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32 Bits of Trivia About Hidden Truths and Closely Guarded Secrets

Today we’re playing a little game of ‘Finders Sharers’

32 Bits of Trivia About Hidden Truths and Closely Guarded Secrets

June 25, 2024

Have you ever found some hidden treasure and immediately shared it with everyone in town?

We have — in the form of this list. We don’t want to get too full of ourselves, but in our never-ending quest for facts, we unearthed some secrets and we’re definitely the sharing type! It’s what we do. We share facts! And these secrets are just facts that someone out there doesn’t want us to know.

Click right here to get the best of Cracked sent to your inbox.

32

Grandpa Munster

Grandpa Munster was more than a decade younger. THE MUNSTERS CRACKED.COM Al Lewis lied about his age to get the part, and kept up the old man ruse for the rest of his life. — Source

31

Celebrity Lies

Bill O'Reilly witnessed all sorts of combat. In the Falklands, Northern Ireland, El Salvador ... News sites found he was lying. For example, he said he saw nuns get shot in the back of the head in El Salvador, but he didn't step foot in the country till months after the conflict. CRACKED.COM — Source

30

Manti Te'o said his girlfriend died of cancer. The story pushed him to a a Heisman Trophy. Girlfriend Kekua wasn't real. Te'o claims he only learned he'd been catfished right before the winner was announced. But he also claimed to have met Kekua in person ... years before the catfisher made contact. CRACKED.COM — Source

29

Musician Billy Tipton was born Dorothy Tipton. Not even the women who lived with him knew it. Tipton had five long-term relationships in his life, each time by claiming a car accident mutilated both his groin and his chest, explaining his bandages and why they always had to try unconventional sex methods. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

Rick Ross raps about non-stop hustling. Не even took his name from a drug kingpin. Не was actually a prison guard before rapping. After the story broke, Ross originally denied it, but the media managed to get ahold of pay stubs that proved it was true. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

Bread

CRACKED Wheat bread is sometimes just white bread that's colored. It's usually better to go for wheat bread rather than white bread, but watch out-some loaves that seem like they're wheat are actually just white bread with added color. — Source

26

Not all organic foods are, well, organic. In 2010, a UK businessman got locked up for three years after he admitted to fraudulently selling battery farm eggs as free range or organic. CRACKED — Source

25

Right, so organic hot dogs aren't always better

Organic food isn t always more environmentally friendly. Organic farming can have a bigger impact on the environment than regular farming. For example, organic peas grown in Sweden produce 50% more emissions than regular peas. CRACKED — Source

24

CRACKED WHOLE FOODS MARKET Whole Foods relies on prison labor. Whole Foods has gotten some things, like goat cheese and tilapia, from farms that rely on the labor of incarcerated people. ROOM OPEN ONLY — Source

23

Organic food isn t always the healthier option. Eating organic food isn't necessarily better for you than regular food when it comes to nutrients. Studies have shown that there's no significant difference between organic and non-organic milk. CRACKED — Source

22

Museums

There is a museum just for failed inventions. CRACKED.COM The touring Museum of Failure features an interna- tional collection of more than 100 innovation fail- ures, such as Harley-David- son perfume, Colgate beef lasagna, and Google Glass. — Source

21

Viking men wore makeup. CRACKED.COM A Spanish Arab who vis- ited Hedeby around the year 1000 described how both men and women in the town wore make-up to look young- er and more attractive. — Source

20

New York was briefly named New Orange. WINNER BEST adidas - - M Helped inju MUSICAL opponent W KITOM RS BILLY! SPORTSMANSH Don BC WHERE adidas FI - MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE LIVES of adidas odait maxell MANNI MILK AMM a - CRACKED.COM M When the Dutch cap- tured New York from the English in 1673, they renamed it New Orange in honor of William III of Orange. — Source

19

Moonshiners used cow shoes during prohibition. CRACKED COM The distillers wore shoes with wooden blocks at- tached to the bottom that made their footprints re- semble a cow's, so that no one would think to follow the trail to their illegal ор- eration. — Source

18

Walt Disney himself helped to design a Mickey Mouse gas mask Though few remain, you can find several on display in various museums in the United States. GRACKED.COM — Source

17

CRACKED.COM In 1974, 18 year-old Debbie Stone became the first Disney Employee to die on the job. Following a performance of America Sings, a ride with a rotating stage, Debbie became trapped by a moving wall and was crushed to death. — Source

16

CRACKED.COM James Smithson is entombed in the Smithsonian. decre's la the Samply Sellow Famil of who Die'd of Sense Society the رض اليوم الا year In a crypt just inside the north entrance of the Smithsonian Castle lies the relocated remains of the institute's founding father, James Smithson. Не was a chemist who enjoyed studying things like human tears and snake venom. — Source

15

Mt. Rushmore was designed by a white supremacist. Gutzon Borglum, the man that sculpted Mount Rushmore, was a racist who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan and was deeply involved in their politics. Не said things like, I would not trust an Indian, and referred to African Americans as a mongrel horde. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

CRACKED.COM Part of the University of Cambridge was built over a massive graveyard. Beneath the Old Divinity School at St. John's College lies one of the largest found burial grounds in all of Great Britain, with a staggering count of over 1,300 burials dating back to medieval times. A hospital stood opposite the graveyard, and used it to bury poor scholars and other wretched persons. — Source

13

The Great Wall

CRACKED.COM The Great Wall of China is actually a great cemetery. It is estimated around 400,000 construction workers had died building the Great Wall, and were just as easily buried in its foundation, which earned the deserved moniker longest cemetery on Earth. — Source

12

CRACKED.COM The Bridge Of Sighs was built for prisoners. That pretty Venice bridge-known for gondolas, honeymoons, and yes, appearing in Madonna's Like A Virgin video-was built to transfer prisoners from interrogation rooms to prison. It's named after prisoners sighing at their final view of Venice before being taken to their cells. — Source

11

Many cathedrals have a cruciform plan; that is, if CRACKED.COM you see them from above (as God would), they look like a cross. Washington National Chartres Cathedral, Cathedral, USA France Peterborough Amiens Cathedral, Cathedral, UK France — Source

10

The U.S. CYBER COMMAND STATES Cyber Command UNITED emblem contains a hidden code. ~ When cracked, the 9 32 character string م ~ translates into the unit's (lengthy) mission statement: USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to... ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries. GRAGKED.COM — Source

9

The Supreme Court also has a basketball court. Storage space above the courtroom was turned into a gym with a basketball court in the 1940s. John Roberts used to play basketball with William Rehnquist there, and Sandra Day O'Connor organized yoga classes in the gym every day. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

Radio City Music Hall has a swanky apartment. Radio City built it for its first impresario, Samuel Roxy Rothafel, who had brought in a ton of top-shelf acts. It became his bachelor pad and party venue. And today, it could be yours - it's been kept in top shape, and is up for rent. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

The Washington Monument has a tiny, hidden twin. A 12-foot replica of the Monument is buried right next to it. It was built in the 1880s as a surveyor's tool-they'd use its scale to verify readings. The ground level rose over time, and the Mini Monument was encased in a tube, buried, and forgotten. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

A luxury apartment sits at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Gustave Eiffel had it built for himself when the tower went up, and kept it secret for a long time. He'd get offered crazy sums for a night in it, but always said no. It didn't open to the public until 2015, 90 years after he died. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

There's a creepy secret chamber inside Mt. Rushmore. Its sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, wanted Mt. Rushmore to have a Hall of Records, where historic American documents would be stored. When he died in 1941, it was unfinished. In 1998, the government put a sealed titanium vault with copies of important documents in there. So he kinda got his wish. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Underground tunnels criss-cross Los Angeles. They connect downtown LA's government buildings, and they're used for moving files securely. But they've also had other uses. For example, in the '50s and '60s, criminals were moved from jail to court through them. In 1960, a billion dollars of tax money were moved through them. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

Disney World

Disney World is hiding an abandoned island. Disney used it as a wildlife observatory, but shut it down in 1999 when they opened Animal Kingdom and moved all the animals there. Today, it's an overgrown jungle of empty animal cages, ruled by vultures (the actual kind, not the cartoon Disney kind). CRACKED.COM — Source

2

The highest floor of the Empire State Building is reserved for a chosen few. The 103rd floor, which is so secret it's usually not listed, is only open to the rich and/or famous. It's a small observatory with 360-degree views. Almost no sounds reach it, so there's near-total silence. CRACKED.COM — Source

1

The clock tower Harry Potter flew over has a fancy apartment. Inside the St. Pancras clock tower, there's an apartment with ridiculously high ceilings and two bedrooms. Unfortunately, since it's literally on top of a train station, neither bedroom can give you a good night's sleep. CRACKED.COM — Source

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