A rhinoceros was elected to city council in São Paulo.
Protest voters gave Cacareco the zoo rhino ~100,000 write-in votes in 1959 — more than any human candidate; officials annulled her ballots.
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE
Sources · October 16, 2026
Every claim from this day’s challenge, with its verdict, explanation and sources.
Round 1
Chimborazo in Ecuador is the farthest point on Earth's surface from the planet's center.
The equatorial bulge lifts it: Chimborazo's summit sits ~2 km farther from Earth's core than Everest's, despite being lower above sea level.
The Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves.
Excavated workers' villages, tombs, and payroll records show paid, well-fed, respected labor crews.
Round 2
Male seahorses get pregnant and give birth.
The female deposits eggs into the male's brood pouch, where he fertilizes, gestates, and eventually expels live young.
Peanuts are legumes, and almonds and walnuts are seeds — not one of them is a true nut.
True nuts (acorns, chestnuts) are hard pods whose fruit never opens; peanuts are legumes, and almonds and walnuts are drupe seeds.
Bananas stored together make each other radioactive.
A banana's radioactivity comes from its own potassium-40; neighboring bananas contribute nothing. Buy freely.
Round 3
A "killer rabbit" once attacked President Jimmy Carter.
In 1979 a fleeing swamp rabbit swam at Carter's canoe, hissing; he splashed it away with a paddle, to national mockery.
The "sugar rush" in kids is real — in their parents' eyes.
Controlled studies find no reliable link between sugar and hyperactivity, but mothers told their sons had eaten sugar (it was a placebo) rated them as more hyperactive.
Human hair and fingernails keep growing for days after death.
Growth requires living cells. Dehydration shrinks the skin, exposing more nail and hair shaft — the illusion of growth, not growth itself.