Previous Facts
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2026-10-21
— Fredric Baur, who designed the Pringles can, had some of his ashes buried in a Pringles can.
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His children stopped at a pharmacy on the way to the funeral home to pick one up. They went with Original.
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2026-10-20
— Mozart wrote a six-voice canon called 'Leck mich im Arsch', which translates as 'Lick me in the arse'.
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It was a party piece for friends, written in Vienna in 1782. His publisher later cleaned it up as 'Laßt froh uns sein' ('Let us be glad').
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2026-10-19
— In Baarle-Hertog the Belgian–Dutch border runs straight through houses, and your front door decides which country you live in.
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Owners have been known to move their front door when the other country's taxes looked better. One house has its door right on the border, and two house numbers.
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2026-10-16
— Rats laugh when you tickle them, but the giggles are too high-pitched for humans to hear.
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They make 50 kHz 'chirps', are most ticklish on the belly, and will chase a tickling hand for more.
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2026-10-15
— Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
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The Great Pyramid was finished around 2560 BC. Cleopatra died in 30 BC, about 2,500 years later and roughly 2,000 years before Apollo 11.
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2026-10-14
— In 2011, with Belgium stuck without a government, senator Marleen Temmerman urged politicians' partners to go on a sex strike until a deal was done.
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The crisis lasted 541 days, a world record at the time. Belgium later broke its own record in 2019–2020.
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2026-10-13
— In 2007 about 170 Swiss soldiers got lost on a night exercise and accidentally invaded Liechtenstein. Nobody there noticed.
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They marched about 2 km over the unmarked border before turning back. Liechtenstein, which has no army, shrugged it off.
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2026-10-12
— Wombats produce cube-shaped poo.
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Stiff and stretchy sections of the intestine wall mould the corners. Wombats stack the cubes on rocks and logs to mark their territory.
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2026-10-09
— The Smurfs owe their name to a dinner at the Belgian coast where Peyo forgot the word for salt and asked Franquin to pass the 'schtroumpf'.
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The two cartoonists kept using the made-up word as a running joke. 'Smurf' is the Dutch translation, and English borrowed it from the Dutch.
- 2026-09-02 — In 2017, police responding to a "Tequila Tuesday" fraternity party near Bethesda found so much alcohol vapour in the house that the ambient air itself registered on a police breathalyser. The room quite literally failed a breath test.