I love useless facts. I don't have muscle, nor great conversation skills, but I can whip out random knowledge about something from art, sports, or history. Some people are like "oh that's cool", others are like "Wow how do you know this? You Know everything!" With that said, I still have an untapped filter of interesting but useless knowledge, so I figure what better to express that knowledge by using Odyssey!

Without further ado, here are 50 useless but interesting facts I know from the top of my head! (Ok to admit there are a few things I checked online just to get all the details right, but otherwise this is all stuck in my brain.)

The facts will be divided into groups based off my favorite topics. I hope you walk away from this list at least finding out something amusing to discuss with others.

Civil War

1. Before becoming commander of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee was apart of The Union near the start of the Civil War and was offered the job of commanding the Federal Forces by Abraham Lincoln himself.

Lee’s loyalty lied with his home state of Virginia and left The Union army when Virginia seceded.

2. As the Confederate Army made the infamous Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg an unnamed Union soldier said it was “the most beautiful thing I ever saw.”

3. Abraham Lincoln’s iconic Gettysburg Address was just a total of 272 words and was considered an afterthought when he delivered it.

The occasion was to honor the opening of the cemetery just four months after the battle and the headline speaker was former Massachusetts Senator Edward Everett who gave a two-hour oration.

4. The only known photograph of the Gettysburg Address was taken after the speech as Lincoln was sitting down as the photographer assumed his speech would last as long as Everett’s.

5. President Lincoln reportedly did not think he made a good speech at Gettysburg because he thought it was too brief. He was quoted as saying “that speech won’t scour.”

The speech is engraved word-for-word on the wall of The Lincoln Memorial.

Lincoln Assassination

6. John Wilkes Booth was the leader of an assassination coup that was supposed to kill the President, Vice President and Secretary of State.

But alas, this was the only successful assassination attempt.

7. The show Booth killed Lincoln in at Ford’s Theater was a comedy called “Our American Cousin”

8. Booth waited until the funniest joke where the whole crowd would break out laughing to fire the fatal the shot in the back of Lincoln’s head.

9. After being shot in the back of the head, Lincoln did not die instantly.

Lincoln never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead the next morning.

10. After shooting the President, Booth stabbed Major Henry Rathbone, who sat next to Lincoln, in the left forearm and proceeded to jump off the balcony and onto the stage reportedly yelled “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”

11. As he landed on the stage Booth injured his leg but managed to escape the theater since the crowd was shocked and confused.

He was on the run for twelve days before being caught and killed by authorities.

12. While most Americans know of the Lincoln and Kennedy assassination, the other two assassinations of a President we’re James Garfield in 1881, and William McKinley in 1901.

The NFL:13. Regardless of winning or losing, the Buffalo Bills are the only team to appear in four consecutive Super Bowls.

Unfortunately, they lost ALL of them.

14. The New York Giants are the only team to win a Super Bowl in four different decades.

(1986, 1990, 2007, 2011)

15. The Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns are the only franchises to remain in existence today.

When the first Super Bowl occurred to have never appeared in one.

16. The only NFL head coach to win a Championship for two different teams is Weeb Ewbank, who won the 1958 and 1959 NFL title for the Baltimore Colts. He then won the 1968 AFL title and Super Bowl III for the New York Jets with a monumental upset of his former team the Colts.

17. Despite being a pass-happy league, the single-game record for passing yards is 554 by Los Angeles Rams quarterback Norm Van Brocklin in 1951.

18. O.J. Simpson, Eric Dickerson, Barry Sanders, Terrell Davis, Jamal Lewis, Chris Johnson, and Adrian Peterson are the only NFL players to rush for 2,000 yards or more in a single-season.

19. Doug Williams of the Redskins (1987) and Russell Wilson of the Seahawks (2013) are the only black quarterbacks to start and win the Super Bowl.

20. Tony Dungy of the Colts (2006) and Mike Tomlin of the Steelers (2008) are the only black head coaches to win the Super Bowl.

21. While the Steelers have won the most Super Bowls with 6 since it’s inception in 1966, the Green Bay Packers have 13 NFL titles combining 4 Super Bowl wins and 9 NFL championships dating back to 1920.

22. The first NFL Champions we’re the 1920 Akron Pros.

They won the title based on regular season record alone.

Baseball

23. On the last day of the 1941 baseball season, Ted Williams had the option of sitting out a doubleheader to finish the season with a batting average that just rounded up to .400.Williams chose to play both games and went 6-for-8, finishing with a .406 average.

No one has batted .400 since.

Disney:

24. The Prince in "Snow White and The Seven Dwarves" only has two scenes but was supposed to be more involved in the story.

The Queen was supposed to capture and imprison The Prince to keep him from saving Snow White where he’d escape Errol Flynn style and ultimately, bring back Snow White with this famous kiss.

25. The Prince was cut significantly from the movie because the Disney artists at the time had difficulty drawing male humans and The Prince shimmied in his scenes.

26. The Lion King song “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” was originally going to be sung entirely by Timon and Pumbaa.

Elton John was horrified seeing his romantic tune become slapstick, therefore Pumbaa and Timon only sang the beginning.

27. Disneyland may be the most famous theme park in the world but its opening day on July 17th, 1955 was an epic disaster.

The pipes didn’t work, the cement wasn’t fully solid and women had their high heels sunk in them, Hundreds of kids showed up with counterfeit tickets, most of the rides didn't work, it was brutally hot, and as usual, traffic was brutal.

Entertainment:

28. Spongebob’s original name was SpongeBoy, but it had already been taken.

29. J.K. Rowling had the idea of Harry Potter simply “fall into her head” while on a train but she did not have her pen and notebook to write down the idea.

She used the long wait time to think more descriptively of the fantasy world she wanted to create and claims that Harry Potter might have been significantly different if she had her pen and paper with her at the moment.

30. J.K. Rowling became the first billionaire to make her money solely from writing books.

Then she lost her billionaire status through donations.

31. James Cameron’s Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all-time followed by Cameron’s Titanic.

Adjusted for inflation, however, the highest grossing film of all-time is Gone For The Wind, which came out in 1939.

32. In 1939 because of segregation laws, "Gone With The Wind" premiered but African-Americans were unable to attend.

"Gone With The Wind" star Clark Gable was so furious that fellow co-star Hattie McDaniel couldn't attend the premiere that it took convincing from McDaniel herself to go.

33. Despite not being allowed to attend the premiere Hattie McDaniel did become the first African-American to win an Academy Award for her performance in Gone With The Wind in the Best Supporting Actress category.

34. The last scene filmed of Gone With The Wind was the very first scene between Scarlett O’Hara and two male suitors.

35. One of the invitees to the cotillion ball held in Atlanta for the premiere of Gone With The Wind was a Preacher by the name of Martin Luther King Sr.

Though considering boycotting the festivities due to segregation laws, King did attend the ball because he was invited and brought his ten-year-old son with him.

36. Daniel Day-Lewis is the only actor win the "Best Actor Oscar" award three times.

He did so for "My Left Foot", "There Will Be Blood" and "Lincoln".

37. The films that have won the most Oscars are Ben Hur (1959), Titanic (1997) and The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King (2003).

Each won 11.

38. The Grammy’s original intent of existence was an Awards Show that countered the counter-culture rock-and-roll music of the 1950s and 1960s.

Baseball Part II

39. After Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, 11 of the next 16 National League MVPs were awards to an African-American player, including Robinson himself in 1949.

40. Since 1903, the World Series has been canceled only twice: In 1904 due to John McGraw, the manager of the National League Champion New York Giants, refused to play his team against the American League since he held a personal grudge against that league having managed there before. The other was in 1994 due to a player’s strike.

41. In the 1936 Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee that voting for the best players of the 19th Century shortstop Herman Long finished in 8th.

He never got elected to the Hall of Fame.

42. Washington D.C.’s only baseball championship was won by the Washington Senators in the 1924 World Series over the New York Giants.

A D.C. baseball team has not won a playoff series since.

43. The only World Series to end on a walk-off home run was by Bill Mazeroski of the Pirates in 1960 and Joe Carter of the Blue Jays in 1993.

44. The most famous home run in baseball history is considered to be Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round The World” dinger off of Ralph Branca in the 1951 National League playoffs between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. During the Giant’s run to catch the Dodgers and force a playoff, they stole the pitch signals of their opponents during games using a telescope and buzzer system.

45. According to the book The Echoing Green, Bobby Thompson denies that he used the stolen pitch signal to hit the famous home run, but has confirmed that the signal was available to him.

46. While Game 3 of the 1951 National League Playoff Series between the Giants and Dodgers went down as one of the most epic events in sports history, half of the stadium was empty because most fans were told via the newspaper that the game was already sold out.

Politics

47. John F. Kennedy is the only Roman-Catholic President in American history.

48. At the age of 43, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is the youngest person ever to be elected President.

49. While Kennedy was the youngest elected President, Theodore Roosevelt is the youngest person ever to be President. He inherited the oval office following the assassination of then-President William McKinley while Roosevelt was Vice President. Teddy was 42.

50. The only President in American history to have not been a General nor have a prior job in politics is….you guessed it….Donald Trump.