Around 3.4 million cats enter shelters each year, and only 37 percent of them find forever homes. That’s why animal welfare advocates marked October 29th as National Cat Day, an annual day of awareness to promote feline adoption. This Saturday, celebrate Felis silvestris in all its furry glory by brushing up on the 50 bits of trivia below.

1. Cats spend around 30 to 50 percent of their day grooming themselves. This behavior serves several purposes: It helps cats tone down their scent so they can avoid predators, it cools them down, it promotes blood flow, and it distributes natural oils evenly around the coat, allowing them to stay warm and dry. Grooming also serves as a sign of affection between two cats, and it’s thought that saliva contains enzymes that serve as a natural antibiotic for wounds.

2. Just because a cat is purring doesn’t mean it’s happy. Cats often make the sound when they’re content, but they also purr when they’re sick, stressed, hurt, and giving birth.

3. Scientists don’t quite know why cats purr, but one hypothesis is that the sound frequency of purring—between 25 and 150 Hertz—”can improve bone density and promote healing,” theorizes Leslie A. Lyons, an assistant professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, in an article for Scientific American. “Because cats have adapted to conserve energy via long periods of rest and sleep, it is possible that purring is a low energy mechanism that stimulates muscles and bones without a lot of energy.”

4. Ever wonder why catnip lulls felines into a trance? The herb contains several chemical compounds, including one called nepetalactone, which a cat detects with receptors in its nose and mouth. The compounds trigger the typical odd behaviors you associate with the wacky kitty weed, including sniffing, head shaking, head rubbing, and rolling around on the ground.

5. More than half of the world’s felines don’t respond to catnip. Scientists still don’t know quite why some kitties go crazy for the aromatic herb and others don’t, but they have figured out that catnip sensitivity is hereditary. If a kitten has one catnip-sensitive parent, there’s a one-in-two chance that it will also grow up to crave the plant. And if both parents react to ‘nip, the odds increase to at least three in four.

6. Can’t afford a private eye? A feline might be able do the job for free. In the 1960s, ambassador Henry Helb—who then lived in the Dutch Embassy in Moscow—noticed that his two Siamese kitties were arching their backs and clawing at one of the walls. Helb had a hunch that the cats heard something he couldn’t, and sure enough, he found 30 tiny microphones hidden behind the boards.

Instead of busting the spies, Helb and his staff took advantage of the surveillance and griped about household repairs or packages stuck in customs while standing in front of the mics. The eavesdroppers took care of their complaints—and apart from Helb and his companions, no one was the wiser.

7. Chances are, your cat hates your music—but they might like tunes written by composer David Teie, who partnered with animal scientists to make an album called Music for Cats. Released in 2015, the songs are “based on feline vocal communication and environmental sounds that pique the interest of cats,” Teie’s website states.

8. If you adore felines, you’re in good company: Many of history’s most famous figures—including Florence Nightingale, Pope Paul II, Mark Twain, and the Brontë sisters—all owned, and loved, cats.

9. Still, the title of history’s craziest cat man might go to President Abraham Lincoln. Mary Todd Lincoln was once asked if her husband had any hobbies. Her response? “Cats!”

10. A Kindle isn’t just an e-reader—it’s also a word that’s used to describe a group of kittens born to one mama cat. Meanwhile, a group of full-grown cats is called a clowder.

11. The Guinness World Records doesn’t award the world’s fattest pets since officials don’t want to encourage people to overfeed their pets. But in 2003, a Siamese cat named Katy was a serious contender for the record. Katy, who lived in Asbest, Russia, was given hormones to stop her mating. The treatment had an unintended side effect: It dramatically increased her appetite, and the hungry kitty ballooned to 50 pounds.

12. In 1988, a rich British antique dealer named Ben Rea loved his cat Blackie so much that when he died, he left most of his estate—nearly $13 million—to the lucky (albeit likely indifferent) feline. The money was split among three cat charities, which had been instructed to keep an eye on Rea’s beloved companion. To this day, Blackie holds the Guinness World Record for Wealthiest Cat.

13. As for the world’s oldest living cat, the title belongs to a 30-year-old Siamese named Scooter, who currently lives in Mansfield, Texas with his owner, Gail Floyd.

14. Ever wondered why your cat likes to rhythmically massage you with its paws? Experts haven’t figured out why cats like to knead, but they’ve come up with several possible explanations, one being that your kitty is trying to mark their “territory” (that’s you!) with the scent glands in their paws. And since kittens knead their mama’s belly to stimulate milk production, there’s also a chance that they carry this behavior into adulthood—a phenomenon known as a “neotenic behavior.”

15. Looking to elevate your vocabulary? Try using the word “ailurophile” in a casual conversation. It’s a fancy word for “cat lover,” and it’s derived from the Greek word for cat, ailouros, and the suffix –phile, meaning “lover.” Conversely, the word ailurophobe—a combination of ailouros plus phobe—describes someone who hates cats.

16. In 2015, a 6-by-8.5-foot oil painting billed as the “world’s largest cat painting” sold at auction for more than $820,000. It’s called My Wife’s Lovers, and it once belonged to a wealthy philanthropist named Kate Birdsall Johnson. She loved felines so much that she owned dozens (some even say hundreds) of kitties, and commissioned a painter to capture her Turkish Angoras and Persians in their natural element. Since Johnson’s husband called the clowder “my wife’s lovers,” the nickname was selected as the artwork’s title.

17. Contrary to popular belief, cats don’t always land on their feet when they fall. But more often than not, all four paws end up touching the ground. Cats have a fantastic sense of balance, so they’re able to tell “up” from down and adjust their bodies accordingly. If they sense they’re plummeting downwards, they twist their flexible backbones mid-air, allowing them to right themselves so they don’t fall splat on their backs. Additionally, cats can spread their legs out to “parachute” through the air, plus they’re also small, light-boned, and covered in thick fur—meaning their fall isn’t going to be as hard as, say, a dog’s.

18. In 2015, America’s most popular cat breed was the Exotic Shorthair—a flat-faced kitty that’s essentially a short-haired version of a Persian cat. The second most beloved breed was the Persian, and Maine Coons ranked at No. 3.

19. The musical Cats is based on a collection of T.S. Eliot poems called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Published in 1939, it follows the whimsical antics of a group of felines—but the manuscript was originally intended to feature dogs, too. In the end, though, Eliot determined that “dogs don’t seem to lend themselves to verse quite so well, collectively, as cats.”

20. On October 18, 1963, French scientists used a rocket to launch the first cat into space. The feline’s name was Félicette, and she made it safely to the ground following a parachute descent.

21. A train station in Southeastern Japan is presided over by an adorable “stationmaster”: a 6-year-old calico cat named Nitama. The Kishi train station near Wakayama City hired Nitama in 2015, just a few months after its prior feline mascot, Tama, died from acute heart failure at the age of 16.

22. Even if you’re not allergic to cats, your cat might be allergic to you. One in 200 cats are believed to have asthma—and this number continues to rise among indoor kitties as they’re more frequently exposed to cigarette smoke, dust, human dandruff, and pollen.

23. Greyhound dogs are the ones with a bus line named after them, but cats are pretty speedy, too: The average running feline can clock around 30 miles per hour.

24. Nobody quite knows why black cats are considered to be bad luck, but this myth has persisted across Western civilization for centuries. Felines with dark fur first became linked with the Devil during the Middle Ages, and when the Black Death pandemic ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century, superstitious individuals responded by killing off the black cat population. Little did they know that vermin carried the deadly disease and that the rodent-eating cats actually helped curb its spread. And black cats eventually became associated with witches because women accused of practicing black magic tended to adopt alley cats as companions.

25. Black cats are considered to be a bad omen in the U.S., but in Great Britain and Japan, they’re perceived as auspicious. In the English Midlands, new brides are given black cats to bless their marriage, and the Japanese believe that black cats are good luck—particularly for single women. Meanwhile, the Germans believe that a black cat crossing your path from left to right is ominous, but if the feline switches directions and goes right to left, it’s fortuitous.

26. The ancient Egyptians revered cats, and even worshiped a half-feline goddess named Bastet. People who harmed or killed cats faced harsh legal sentences, including the death penalty.

27. The world’s first major cat show was held at London’s Crystal Palace in July 1871. Hundreds of felines (and dozens of breeds) were placed on display, and around 200,000 guests are said to have attended the event.

28. Remember Nyan Cat? The famous viral meme of a gray kitty with a Pop-Tart body who shoots rainbows from its posterior (the internet, folks!) was based on a real-life feline: a Russian Blue named Marty, owned by Nyan cat illustrator Chris Torres.

29. Most cats weigh in the single or low-double digits, but some breeds are truly huge. For instance, Norwegian Forest Cats, Maine Coons, and Ragdolls often range in weight from 15-22 pounds.

30. Long before Keyboard Cat took the internet by storm, inventor Thomas Edison filmed two kitties “boxing” inside a ring. Created in 1894, the brief clip proves that humans have been obsessed with cute cat videos since long before the advent of YouTube.

31. Remember Socks the Cat, the black-and-white tuxedo cat owned by Bill Clinton’s family during his time in the Oval Office? During the early 1990s, Super Nintendo Entertainment System created a video game called Socks the Cat, featuring the First Feline. It was never officially released, and when the game’s publisher shut down, Socks the Cat was lost for years, until video game collector Tom Curtin bought the (reportedly) only existing copy, purchased the rights, and partnered with game publisher Second Dimension to give it a second life. Socks the Cat is slated for an official release in 2017.

32. Some Maine Coon cats are born with six toes.

33. Sphinx cats don’t have fur coats, but their body temperature is still four degrees warmer than a typical feline.

34. Male cats have barbed penises. While painful for the lady cat, they do serve a purpose: The barbs stimulate the vulva, allowing the female to ovulate, and they also keep her from escaping mid-coitus. (Felines are typically loners, and not that into sex.)

35. If you went to college, you’re more likely to have a cat than a dog. In 2010, researchers from the University of Bristol surveyed 3000 people about their pets, geography, and scholastic history. They found that people with university degrees were 1.36 times more likely to own a kitty than other pet owners. This phenomenon might be attributed to the fact that cats are low-maintenance, and therefore better companions for accomplished people with busy careers.

36. Why do cats love to cuddle up in boxes? Animal experts think that the enclosed spaces make felines feel more protected, secure, and important—kind of like they’re back in the womb. (Sure enough, researchers found that when shelter cats are provided with boxes to cuddle up in, they adjust faster and are less stressed than kitties that aren’t given boxes.) Also, sleeping in a box might help a feline retain more body heat so it stays nice and toasty, and therefore relaxed.

37. Experts think that cats hate water because it’s uncomfortable to have soggy fur, or because it’s frightening for a kitty to lose control of its buoyancy.

38. While many kitties hate water, not all do. Breeds including the Turkish Van, the Maine Coons, and Bengals are said to enjoy taking a dip every now and then.

39. Cats are genetically predisposed to not being able to taste sweets. They will likely nibble off your plate if it contains meat, but they’ll leave it alone if it’s laden with cake.

40. A cat has 244 bones in its entire body—even more than a human, who only has 206 bones.

41. Nobody knows quite why cats meow, but experts think they might be channeling their inner kitten. Baby cats make the plaintive noises to get their mother’s attention, but as full-grown felines, they don’t meow while interacting with other cats. Some experts think that felines use the noises they made as infants with humans to convey their emotions and physical needs.

42. Cats sweat through their paws (and sometimes when they get very hot they pant).

43. According to one estimate, a cat spends nearly two-thirds of its life asleep.

44. The iconic Algonquin Hotel in midtown Manhattan owns a pampered lobby cat named Matilda III. She’s one of 11 rescue felines that have lived in the storied institution since the early 1920s.

45. In the 1870s, the city of Liège, Belgium tried to train 37 cats to deliver the mail. Letters were enclosed in waterproof bags tied around the kitties’ necks, but it turns out that cats weren’t great at delivering the goods on time (or to the correct address).

46. Approximately 200 feral cats roam the grounds of Disneyland, where they help control the amusement park’s rodent population. They’re all spayed or neutered, and park staffers provide them with medical care and extra food.

47. The Hungarian word for “quotation marks,” macskaköröm, literally translates to “cat claws.”

48. Napoleon, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Hitler are all said to have hated cats.

49. There are an estimated 74 to 96 million pet cats in the U.S. In contrast, there are only an estimated 70 to 80 million dogs.

50. A cat can jump up to five times its height, or six times its length—and make the entire thing look easy.

All images via iStock.

In 1873 the sky rained frogs over Kansas City, Missouri. The Scientific American later reported that the amphibian shower “which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance” was the result of a recent rainstorm that swept through the area. It’s possible that the incident would have been left to collect dust in the annals of history if not for another event that took place a year later: the birth of Charles Fort.

Prior to his career as a researcher of unexplained phenomena, Charles was a curious kid growing up in Albany, New York. He felt socially anxious in school and had a poor grasp of math—which came through in his grades. But while he struggled academically, he found ways to satisfy his cravings for knowledge outside the classroom. He maintained a catalog of natural items that included minerals, nests, eggs, feathers, and organs from small animals pickled in jars of formaldehyde. He even went so far as to learn taxidermy so he could stuff and mount bird specimens at home. When his grandfather, a grocer and the father of a grocer, asked Charles what the boy wanted to be when he grew up, he was chagrined to hear the child respond: “a naturalist.”

Fort’s life took a different path when he entered the journalism business at age 16. As a reporter for the Albany newspaper the Argus, he found an outlet for his inquisitive behavior. A few years later, he moved on to covering New York City news for the Brooklyn World. When two of his reporter friends left the paper to form the Woodhaven Independent, they appointed an 18-year-old Fort to be their editor.

Despite his rapid rise to success in his field, he still felt unfulfilled. As he wrote in his unpublished autobiography Many Parts, “I became a newspaper reporter [and] I arranged my experiences. I pottered over them quite as I had over birds’ eggs and minerals and insects.” But by limiting his experiences to a few sections of New York City, he feared he was trapping himself as a writer. Determined to “get together a vast capital of impressions of life,” he set off to travel the world alone after turning 19.

Fort imposed a few guidelines for his journey: He would wander spontaneously and refrain from looking for work, keeping a notebook, or anything else that might distract him from living in the moment. After visiting England, Scotland, South Africa, and the southern U.S., he returned home to New York ready to begin the next chapter of his life. He married Anna Filing, a friend he had known since childhood. She found comfort in domestic life as he pursued work as a fiction writer and took odd jobs.

Writing short stories for pulp magazines was a way for Fort to bring in supplemental income. Though he penned several novels during his lifetime, only one was ever published. The Outcast Manufacturers was a commercial failure and once again he blamed his struggles on lack of experience. Fort reflected on this period of his life years later by saying, “I was a realist, but knew few people; had few experiences for my material.” This time, instead of seeking enrichment abroad, he turned to the New York Public Library for inspiration.

What started as a search for story ideas eventually morphed into an obsession with the research itself. The old newspapers and scientific journals he sifted through contained gems too remarkable to fictionalize: On March 6, 1888, a blood-like substance dripped from the sky over the Mediterranean; in 1855 kangaroo-like tracks appeared in southern England; in 1872 a London house was bombarded with stones that came from no apparent source. Anomalous patterns appeared in every subject Fort explored, and he began collecting the stories like they were trinkets from his youth. By age 39 he was making daily trips to the library equipped with pocketfuls of blank sheets of paper for note-taking.

The cardboard boxes of notes he stored at home became the basis for a new project: a compilation of unexplained phenomena titled The Book of the Damned. When the book was released in 1919 there was nothing else on the shelves quite like it. A blurb on the dust jackets teased its contents: “In this amazing book—the result of twelve years of patient research—the author presents a mass of evidence that has hitherto been ignored or distorted by scientists.”

The book opens by introducing “the damned,” as in the damned “data that Science has excluded.” As the work progresses, Fort presents evidence for dozens of oddities he encountered in his research, including strange weather patterns, poltergeists, cryptids (creatures that may or may not exist, like the Loch Ness Monster), and UFOs. A significant portion of the book is devoted to unusual objects raining from the heavens. In addition to frogs (which he cited as falling over Wigan, England and Toulouse, France, as well as Kansas City), Fort mentions showers of fish, eels, and insects.

He was quick to dismiss any theories that suggested the critters had been swept up from the ground by strong winds, instead positing the existence of a “Super-Sargasso Sea.” According to Fort, this place acted as a celestial dumping ground of sorts for “derelicts, rubbish, [and] old cargoes from inter-planetary wrecks” that sometimes leaked back down to Earth. The phrase has since stuck around as a place where lost things go, but Fort himself didn’t seem overly attached it. He followed up his explanation by writing, “Or still simpler. Here are the data. Make what you will, yourself, of them.”

Written in clipped and sometimes scatterbrained prose, the purpose of The Book of the Damned wasn’t to convince the reader of any concrete set of facts. Rather, Fort aimed to tear down the black-and-white thinking that prevailed among scientists of the time. Critics didn’t buy it. The New York Times panned the book, saying it was “so obscured in the mass of words and quagmire of pseudo-science and queer speculation that the average reader will himself either be buried alive or insane before he reaches the end.” Science fiction writer H.G. Wells described it as beneath his attention, calling Fort “one of the most damnable bores who ever cut scraps from out-of-the-way newspapers.”

Readers, on the other hand, were hooked. The Book of the Damned sold well and it garnered enough interest in weird phenomena for Fort to publish three more non-fiction books on similar subjects—New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents.

When Charles Fort succumbed to leukemia on May 3, 1932 at age 57, he left behind a complicated legacy. He had inspired a cult following of self-described “Forteans” similarly interested in anomalous phenomena and skeptical of scientific dogma. The group is still going strong today, as anyone who attends The International Fortean Organization’s annual “Fortfest” or subscribes to The Fortean Times can see.

The media remembered him as less of an influencer than a crackpot, with both The New York Times and the The New York Herald Tribune painting him as a “Foe of Science” in their obituaries. But considering Fort viewed science as “established preposterousness,” that’s a characterization he likely wouldn’t have objected to.

Additional Source: Charles Fort, The Man Who Invented the Supernatural