Whether you're studying for trivia night, looking for conversation starters, or just plain bored, we have some random facts that will knock your socks off. Thanks to Reddit, BuzzFeed writers, and members of the BuzzFeed Community, we rounded up the most random facts so that you'll never need to google another icebreaker again.
1. Stop signs used to be yellow.
2. The casting team for the Harry Potter movies had a rule that every major role had to use a British actor...which meant that Robin Williams was turned down for Hagrid.
3. Netflix was founded before Google.
4. Boxers and briefs were invented less than 100 years ago.
5. Sunglasses were originally prescribed to people with syphilis.
6. Abraham Lincoln is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
7. More people have walked on the moon than have won the notoriously difficult Japanese competition show Sasuke, aka Ninja Warrior.
8. The blinking light at the top of the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles sends out secret messages in Morse code.
9. Reindeer and caribou are the same animal.
10. It's illegal to be drunk in a bar in Alaska.
11. An orgasm can potentially stop incessant hiccups.
12. "Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, invented an artificial heart."
13. Cows have accents.
14. Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were friends in college.
15. "Penguins have glands under their eyes to extract and secrete excess salt. These are powerful enough that they allow them to drink seawater as their primary water source."
16. "A second is called a second because it is the second division of the hour by 60, the first division being a minute."
17. "From a botanical standpoint, strawberries and raspberries aren't berries, but bananas and avocados are."
18. "The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific Ocean."
19. "You can fit all the planets of the solar system between Earth and the moon."
20. "The Price Is Right and Grand Theft Auto use the same font."
21. "Ketchup was sold as medicine in the 1830s."
22. "Ohio is the only US state that doesn't share a letter with the word 'mackerel.'"
23. "Pirates wore eye patches so one eye would always be acclimated to the darkness, allowing them to see in the darkness below deck in an instant."
24. Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt in 1962 but gave away the patent for free to save lives.
25. "Pope John Paul II is an honorary Harlem Globetrotter."
26. "On Venus, a year is shorter than a day — meaning it takes Venus less time to orbit the Sun (year) than to complete one rotation (day)."
27. The average British postage stamp glue contains 5.9 calories per stamp, while the average US stamp glue contains about one-tenth of a calorie per stamp.
28. Paul Revere didn't finish his midnight ride, but Sybil Ludington, a 16-year-old girl, did. Legend says she rode for 40 miles alerting people of a British attack in 1777.
29. Doves and pigeons are pretty much the exact same animal.
30. The filling in between the wafers in a KitKat is...other KitKats.
31. We see, use, and drink the same water the dinosaurs did.
32. Shakespeare invented a ton of words, like "gossip" and "lonely."
33. Six Flags is named that because six different flags have flown over Texas.
34. We have no idea why the ABCs are in that order, but they've been that way for thousands of years.
35. Platypuses look funny and cute, but they can poison you with a spur on their feet.
36. Most people only breathe through one nostril at a time.
38. You'll never know what your own voice sounds like without a recording of it.
40. The world's largest wild camel population is in Australia, not in the Middle East or the Sahara Desert.
42. You can always see your nose; you just don't always notice it.
43. The national anthem stole its melody from an old British drinking song.
44. Some cephalopods have messed-up-looking brains.
45. In 1518, a “dancing plague” took over a French town.
46. We know next to nothing about our oceans.
48. Millions of years ago, Earth was covered with giant mushrooms instead of tall trees.
49. We never see ourselves with our own eyes, so we'll never get an accurate look at our own faces.
50. Polar bear hair isn't actually white.
51. It's pretty easy to find someone who shares a birthday with you.
52. It's possible to use sign language with an accent.
53. T-shirts were originally marketed to unmarried men who didn't know how to sew buttons back on collared shirts by themselves.
55. There's a sexual phenomenon named after President Calvin Coolidge, of all people.
56. Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton were born in consecutive months of the same year.
57. Prior to the 20th century, squirrels were one of America's most popular pets.
58. One of the first Memorial Day commemorations was organized by enslaved people who had recently been freed.
59. April 18, 1930, was such a slow news day that at 6:30 p.m., the BBC's radio announcer said, “There is no news."
60. Before the 1800s, people had "first" and "second" sleep. They would sleep three to four hours, wake up for two to three hours to do some type of activity, then go back to sleep until morning.
61. Cows have "best friends" and get stressed when separated.
62. The people behind the voices of Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse got married IRL.
63. A can of Mountain Dew can dissolve a mouse 😳.
64. For a short time, the planet Uranus was named...George.
65. Iceland has an elf whisperer who inspects construction sites before anything gets built to make sure no elves are hanging around.
67. Women in several US cities organized Anti-Flirt Clubs in the 1920s to combat catcalling.
68. Toilet seat covers are basically pointless.
69. Most American movie villains have British accents because we associate them with having high intellect and being unfriendly.
71. Mother's Day was quite literally invented to be anti-commercialism.
73. "Honey is the only food that never expires. The same honey that was buried with the pharaohs in Egypt is still edible."
74. The colors of the twist ties on bread aren't random — they tell you what day the loaf was baked on.
75. Pan, a moon of Saturn, is walnut-shaped because it absorbs some of Saturn's rings.
77. Ancient Romans paid a tax on pee.
78. Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup was a 19th-century medicine for crying and teething babies...that had alcohol, cannabis, morphine, and chloroform in it.
80. When a rabbit gets happy and jumps around for joy, it's called a binky.
82. The largest tire manufacturer in the world is...Lego.
83. A "buttload" is a real measurement of weight.
85. Four percent of the sand on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, is made up of shrapnel from D-Day that has broken down.
86. Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham because someone bet him it was impossible to write a children's book with fewer than 50 different words in it.
87. If someone gives opinions on topics they know nothing about, they're an ultracrepidarian.
89. There's a high school in Minnesota that gives service dogs yearbook photos.
90. Wombat poop is cube-shaped.
93. Asphalt is actually a liquid that's 2 million times more viscous than honey.
94. And humans are born to be pretty much fearless.
95. People wore fake moles made of velvet, silk, or mouse skin in the 18th century as a fashion statement.
97. Michael Caine's birth name is "Maurice Micklewhite." He didn't legally change it to "Michael Caine" until he was 83 years old.
99. Richard Nixon once smuggled a suitcase full of weed through the airport for Louis Armstrong.
100. The first person to perform a successful C-section in South Africa was Dr. James Barry...who was actually a woman.
101. The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.
103. For a brief time, Melbourne, Australia, had the best name on the planet: "Batmania."
105. In 1981, a black Lab named Bosco was elected honorary mayor of Sunol, California.
106. The inventor of the bra also helped guide the careers of writers including James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and Henry Miller.
107. There are lowercase numbers in addition to lowercase letters.
109. In the 19th century, experts warned men and women (but especially women) about a disease called "bicycle face," which meant getting stuck with the awkward faces they made while biking.
111. The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, has so many cats on its grounds that it employs a "press secretary to the cats."
113. Ancient Greeks came up with the idea of cyclops after they found a mammoth fossil and had no idea what it was.
115. Until the Great Depression, movie theaters hated popcorn.
117. Dressing rooms have curtains or half doors so that customers are extra aware of people passing by, which puts pressure on them to choose an item.
119. The dot over the lowercase letters 'i' and 'j' is called a tittle.
121. "Antarctica is the largest desert in the world."
123. Novelist Patricia Highsmith kept snails as pets and would bring them to parties in her handbag.
124. Before the invention of color TV, 75% of people said they dreamed in black and white.
125. Restaurants don't use dollar signs on their menus because they don't want to remind you that you're spending money.
126. McDonald's had to discontinue its coffee stirring spoons because people used them to snort cocaine.
128. There's a contest called the "Bad Sex in Fiction Award" that ranks the worst sex scenes written for the year.
129. Despite seeming like a timeless character, the tooth fairy is a recent invention. The first written reference to her appears in 1927.
130. Pumpernickel was originally a German insult that means "farting bastard."
133. Vatican City has its own bank and the only ATM in the world that allows users to perform transactions in Latin.
134. Water bottles have an expiration date because the bottle will leak nontoxic chemicals into the water that makes it taste funny.
135. The logo for Chupa Chups lollipops was designed by none other than Salvador Dalí.
136. There are gold nanoparticles in your hair.
137. Author Shel Silverstein also wrote Johnny Cash songs.
138. People used to believe that eating dead bodies could cure illness.
139. Turns out, paper bags aren't any better for the environment than plastic ones.
140. Scientists studied 200,000 galaxies to determine that the color of the universe is...beige.
142. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created by a department store in 1939.
144. "Horses can't vomit."
145. It's illegal to own just one guinea pig in Switzerland because they get lonely.
147. A female architecture student prevented a Manhattan skyscraper from collapsing in the 1970s when she caught a massive design flaw.
149. Rapper Pusha T wrote the "I'm Lovin' It" jingle for McDonald's...but he doesn't own any publishing rights.
152. The first socks were created to be worn with sandals, making this the original (proper?) way to wear socks...
155. The inventor of the sewing machine came up with the idea for the zipper.
156. Buttons were used as decoration centuries before anyone thought to create holes for them.
158. Jeans were invented by Levi Strauss in 1873.
160. George Washington is protected by law from being outranked by any other military officer, even now. If we ever have a six-star general, Washington would posthumously be promoted to a seven-star general to maintain the top rank.
161. Mike Myers originally recorded his lines in Shrek in a thick Canadian accent. After seeing some footage, he decided that a Scottish accent would be better. The change ended up costing roughly $4 million.
163. The forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve eat in the Bible is never identified as an apple.
164. Human babies are born with roughly 300 bones. Once you become an adult, you're down to 206 bones.
166. Sloths go without pooping for five to seven days on average, and as much as one-third of their body weight is poop by the time they finally "go."
167. The oldest unchanged national flag is the flag of Denmark.
169. The gender-neutral word for "niece" or "nephew" is "nibling."
170. A woman from North Carolina bought a scratch-off lottery ticket to prove to her husband that they were never winners, but the ticket won her $1 million.
171. A single spaghetti noodle is called a spaghetto.
172. German chocolate cake is named after a guy whose last name was "German."
173. Pineapples were once so rare that people used to rent them for decoration at fancy parties.
175. The word "boycott" actually comes from a guy named Charles Boycott, whom everyone hated.
176. The Statue of Liberty was originally a copper color on the outside, but it developed its green patina after being exposed to the elements.
177. Yoda and Miss Piggy are voiced by the same person.
178. NASA was sued for trespassing...on Mars.
179. There are no bridges across the Amazon River. Not even one!
180. Texas is so huge that El Paso is actually closer to San Diego (in California!) than it is to Beaumont.
182. Lucille Ball is basically the sole reason that Star Trek exists.
183. In 1957, a Phillies fan was struck by two foul balls in the same game, breaking both her nose and her knee.
184. New Zealand had an official wizard.
Note: Some entries have been edited for length and/or clarity.
This article contains content from Andy Golder, Terri Pous, Victoria Vouloumanos, Stephen LaConte, Andrew Gauthier, and Alana Mohamed. It was compiled by Kelly Rissman.