250 Crazy Facts About The United States

Name: 250 Crazy Facts About The United States
Uploaded: 2026-07-03T17:00:00-04:00
Channel: WatchMojo
Description: Star-spangled and stranger than fiction! Join us as we count down the wildest, weirdest, and most unbelievably American facts the United States has to offer, in honor of her 250th birthday! From Abraham Lincoln's wrestling career to a town with a population of one, these jaw-dropping facts prove America has always been gloriously, unapologetically one-of-a-kind!

VOICE OVER: Ryan Wild
WRITTEN BY: Joshua Garvin

Star-spangled and stranger than fiction! Join us as we count down the wildest, weirdest, and most unbelievably American facts the United States has to offer, in honor of her 250th birthday! From Abraham Lincoln's wrestling career to a town with a population of one, these jaw-dropping facts prove America has always been gloriously, unapologetically one-of-a-kind! Our countdown includes facts like the Statue of Liberty technically being in New Jersey, Hawaii pizza being invented in Canada, the CIA trying to spy using a cat, Uncle Sam being a real meat packer, and so much more! What's your favorite - and least favorite - thing about the world's first modern democratic republic? Let us know in the comments below!

#198: The Centralia mine fire broke out in 1962 and it's still burning beneath the Pennsylvania borough over 60 years later.
#197: Whittier, Alaska is known as a "town under one roof" since almost every resident lives in the Begich Towers.
#196: The average American throws away almost five pounds of trash a day.
#195: Since 2011, an estimated two-thirds of U.S. $100 bills are located outside of the country.
#194: Despite being a New York landmark, the Statue of Liberty is technically closer to the shoreline of New Jersey.
#193: Based on a OnePoll study, the average American possesses more than $54,000 worth of debt.
#192: Uncle Sam is based on Samuel Wilson, an American meat packer. So we guess Uncle Sam wants you to pack his meat?
#191: Got Milk? California does, being the country's top dairy producer.
#190: The Empire State Building is so big that it has its own zio code: 10118.
#189: Competing in NASCAR comes with several requirements, but a state driver's license isn't one of them.
#188: The Hoover Dam has enough concrete to construct a two-lane highway between San Francisco and New York.
#187: Lake Superior has enough water to flood North and South America with a depth of one foot.
#186: With nearly 8.5 million residents, more people live in New York City than in almost 80% of all U.S. states.
#185: Longview, Washington has a bridge specifically for squirrels called the Nutt Narrows Bridge.
#184: The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867. That's around $150 million today.
#183: If you want to hunt a unicorn in Michigan, you'll need to get a license from Lake Superior State University.
#182: Only two U.S. states don't follow daylight saving time: Arizona and Hawaii.
#181: There's a limestone Darth Vader grotesque at the Washington National Cathedral.
#180: Jimmy Carter had solar panels added to the White House, although Ronald Reagan had them removed in 1986.
#179: If Texas was a separate country, it would be among the world's 10 largest economies by gross domestic product.
#178: The Denver International Airport is two times bigger than Manhattan Island.
#177: Some U.S. states list English as their official language, but the country as a whole actually doesn't have one.
#176: Juan Ponce de León helmed the first documented European expedition to Florida, arriving in 1513.
#175: In 1914, Cleveland, Ohio received the world's first electric traffic signal.
#174: The U.S. has one of the world's most diverse climates, covering everything from topical to polar regions.
#173: In America, football is generally referred to as soccer while American football is called… well, football.
#172: A series of silent shorts called "Monkeyshines" are believed to be the first films shot in the States.
#171: The White House got its first Christmas tree during Franklin Pierce's presidency in the 1850s.
#170: The only U.S. president to serve more than two terms, Franklin D. Roosevelt held office for four from 1933 to 1945.
#169: The Supreme Court Building has its own basketball court, earning the name "Highest Court of the Land."
#168: It's widely believed that the Iroquois Confederacy helped inspire the U.S. Constitution.
#167: Mustangs are symbols of the Western U.S., although they were imported to North America by the Spanish.
#166: You're inclined to find red Solo cups at American parties, but not necessarily at parties around the world.
#165: Through "Grapes of Wrath" author John Steinbeck, U.S. Route 66 came to be known as the Mother Road.
#164: Independence, Missouri used to have a hair museum named after cosmetology teacher Leila Cohoon.
#163: Ohio was retroactively declared the 17th U.S. state in 1953.
#162: Typically, female Bald eagles are ⅓ larger than males.
#161: U.S. farmers grow roughly 90 million acres of corn annually. That's twice the size of Oklahoma.
#160: The Broadway play "Moose Murders" opened and closed at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on the same date, February 22, 1983.
#159: Levi Spear Parmly, a New Orleans dentist, invented dental floss.
#158: American manufacturer John Deere had nine kids.
#157: Christopher Sell of Rugby, England brought the deep-fried Twinkie to America in the early 2000s.
#156: Originating from Cincinnati, Ohio, Play-Doh was sold as a wallpaper cleaner before it was a plaything.
#155: Barbie and Ken are from Willows, Wisconsin. Creator Ruth Handler based them on her children, Barbara and Kenneth.
#154: Everglades National Park is the only place on Earth where wild alligators and crocodiles coexist.
#153: In 2014, it was reported that chickens outnumber Delaware's residents by more than 200 to 1.
#152: Pogo started as a comic strip in 1948. In 1992, the titular character was adopted as Georgia's official state possum.
#151: Samoset was the first American Indian to approach the Pilgrims. He said, "Welcome, Englishmen," and asked for beer.
#150: Cawker City, Kansas is home to the world's largest ball of twine.
#149: The North Loup is considered the Popcorn Capital of Nebraska.
#148: New Mexico has an official state question: "Red or Green?" - referring to chilies.
#147: Texas is bigger than any European country.
#146: The world's largest cranberry festival takes place in Warrens, Wisconsin.
#145: Wyoming has just two escalators, both in Casper.
#144: Lollipops were invented by George Smith from New Haven, Connecticut in 1908.
#143: Before he was POTUS, Gerald Ford was a model, working for the John Robert Powers and Harry Conover agencies.
#142: President Herbert Hoover's personal physician, Joel T. Boone, created a medicine ball game naturally called Hooverball.
#141: Apparently, Richard Nixon loved himself some cottage cheese mixed with ketchup.
#140: George H.W. Bush thought about making Clint Eastwood his Vice President. We've heard of crazier things.
#139: Harry Truman might've received a turkey, but he didn't pardon one.
#138: Prior to his presidency, Grover Cleveland was a sheriff, which entailed carrying out hangings.
#137: On October 17, 1984, Ronald Reagan wrote about Drew Barrymore in his diary, calling her "a nice little person."
#136: David Beckham sent Barack Obama 50 pairs of boxers from his underwear line.
#135: Americans eat roughly 350 slices of pizza every second.
#134: Americans typically rank among the most charitable people on Earth.
#133: Hawaii's Kīlauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world.
#132: Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the longest cave system ever discovered on Earth.
#131: Christopher Columbus never actually set foot on mainland North America.
#130: Niagara Falls is considered America's first state park, established in 1885.
#129: The United States once printed $10,000 bills featuring a former Treasury Secretary.
#128: Millions of Americans today can trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower.
#127: America was named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.
#126: Alaska, the largest state, is so big that Texas, California, and Montana could all easily fit within it.
#125: olonel Sanders was a real person; he didn't open his first KFC until he was in his 60s.
#124: Mississippi College is credited as the first U.S. coed college to grant a degree to a woman.
#123: Spanish is the second most common language spoken in the U.S..
#122: In a 2026 study, Illinois ranked as the most hated state in the union.
#121: In 2025, New Hampshire ranked as America's healthiest state.
#120: Hawaii consistently ranks among the happiest states in America.
#119: The federal government officially recognizes more than 570 Native American tribes.
#118: Minnesota ranks among America's fastest-talking states, while Louisiana ranks among the slowest.
#117: On average, Kansas produces enough wheat each year to make billions of bread loaves.
#116: Crater Lake in Oregon is so deep it could envelop the entire One World Trade Center.
#115: The 800-plus miles of bookshelves at the Library of Congress could fill up Manhattan more than 36 times.
#114: Idaho has more than 100,000 miles of rivers and streams, enough to wrap around the Earth four times.
#113: Kentucky has so many bourbon barrels aging at once that they outnumber the state's people.
#112: Oklahoma is the only state with an official state meal; it includes barbecue pork and pecan pie.
#111: Until 2025, Mills Ends Park in Portland was the smallest park in the world, measuring just 2 feet across.
#110: During Prohibition, the U.S. government poisoned industrial alcohol to discourage its use in bootlegging.
#109: Most Americans stay at a job for less than five years before moving on.
#108: Roughly one in four Americans attended the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.
#107: The U.S. accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on North Carolina in 1961; it thankfully didn't explode.
#106: Andrew Jackson's inauguration party became so chaotic that guests trashed the White House.
#105: Alaska has more coastline than all the other U.S. states combined.
#104: In 1919, a burst tank sent 2.3 million gallons of molasses tearing through Boston at 35 miles per hour.
#103: A series of massive earthquakes in 1811-12 once made the Mississippi River temporarily flow backward.
#102: America's first novel, "The Power of Sympathy," was a sensual morality tale published in 1789.
#101: Americans eat roughly 20 billion hot dogs every year.
#100: In 2025, California alone had the fifth largest economy on earth.
#99: Manhattan was supposedly purchased by the Dutch from Native Americans for trade goods worth about $24.
#98: The original route 66 stretched from Chicago to Santa Monica and was the first paved highway to the Pacific.
#97: America's first multi-millionaire, John Jacob Astor, dealt in fur trading, real estate, and opium exports.
#96: America's interstate highway system was partly inspired by Germany's autobahn.
#95: The American flag has had 27 official iterations.
#94: During the Cold War, the U.S. seriously considered detonating a nuclear bomb on the moon.
#93: The Statue of Liberty was originally used as a lighthouse.
#92: Yellowstone became the first national park in 1872.
#91: John Quincy Adams once kept an alligator at the White House - and Herbert Hoover kept two.
#90: ARPANET, a Cold War military project, helped lay the foundation for the modern internet.
#89: America's first official Thanksgiving proclamation came from George Washington himself in 1789.
#88: Aside from relatively small amounts in California, America grows coffee in only one state: Hawaii.
#87: Americans never voted for Gerald Ford as either president or vice president.
#86: The CIA once tried to turn a cat into a listening device with a project called "Acoustic Kitty."
#85: Patients in Cincinnati were unknowingly exposed to radiation experiments; 21 died within a month.
#84: Poor farming practices helped turn parts of the Great Plains into the Dust Bowl.
#83: Some American workers in company towns were once paid in "scrip," private company currency, instead of real money.
#82: The Salem witch trials led to 20 executions in colonial Massachusetts.
#81: The U.S. accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb near Savannah, Georgia in 1958.
#80: Congressman Preston Brooks once nearly beat Senator Charles Sumner to death on the Senate floor with a cane.
#79: The U.S. military once secretly sprayed bacteria over San Francisco to study biological warfare.
#78: In the Dred Scott Decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Black Americans could never be U.S. citizens.
#77: World Fairs once displayed Indigenous people in so-called "human zoos."
#76: The Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed a prosperous community, wiping out generations of Black wealth.
#75: The U.S. government imprisoned more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II.
#74: The Appalachian Trail stretches across 14 different states.
#73: Some Great Depression dance marathons lasted for weeks without stopping.
#72: The U.S. Navy built floating ice cream factories during World War II to boost troop morale.
#71: George Washington ordered mass smallpox inoculations during the Revolutionary War.
#70: 32 states drain into The Mississippi River.
#69: The Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888 killed children caught walking home from school across the Great Plains.
#68: More than 100,000 people worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II.
#67: The Sultana explosion, the deadliest maritime disaster in American history, happened on the Mississippi River in 1865.
#66: A deadly bombing struck Wall Street in 1920, and the case was never officially solved.
#65: The National Security Agency once had the nickname "No Such Agency" during the Cold War.
#64: Jane Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
#63: Millions of Black Americans moved north during the Great Migration, between 1910-1970.
#62: Teddy Roosevelt spoke for 84 minutes at a 1912 campaign speech after being shot in the chest.
#61: America's first famous UFO sighting in 1947 helped popularize the term "flying saucer."
#60: There are more civilian-owned guns in the United States than there are people.
#59: Frances Perkins was America's first female cabinet secretary and helped create Social Security.
#58: During the Cold War, America seriously explored the idea of nuclear-powered airplanes.
#57: During World War II, the U.S. government operated an official Office of Censorship.
#56: The U.S. Constitution has only been amended 27 times.
#55: The federal government is the country's largest landowner, with more than a quarter of all land in the United States.
#54: Black haircare entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker became America's first female self-made millionaire.
#53: At one point, Utah, Montana, and Wyoming each had more sheep than people.
#52: Harriet Tubman later worked as a Union spy during the Civil War.
#51: The Statue of Liberty's creator originally pitched the giant statue for the Suez Canal in Egypt.
#50: Thousands of Native Americans died during the forced relocation known as the Trail of Tears.
#49: America's first motion picture copyright was registered by Thomas Edison and William Dickson.
#48: Some modern American nickels are literally worth more melted down than as actual currency.
#47: California is the most biodiverse of all the U.S. states.
#46: One of the most famous American songs ever written, "Ol' Man Riverr" debuted in the 1927 Broadway musical "Show Boat."
#45: America's oldest continuously inhabited European-founded city is St. Augustine, Florida.
#44: One of the first books printed in America later sold for more than $14 million at auction.
#43: Eleanor Roosevelt helped draft the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
#42: Astronaut Peggy Whitson has spent more time in space than any other American.
#41: Amelia Earhart helped found one of America's first major groups for female pilots.
#40: Lincoln signed legislation creating the Secret Service on the same day he was assassinated.
#39: An adult American bison can weigh as much as a small car.
#38: The Wright brothers invented the airplane even though neither of them ever attended college.
#37: The last known slave ship to arrive in the US was discovered underwater in Alabama in 2019.
#36: America's oldest surviving bridge - The Frankford Ave. Bridge in Philly - is older than America.
#35: George Washington helped choose the site of the White House, but died before it was finished.
#34: Human skeletons were discovered buried beneath Benjamin Franklin's former London home.
#33: Virginia has produced more U.S. presidents than any other state.
#32: One of America's oldest public libraries was founded by Quakers before the U.S even existed.
#31: Americans have been celebrating the Fourth of July with fireworks since 1777.
#30: Denali's climbers experience altitude conditions similar to Mount Everest despite it being much shorter.
#29: Despite the Robin Hood myth surrounding them, Frank and Jesse James were violent killers.
#28: America's oldest continuously published newspaper, The Hartford Courant has been printing since 1764.
#27: Seattle exploded in size during the Klondike Gold Rush despite being over 1,500 miles away.
#26: America's first national bank was created by Alexander Hamilton before the White House was built.
#25: Hollywood has been making movies since before the Titanic sank.
#24: American women couldn't vote nationwide until more than 140 years after the Declaration of Independence.
#23: Benjamin Franklin got tired of constantly switching between two different pairs of glasses, thus creating the bifocals
#22: Washington, D.C's design with massive avenues and traffic circles was influenced by Paris.
#21: The U.S. is one of about ten countries to exclusively use Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.
#20: The name "America" referred to South America long before North America.
#19: There are at least 15 different regional styles of pizza across the U.S.
#18: Many of the cowboys of the American West were actually Black or Mexican vaqueros.
#17: Harvard was founded in 1636, making it older than the U.S. itself by well over a century.
#16: America has turned higher education into its own industry, with more than 3,900 colleges and universities.
#15: Only 12 human beings have ever walked on the moon; all of them were American astronauts.
#14: America is home to 63 official national parks, alongside hundreds of other federally protected sites.
#13: The United States has almost 2,500 state parks spread across all 50 states.
#12: You can vote and join the military at 18, but you can't purchase alcohol until 21.
#11: Kalawao County, Hawaii has fewer than 100 permanent residents and was once a leper colony.
#10: Walmart and Amazon each employ more people than the population of many American cities.
#9: Michigan is home to a giant lavender labyrinth so large it can be seen on Google Earth.
#8: An island off the coast of South Carolina is populated almost entirely by rhesus monkeys.
#7: Most unclaimed airline luggage eventually gets shipped to the same resale store in Alabama.
#6: Atlanta has more than 70 different streets with some variation of the name "Peachtree."
#5: The Los Angeles Coroner's Office once operated a gift shop called "Skeletons in the Closet."
#4: The sunrise atop Maui's Haleakalā volcano is so stunning, it now requires reservations to see.
#3: One California highway plays the "William Tell Overture" if you drive over it at the right speed.
#2: Some U.S. national parks let dogs become official "B.A.R.K. Rangers."
#1: Wild ponies swim across a Virginia channel every year in a tradition dating back about a century.

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