<\/p><\/div>\n

A Russian man who wore a beard during the time of Peter the Great<\/a> had to pay a special tax.<\/p>\n

About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 37.<\/p>\n

Genghis Khan started out life as a goatherder.<\/p>\n

French mime artist Marcel Marceau was Jewish, died on Yom Kippur several years ago and taught Michael Jackson how to mime in the early 1980’s.<\/p>\n

Britney Spears used to book into hotels as “Allota Warmheart.”<\/p>\n

Before becoming a successful actor, James Spader undertook jobs such as bartending, teaching yoga, driving a meat truck, loading railroad cars, and being a stable boy. See more Suprising first careers of famous people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.<\/p>\n

Actor Val Kilmer grew up on Roy Rogers’ ranch.<\/p>\n

Actor Mark Wahlberg has a third nipple.<\/p>\n

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button. It was eliminated when he was sewn up after surgery.<\/p>\n

Albert Einstien never wore any socks.<\/p>\n

Atilla the hun was a dwarf.<\/p>\n

Bob Hope and Billy Joel were both once boxers.<\/p>\n

Warren Beatty once worked as a rat-catcher.<\/p>\n

Drew Carey once worked at a Denny’s.<\/p>\n

In high school, Robin Williams was voted “Least likely to succeed.”<\/p>\n

Harrison Ford has a species of spider named after him.<\/p>\n

Elvis Presley got a C in his eighth grade music class.<\/p>\n

Billionaire Howard Hughes stored his own urine in large bottles.<\/p>\n

Jackie Kennedy Onassis was secretly a chain smoker.<\/p>\n

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 but he declined.<\/p>\n

J. Edgar Hoover liked to fire FBI agents whose palms were sweaty when shaking hands.<\/p>\n

In 1980, the city of Detroit presented Saddam Hussein with a key to the city.<\/p>\n

In the UK by 2016, almost 10 million workers<\/a> were aged 50+, up from 21% in 1992 and representing 31% of the UK\u2019s employment workforce.<\/p>\n

According to studies, men change their minds two to three times more often than women.<\/p>\n

Che Guevara suffered from asthma.<\/p>\n

Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were both epileptic.<\/p>\n

Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.<\/p>\n

Marie Curie, the Nobel prize winning scientist who discovered radium, died of radiation poisoning.<\/p>\n

Approximately 70,000 people in the US are both blind and deaf.<\/p>\n

Merit-Ptah<\/a> (2700 BC) of Ancient Egypt is the world’s first known female physician.<\/p>\n

Florence Nightingale was a statistical genius and is credited with inventing the pie chart.<\/p>\n

In 1973, Swedish confectionery salesman Roland Ohisson was buried in a coffin made entirely of chocolate.<\/p>\n

\"Dave<\/a>

Dave Kunst<\/p><\/div>\n

On 5th October 1974, four years, three months and sixteen days after Dave Kunste set out from Minnesota, he became the first man to walk around the world<\/a>, having taken more than 20 million steps.<\/p>\n

Winston Churchill was a stutterer. As a child, one of his teachers warned, “Because of his stuttering he should be discouraged from following in his father’s political footsteps.”<\/p>\n

Amnesty International never took on Nelson Mandela’s case because they did not think him a political prisoner. He pleaded guilty to 156 acts of public violence and terrorism. At the time of his arrest in 1962, according to the Spectator<\/a>, Mandela was a member of the South African Communist Party’s innermost central committee. As stern supporter of the Palistinian cause, he never acknowledged Israel.<\/p>\n

The US has the highest documented per capita rate of imprisonment<\/a> of any country in the world. About 2% of white males, 4% of Hispanic males and 10% of black males are incarcerated. There are more black males in prison than in colleges in the US.<\/p>\n

About 1 in 30 people in the US are in jail, on probation, or on parole.<\/p>\n

Half of all identity thieves are either relatives, friends, or neighbors of their victims.<\/p>\n

Annually, approximately 250,000 American husbands are physically attacked and beaten by their wives.<\/p>\n

In 1990, 2.9% of the world\u2019s population lived in a country they were not born in<\/a>; by 2015 that figure had grown to 3.3%.<\/p>\n

In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an “Honorary Harlem Globetrotter.”<\/p>\n

Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.<\/p>\n

An exocannibal eats only enemies. An indocannibal eats only friends.<\/p>\n

Every day 200 million couples<\/a> make love, 400,000 babies are born, and 140,000 people die.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trivia facts and fun factoids about famous people and not-so-famous people. Jean Harlow was the first actress to appear on the cover […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,56],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fastfacts","tag-celebrity","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/didyouknow.org\/fastfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}