Things You Definitely Learned Once
This gas makes up about 78% of Earth’s atmosphere, despite most people guessing oxygen.
Nitrogen
This tiny creature can survive the vacuum of space, extreme heat, and radiation.
Tardigrade
This U.S. state is actually the closest point to Africa.
Maine
In 1932, Australia fought a war against this large bird and lost.
This inventor created a peace prize after reading his own obituary calling him “the merchant of death.”
Alfred Nobel
This organelle is known as the “powerhouse of the cell,” a phrase burned into everyone’s brain since middle school.
Mitochondria
This common fruit is naturally radioactive due to its potassium content.
Banana
This country has more lakes than every other country in the world combined.
Canada
In 897 CE, the Pope put his predecessor on trial by literally digging up his corpse.
This samurai survived over 60 duels, including one fought with a wooden oar.
Miyamoto Musashi
This part of the brain controls balance and coordination, even though most people forget it exists until trivia night.
Cerebellum
This phenomenon can make rivers flow backward during strong storms or earthquakes.
Seiche
This city is farther north than Toronto, despite being known for its rain, not its latitude.
Seattle
In 1518, this European city experienced a “dancing plague” where people danced uncontrollably for days.
Strasbourg
This 19th‑century nurse reduced mortality in military hospitals from 40% to 2% by redesigning sanitation systems, then basically invented modern statistical graphics to prove it.
Florence Nightingale
This layer of Earth is made of semi‑molten rock and is responsible for plate tectonics.
Mantle.
This marine animal has three hearts and blue blood.
Octopus
This country is wider than the Moon, stretching over 4,600 miles east to west.
Russia
This U.S. president reportedly got stuck in a White House bathtub and required multiple aides to help him out.
At just 17, this French teenager convinced a crown prince to give her an army, lifted the Siege of Orléans, and turned the tide of the Hundred Years’ War before being captured and executed a year later.
Joan of Arc
This force keeps planets in orbit and objects falling, but it’s also the weakest of the four fundamental forces.
This element, used in pencils, is actually a form of carbon, not lead.
This continent has no native reptiles or snakes.
Antarctica
This medieval kingdom once crowned a horse as a senator, thanks to its eccentric emperor.
Caligula (and the horse Incitatus)
This mathematician cracked the Enigma code during World War II, shortening the war by years and saving millions of lives, all while inventing the foundations of modern computing.