The humming scene in Wolf of Wall street was added because Leonardo DiCaprio saw Matthew Mcanauauahgha's voice warmup routine, and found it so strange that he wanted to add it in
Two country flags feature a dragon: Bhutan's and Wales'. Well actually, Malta's flag also feature a dragon, but it's really small and located inside the cross at the top left corner of the flag.
The 'Nocebo effect' is the opposite of the more famous 'Placebo effect'. It occurs when you get a negative reaction to a something that's supposed to help you, like when a person's negative expectations of treatment lead to negative side effects
Etymology is the study of a word's origin and developement throughout history. The word 'etymology' itself derives from Greek and is a combination of 'étumon', meaning 'true sense' and 'logía', meaning 'the study of'.
In the history of Earth there has existed approximately 100 billion human beings in total, whereas 7-8 billion of them are alive today. This gives Earth a 93% mortality rate.
The upper most vertebra in our necks, the one that holds your head up, is called 'Atlas', named after the Greek titan Atlas who supposedly held the world up on his shoulders.
When the dinosaurs were alive, there were 370 days in a year. The Earth's spin is getting slower because the moon's gravity is acting as a drag, so days are getting longer, by about 1.7 milliseconds per century.
The second highest mountain in the world, K2, is so dangerous to climb that approximately one person dies on the mountain for every four who reach the summit.
The first ever Youtube video was a short clip of co-founder Jawed Karim called "Me at the zoo". The clip features Jawed talking to the camera at San Diego Zoo.
In the famous 'skull scene' from Django Unchained actor Leonardo DiCaprio cut his hand, but remained in character. The blood you see in the scene is his own.
The most remote island in the world is called 'Bouvet' and is situated more than 1,700 kilometers from the nearest islands or mainland, the closest being Queen Maud Land, Antarctica.
You can buy Coca Cola in every country in the world except North Korea and Cuba. You might be able to buy it here and there, but in general they both have a longlasting trade embargo with the U.S.
Only three films have won the 'Big Five': Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Film. These are 'It Happened One Night', 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest' and 'The Silence of the Lambs'.
People wrote so fast with alphabetical typewriter layouts that the hammers on the typewriter would jam. The layout of the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow people down so that wouldn't happen
In 1902 there was an attempt to implement a 13-month calendar, with each month having 28 days, plus a month called 'Sol' between June and July. This adds to 364 days plus 1 extra day: New Year Day. Each month would start on a sunday.
Tom Cruise divorced all three of his ex-wives when they turned 33 (Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes) and each is 11 years younger than the last.
When Forrest Gump speaks at the rally he's saying: 'Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don’t go home at all. That’s a bad thing. That’s all I have to say about that.'
The Canary Islands are named after dogs. In Spanish, the name is 'Islas Canarias', which comes from the latin phrase 'Canariae Insulae' meaning 'Island of dogs'. The canary bird has nothing to do with it!
Daniel Radcliffe once wore the same outfit every day for 6 months when leaving the theater after a performance so that photos the paparazzi took would be worthless, given it looked like the same day in all of them.
The car model Honda Jazz was actually supposed to be called 'Honda Fitta', but because 'Fitta' in Scandinavian languages is slang for vagina, they ended up using 'Jazz' in most markets, and 'Fit' in the Americas.
Recursive acronyms is an acronym that refers to itself, meaning that the acronym is represented in one of the letters. Like VISA (Visa International Service Association) or the programming language PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor).
Everybody talks about the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis), but the same phenomenon exists in the Southern Hemisphere, called 'Southern Lights' (Aurora Australis). It's visible in New Zealand, Australia and Antarctica.
Since there's no air in space sound won't travel, meaning you won't hear anything, giving the phrase 'In space no one can hear you scream' an even more eerie vibe. Also, it makes space explosions in movies total bogus.
The word 'laser' is actually an acronym for 'Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation'. 'Radar' is also an acronym, meaning 'RAdio Detection And Ranging'.
Sometimes, if you've played a video game with repeating patterns for a long time you'll see moving images of that video game when you close your eyes. This is called the 'Tetris effect', named after the famous video game.
Ever driven a car great distances, responding to external events in the expected, safe, and correct manner with no recollection of having consciously done so? It's a mental state called 'highway hypnosis', but it's not dangerous.
8 out of the 9 actors who played members of 'The Fellowship' in 'Lord of the Rings' got a tattoo of the word 'nine' in Elvish after the film's shooting was done. Only John Rhys Davies (Gimli) didn't get one.
Before the release of the movie 'Se7en' Kevin Spacey's name had not been featured in any marketing material (posters, trailers or billing). This was done so that the audience would be even more suprised when the killer was revealed.
In the famous 'box scene' from the film 'Se7en' Tracy's (Gwyneth Paltrow) face is shown for a split second right before Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) shoots John Doe (Kevin Spacey), but you'll have to slow it way down to see it.
The opposite of claustrophobia is 'agoraphobia' - the fear of open spaces. 'Agora' is a Greek word for open spaces where citizens in Ancient Greece used to gather, such as a marketplace.
Fotball club Juventus' kit was originally pink, but it faded easily after continuous washing. In 1903 an English player on their team got hold of some black and white kits from Notts County. They've worn these colors ever since.
If you view this website on a wide screen it's divided into a grid of 3 columns. You'll notice some grey 'ghost-like' blobs in each corner. This is an illusion called the 'Hermann grid illusion'. I hope it doesn't bother you!
The 'Baader-Meinhof phenomenon' occurs when you learn something new and suddenly notice it 'everywhere', e.g. hearing a song for the first time and afterwards feel like it's always on the radio.
Seth MacFarlane (creator of 'Family Guy') were supposed to be on the plane that hit the North Tower on 9/11, but he missed the flight due to the fact that he'd been out the night before and overslept.
Ewan McGregor (famous for playing Obi-Wan in Star Wars) has a brother named Colin McGregor who is a pilot in the Royal Air Force. His aviator nickname is Obi-Two.
Honey is the only food that doesn't go bad. It does crystalize, but you could just warm it over low heat and it will return to its original consistency. You could eat a 1000 year old jar of honey without any issues.
Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. She was born 2000 years before the Moon landing (69 BC), but 2491 years after the pyramid's construction ended (2560 BC).
In 2000 Google added their image search due to the fact that a lot of people used the search engine looking for a picture of Jennifer Lopez in a rather revealing dress she wore to the Grammys that year.
The name 'Noel' means 'Christmas'. It derives from the old French 'Noël' (Christmas), which itself derives from the Latin word 'natalis' (birth). Churches used 'natalis dies' (birth day) when they talked about the birth of Christ.
The first man to fly an airplane and the first man on the moon were at some point in history alive at the same time. Orville Wright (airplane) died in 1948, while Neil Armstrong (moon landing) was born in 1930.
The TV show 'Friends' were originally called 'Insomnia Café', 'Across the hall' 'Friends Like Us' and 'Six of One' before they landed on the now well known name.
If you were to fold a paper 42 times it's height would make it reach to the moon. This is purely mathematical as you won't be able to fold it more than eight times, no matter how strong you think you are.
'The Jungle Book' takes place in India. Disney's film adaptation features an orangutan named King Louie even though orangutans only exists in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Venus takes approx. 243 Earth days to complete its own rotation (day). For Venus to orbit around the sun (year) it takes 225 Earth days, meaning a year on Venus is less than a day on Venus.
The word 'soccer' stems from 'Association football'. It got it's shortened name in the 19th century due to a fad at Oxford and Cambridge where students added 'er' at the end of many words.
If a grizzly bear and a polar bear breeds their offspring is called a 'pizzly bear'. It's also named 'grolar bear', 'polar grizz', 'polizzle' and 'grizzlar'.
Michael Keaton's real name is 'Michael Douglas', but he was encouraged to use a different stage name due to the fact that there already were people by that name in the business — famous actor Michael Douglas and TV host Mike Douglas.
15 people have won what's called an 'EGOT', meaning they've recieved an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award. This includes names like Audrey Hepburn, John Legend and Whoopi Goldberg.
When Pixar made 'Toy Story 2' they accidentally deleted 90 percent of the work they had done. They had a backup system, but this had failed. Luckily an employee had a backup at her house and they managed to restore it.
From the time of Pluto's discovery in 1930 and until it was declassified as a planet in 2006 it failed to orbit the sun once. It takes Pluto roughly 248 years to make a full orbit.
The band ZZ Top is a trio famous for their looks. Two of the band members have long beards, but the third one don't. His name is ironically Frank Beard.
Many thinks that 'mammals' defines animals who give birth to live babies, but 'mammal' derives from the latin word 'mammalis' which means 'of the breast'. The platypus for instance lay eggs, but is still a mammal.
Today we extend our hand when greeting a stranger. This custom originates from Ancient Rome as it was a way to show that you didn't have a dagger up your sleeve.
Sean Connery was offered to play the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and a 15 percent stake in the trilogy's earnings. That would accumulate to about 450 million dollars today.
Actress Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation, The Office) is the daughter of the famous music producer Quincy Jones, known for producing Michael Jackson 'Thriller' album.
In Prison Break's 13th episode they were supposed to escape the prison, but the show was so popular they got picked up to do more episodes. In this episode they try to escape, but their plan fail at the last minute.
Ben Affleck (Daredevil, Batman), Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool, Green Lantern) and Halle Berry (Storm, Catwoman) are the only ones who have played superheroes from both the Marvel and the DC universe.
In the movie 'Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' actor Viggo Mortensen kicks a helmet and during one of the takes he accidentally broke two of his toes. He stayed in character and managed to turn his pain into a great performance.
Actor Zach Braff worked as a waiter before joining the show 'Scrubs'. In the movie 'Garden State' (which he also wrote and directed) he plays an aspiring actor working as a waiter.
This site is just a silly side project made by me, Håvard Brynjulfsen. It's a collection of my favorite fun facts. You see, I have a tendency to blurt out random fun facts at parties or when hanging out with friends. Despite the high quality of the facts some of my best former friends claim that they aren't exactly fun. I beg to differ.
Why the name "noel.fun"?
A stand-up comedian once had a bit about the struggle of choosing baby names and pleaded that his wife wouldn't name their son "Noel" because it sounded like the name of a person who would spew out fun facts at a party. Alas, my nickname is now "Noel".
What's a "classic go-to"?
Some facts are more fun than others. The classic go-tos are my personal favorites. Awkward silence? Hit them with a classic!
Do you have any sources to back these facts?
This is just a personal blog of mine. I've obviously read or heard them somewhere, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
