250 Fun Facts: Technology, Sports, Music, Art & Famous Places

The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and wasn't recovered until two years later. The theft actually made the painting far more famous.

Vincent van Gogh sold very few paintings during his lifetime, but today his works sell for tens of millions of dollars.

Van Gogh painted more than 850 paintings in roughly ten years.

Pablo Picasso's full name is made up of more than 20 words.

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512, mostly standing on scaffolding and leaning backwards, not lying down.

Michelangelo's statue of David is about 5 metres tall and was carved from a single block of marble.

Edvard Munch made several versions of "The Scream," including paintings and drawings.

Ludwig van Beethoven kept composing music after he became almost completely deaf, including his famous Ninth Symphony.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first pieces of music when he was about five years old.

Lata Mangeshkar recorded songs in more than 30 languages during her career of over seven decades.

A. R. Rahman won two Academy Awards in 2009 for his music for "Slumdog Millionaire."

India's national anthem, "Jana Gana Mana," takes about 52 seconds to sing in full.

The piano's original name was "pianoforte," Italian for "soft-loud," because it could play both quietly and loudly.

A standard piano has 88 keys: 52 white and 36 black.

Violins made by Antonio Stradivari in the 1600s and 1700s are among the most valuable instruments in the world.

The tabla is actually a pair of drums, played with the fingers and palms.

The veena is one of India's oldest instruments and is often shown in the hands of Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and music.

Listening to music you love can trigger the release of dopamine, a brain chemical linked to pleasure.

Some of the oldest known musical instruments are flutes made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, around 40,000 years old.

The Hurrian Hymn, written on clay tablets more than 3,000 years ago, is one of the oldest surviving pieces of written music.

The didgeridoo has been played by Aboriginal Australians for thousands of years.

The saxophone was invented in the 1840s by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax.

The harmonium was invented in Europe, but it became one of the most popular instruments in Indian music.

Shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan performed at the Red Fort in Delhi on India's first Independence Day in 1947.

Indian classical music has two main traditions: Hindustani music from the north and Carnatic music from the south.

Tyagaraja, one of the three great composers of Carnatic music, wrote hundreds of songs that are still performed today.

Raja Ravi Varma's paintings of gods and goddesses were printed in large numbers, bringing art into ordinary homes across India.

Warli painting, a tribal art form from Maharashtra, uses simple circles, triangles and lines to show everyday life.

Madhubani painting from Bihar was traditionally painted by women on the walls and floors of their homes.

Tanjore paintings from Tamil Nadu are known for their rich colours and real gold foil.

Pattachitra is a traditional style of painting on cloth from Odisha, often showing stories from mythology.

Some Indian miniature painters used brushes made from a single hair to paint the tiniest details.

In Renaissance Europe, the blue paint ultramarine was made from crushed lapis lazuli and could be more expensive than gold.

The first synthetic dye, a purple colour called mauve, was discovered by accident in 1856 by 18-year-old chemist William Perkin.

From 1912 to 1948, the Olympic Games awarded medals for art, including painting, music and literature.

Salvador Dalí designed the logo for Chupa Chups lollipops.

Andy Warhol's famous "Campbell's Soup Cans" artwork is made up of 32 separate canvases, one for each flavour.

Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture "The Thinker" was originally called "The Poet."

The word "origami" comes from the Japanese words "ori," meaning fold, and "kami," meaning paper.

The word "graffiti" comes from the Italian word "graffiare," meaning "to scratch."

Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" sold for a record $450 million in 2017.

The note names "do, re, mi" come from an 11th-century system created by Italian monk Guido of Arezzo.

Indian classical music uses seven basic notes, called swaras: sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha and ni.

Before a concert, orchestras usually tune to a note played by the oboe.

Vincent van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" in 1889 while staying at a hospital in France, based on the view from his window.