What the Fact?!: A Daily Trivia Almanac of 365 Strange Days in History

by Gabe Henry, Dave Hopkins (Illustrator)

Truly stranger than fiction, this daily illustrated collection of unusual trivia provides readers fascinating detail on some of the weirdest moments in history. Drawing from a range of subjects including politics, sports, the arts, pop culture, and more, each day of the year explores one What the . . . fact or event in entries that go beyond the factoid to uncover odd moments through the ages (like the day first pig actually flew [November 4, 1909] or the United States ran out of toilet paper [December 19, 1973]). With dozens of illustrations and hundreds of pages of daily or dip-in-and-out entertainment, What the Fact?! gives trivia fans a way to learn something new and strange every day.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Trivia

288 pages, Hardcover

Published September 4, 2018

About the author

Gabe Henry is the author of three books including the poetry anthology "Eating Salad Drunk" (Vulture's Best Comedy Books of 2022), a humor collaboration with Jerry Seinfeld, Margaret Cho, Ray Romano, Mike Birbiglia, Janeane Garofalo, Roy Wood Jr., Michael Ian Black, Bob Odenkirk, George Wallace, Maria Bamford, and other titans of comedy.​

His forthcoming book, "Enough is Enuf" (HarperCollins), is about the little-known "Simplified Spelling Movement" and its many (failed) attempts to change "through" to "thru," "laugh" to "laf," and "enough to enuf" (tu naim a few) in an effort to pare down all words to their simplest spelling.

Reviews

[Elena]

One of life’s greatest joys is knowing obscure silly facts

[Gina Zappa]

This book was crazy entertaining! I found myself being that weird girl that spouts out random weird facts to people non-stop while I was reading this! Go run out and grab this book ASAP!

[Barbara]

What the Fact?! 365 Strange Days in History is filled with strange and eclectic facts. My husband and I used the book as a daily shared reading in 2020. Sometimes we laugh. Sometimes we just scratch our heads. There is always something to discuss. Often there is something to check out further. The book is definitely good for a shared reading.

[David Roberts]

Funny daily reading book, sometimes a bit goofy. Interesting facts for each day of the year, including leap years. I read two history books this year in adaily reading format; the other was a bit better.

[Tom]

After a year, I am finished this book. It was a fun journey and I learned many things along the way.

[Suzanne]

This wasn't nearly as interesting as I had hoped it would be. It's probably a matter of personal taste, but I was, as a whole, not terribly engaged by the stories chosen for each day of the year.

[Kevin Hogg]

This book gives a brief glimpse into historical events, sometimes in as little as a couple of paragraphs, and rarely stretching beyond a page. It was easy to keep up with the reading, and it piqued my interest enough to look deeper into some of the events. There was a nice variety, including inventions from smell-o-vision to alarms in case of premature burial. Many events were fairly light, while others dealt with major turning points in history. It was really interesting to read about the unusual beginning of the Kellogg's vs. Post cereal wars, a 12-year-old Judy Garland stumbling into the middle of an FBI takedown of John Dillinger, and much more.

[Elizabeth]

I stumbled upon this book when searching for another in Titlewave, so I HAD to read it! What a fun read!

[Alfred G Maynard Jr]

Very fun book.

[Richard Simpson]

Fun little tidbits for every day of the year. Cute book.

[David]

This was a fun idea, but in the end, it failed to deliver. This would not be for someone who enjoys trivia, it was silly and incomplete.