In Italy, there are more than 19,000 ice cream parlors, employing over 69,000 people, which are mostly small family businesses. Italy also manufactures ~600 million liters of ice cream, or nearly 20% of Europe’s total production. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Italian gelato is European market leader | RetailDetail
Every fall, Alaska’s Katmai National Park hosts “Fat Bear Week” and crowns the park’s fattest brown bear. Their online community votes based on photos of bears in the spring to photos of the same bears at the end of summer. – WTF Fun Facts
At some of the state fairs and festivals in the US, you can find “banana derbies”, where monkeys ride dogs like jockeys in a race around a track. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: BANANA DERBY – Home
In late August, 1924, Mars entered an opposition closer to Earth than at any time in recent history. In the US, a “National Radio Silence Day” was created for a 36-hour period with all radios quiet for 5 minutes every hour in order to listen for radio signals from space. None were heard. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Search for extraterrestrial intelligence – Wikipedia
There’s a donut shop in Clare, Michigan owned entirely by cops. ‘Cops & Doughnuts’ was a bakery purchased in 2009 by 9 local police officers to in order to save the local bakery that was opened in 1896. One of the cops then retired to operate the bakery. – WTF Fun Facts
Growing almonds in California takes more than half of the commercial honeybee population in the US. Bee hives have to be shipped in by flatbed truck from other states in order to pollinate the almond blossoms. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Growing California almonds takes more than half of US honeybees – ABC News (go.com)
Walt Disney accidentally “kidnapped” Richard Nixon by dispatching his monorail train before the Secret Service could get on. The agents ran after the train and attempted to jump onboard but the doors had already closed. – WTF Fun Facts
The role of U.S. First Lady does not need to go to the President’s wife. Historically, there have been First Ladies who were nieces, sisters, or daughters-in-law of the sitting president. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: List of first ladies of the United States – Wikipedia
The town of Olney in England has hosted an annual pancake race in celebration of “Pancake Day” every year since 1445. The relay race involves running with a pancake in a frying pan and flipping it along the way. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: Pancake race rules and what are the origins of the Shrove Tuesday tradition? | Metro News