The drug Viagra (or sildenafil) was originally intended to be a heart medication designed to treat angina by increasing blood flow to the heart, but it failed at that. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,139084,00.html
There was an actual tree in La Jolla which inspired Dr. Seuss’s Trufulla trees in his book The Lorax. The ~100 year old Monterey Cypress unexpectedly fell over in June 2019. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.lajolla.com/article/dr-seuss-la-jolla/
Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs annually, which is about 70 hot dogs per person. They are served in 95% of American homes. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: http://hot-dog.org/
The famous Star Trek phrase “Beam me up, Scotty!” was never actually said in any of the Star Trek films or television shows. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/103742/has-the-phrase-beam-me-up-scotty-been-used-in-tas-or-any-movies
In 1941, Harvard University undergrad had an acceptance rate of 92%, compared to the 4.5% for the class of 2023. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1956/1/6/admissions-what-kind-of-wheat-to/?page=1
https://www.toptieradmissions.com/resources/college-admissions-statistics/harvard-university-acceptance-rates/
Australia’s first police force (the Night Watch) was made up of 12 of the best behaved criminals. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/australias-first-cops-were-all-criminals.aspx
The 18th century word leint means to “urinate in an alcoholic beverage to increase its strength”. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/leint
Americans spend an average of 37 minutes a day doing meal preparation and cleanup. This is roughly half the amount of time that was spent in the 1960’s. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(14)00400-0/fulltext
The ancient Egyptians, while under the rule of Ptolemy II, would confiscate any books that arrived on ships and make a copy. They would then keep the original in the library of Alexandria and return the copied version to the owner. – WTF Fun Facts
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria