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If anyone ever called your X-Men figures “dolls,” they were legally wrong.

13 Neat Nuggets Of Knowledge To Impress Others With

October 01, 2021

Listen: we here at Cracked are driven by two things: 1) an endless fascination with the world around us, 2) making jokes about the world around us, and 3) winning our trivia night on Tuesdays at Outback Steakhouse. Whoops, that's three things. We are driven by three things, and it's all of those. Plus the free Bloomin' Onion they throw in as a prize for winning trivia night. Four things. Okay, we gotta quit while we're ahead, or we're going to keep finding things that drive us.

Anyway, we love fun facts and trivia, and we want to share that knowledge with you, our readers, so that YOU can get complimentary mozzarella sticks or jalapeño poppers or whatever the prize at your local trivia night is. Plus, that other team? Across the room? We heard they were talking smack, and we're gonna help you out.

Did you know Marvel fought a ten-year legal battle to get X-Men figures classified as toys? No? Here’s the full story, plus 12 others:

13

The basketball scene in Alien: Resurrection looked exactly how it was filmed. Sigourney Weaver really wanted to make that shot without any visual effects, so she did - she trained with basketball start Nigel Miguel for it. CRACKED.COM — Source: DenOfGeek

12

For House of Wax, Paris Hilton had the whole crew scream together with her. She had to scream for her death scene, but she was embarrassed, so she asked the entire crew to scream along with her. They did. CRACKED.COM — Source: IGN

11

In Inglourious Basterds, the massive fire at the end almost burned the actors alive. It was three times hotter than expected- so much so that the steel cables holding up the giant swastika liquefied, and it unexpectedly fell. CRACKED.COM — Source: LA Times

10

Matthew McConaughey's chest thumping in The Wolf of Wall Street was ad-libbed. It was a relaxation technique, McConaughey said, and he did it before each take. But Leo DiCaprio noticed it and wanted to try it in the scene. CRACKED.COM — Source: The Independent

9

Disney went and cut a villain from the final version of The Emperor's New Groove. His name was Huaca, and he was a talking talisman. All that's left of him in the final version is a statue in the dinner scene that looks like him. CRACKED.COM — Source: disney.fandom.com

8

Contrary to popular belief, Vitamin C doesn't prevent you from catching a cold. But it can have some benefits for colds, like reducing their severity or duration - that's the finding of a meta-analysis of 29 scientific studies. CRACKED.COM — Source: Healthline

7

For tax purposes, X-Men figures are legally classified as toys and not dolls. The US taxes toys at a lower rate than dolls, so Marvel led a 10-year legal battle to get the courts to recognize its action figures as toys. It won. CRACKED.COM — Source: Mental Floss

6

The UK

Members of the Armed Forces in the UK have a much lower risk of dying. Booktby Their risk of dying of disease- causes is 81% lower, and of external causes of injury and poisoning is 38% lower than the general public. CRACKED.COM — Source: service.gov.uk

5

Despite how it might look, leaf-cutter ants don't actually eat any leaves. They just take pieces of leaves and feed them to a fungus they cultivate. The fungus then partly digests the leaves, and the ant later eats the fungus. CRACKED.COM — Source: ASM

4

The Victorians kept babies high (because of how they tried to calm them down). Giving opium to babies was popular in the 19th century, because it'd instantly calm a crying baby - opium was even called the Poor child's nurse. CRACKED.COM — Source: Science Museum

3

A lot of old churches in the Philippines are partly made from egg whites. Records show that churches built in the 18th and 19th century were often built with egg whites - they were an ingredient in mortar and concrete. CRACKED.COM — Source: Atlas Obscura

2

In Sweden, a museum had a whale skeleton with completely furnished insides. There were benches and carpeting inside, and you'd go in through the mouth - but they closed the mouth in the $30s, after catching a couple having sex in it. CRACKED.COM — Source: Atlas Obscura

1

In 1939, a University of Iowa experiment tried to induce stuttering in kids. It was truly awful, and it involved orphans getting belittled for flaws in their speech to test if kids started stuttering because of pressure. CRACKED.COM — Source: CBS

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