7 Random Facts You've Probably Never Heard Before

A buttload is a real unit of measurement!!!

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Conversations are hard. Each week, two-time Jeopardy! winner and awkward silence warrior Terri Pous makes small talk a little easier by giving you random things to blurt out when you don’t know what else to say. Catch up on last week's here.

1. The largest tire manufacturer in the world is...Lego.

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In 2011, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized the toy company as the world's largest maker of tires. In that year, Lego made 381 million tires, while Bridgestone produced more than 190 million, Michelin manufactured 184 million, and Goodyear put out 181 million. It all kinda makes sense when you consider how much easier it is to make a tiny Lego tire, but still!

2. A "buttload" is a real measurement of weight.

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And it's used for measuring wine and whiskey casks, so there's a possibility you and your friends have actually drunk a buttload of alcohol before! Officially, a buttload is 108 Imperial gallons (roughly 1.2 American gallons), so don't take this as permission to do that right now.

3. 4% of the sand on Normandy beach is made up of shrapnel from D-Day that has broken down.

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If you visit Normandy beach in France today, there are many signs of the D-Day invasion in 1944 — plaques, sculptures, and more. But perhaps one of the most intriguing legacies of the historic day is in the sand. A 2011 study found that, amid the usual beachy grains of sand, an unusually large percentage was made of tiny shrapnel remnants and iron and glass beads from other pieces of artillery. It all makes sense, given the explosions and other activity that happened there, but it even surprised the geologists who first discovered it in 1988. "It should have been apparent. It never occurred to us at the time we were there. The debris from the battle had been removed, and it looked like an ordinary tourist beach except the water was too chilly," Earle McBride, a professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, told LiveScience.

4. If someone gives opinions on topics they know nothing about, they're an ultracrepidarian.

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Actually, the word comes from a Latin phrase meaning "beyond the sole." According to legend, the Greek painter Apelles heard a shoemaker criticizing how he'd painted a foot, which really annoyed him. The shoemaker, you see, had literally gone "beyond the sole" in commenting on a painting, something he knew nothing about, and the phrase eventually morphed into a word. So the next time you get mainsplained to or just end up talking to a well-meaning idiot, you'll know exactly what kind of person they are.

5. Canadians say "sorry" so much that a law was passed in 2009 declaring that an apology can't be used as evidence of admission of guilt.

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Those darn Canadians are just too polite, apparently. The Apology Act was literally created because of this — people were saying sorry whether or not they'd done something wrong so frequently that an apology couldn't, say, indicate who was at fault in a car accident. Frustrated lawmakers drew up the act to define an apology and basically clarify that "sorry" is just another benign turn of phrase. Thanks to the Apology Act, Canadians can now proudly and freely stuff their sorries in a sack with no fear of retribution.

6. Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt once ditched a White House dinner party to go on a joyride flight to Baltimore.

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The aviatrix was at the White House for a state dinner on April 20, 1933, when she offered to take the first lady for a ride on a plane at the end of the night. Roosevelt jumped at the chance, and they flew to Baltimore, still in their evening gowns. Even people who hate the phrase "friendship goals" would probably use it to describe these two.

7. There's a high school in Minnesota that gives service dogs yearbook photos.

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Working pooches Dakota and Carmel got the recognition they deserved in Blaine High School's yearbook in 2015. The dogs assist teachers at the school, and it's probably safe to guess that they're the most popular members of the staff.

See you next week! 👋✈️👋