The world's largest pizza was 13,990 square feet

In 2023, the world consumed over 5 billion pizzas

Americans ate 3 billion of those, leading to sales that reached $43.3B, according to industry analysts at Gitnux. They estimated that Americans eat an average of 46 slices per person that year.

The story of pizza in the United States

Pizza is a big deal in the US, and it has many proud regional iterations. From Chicago deep dish to New York thin crust, this video takes a slice out of US history to focus on this beloved entree. Begin with the documented first incidence of pizza in the US—believed to be by Gennaro Lombardi—and end with how old Pizza Huts are being converted around the country.

The world's largest restaurant is the size of 10 football fields

The Bawabet Dimashq Restaurant in Damascus, Syria, has held the Guinness World Record for largest restaurant since 2008. It can seat 6,014 guests and employs nearly 1,800 people, who serve up an eclectic menu of Middle Eastern Indian, Arab, Iranian, Syrian, and Chinese dishes.

A list of the world's best pizzerias

Italy may be pizza's ancestral home, but it's not the only place where you can get a top-notch slice. This guide, compiled by a team of anonymous judges, ranks the 50 best pizzerias in the world, Italy, the US, and more, offering a bucket list for pizza-loving completists.

In 2001, Pizza Hut became the first company to deliver pizza to space

The chain paid the Russian space agency nearly $1M for the promotional stunt, which saw a Russian cosmonaut eat the pizza on video. Other unusual objects to make it to the International Space Station include a gorilla suit, an espresso machine, and several musical instruments.

Chicago deep-dish pizza arrived in 1943

Pizzeria Uno was the first establishment to sell the concoction, which turned more traditional pizza upside down, with cheese as the base and sauce as the topping. Soon, Uno employees went out on their own, sparking a citywide deep-dish phenomenon.

Meet the man whose 100-patty In-N-Out order permanently changed their menu

In 2004, Will Young and a group of friends, including Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, talked an In-N-Out in Las Vegas into making a 100-patty burger. The stunt prompted the chain to cap orders at 4 patties, a policy that remains in place today.

Two Papa John’s pizzas were the first real-world transaction involving cryptocurrency

In 2010, a programmer Laszlo Hanyecz made the first real-world transaction involving cryptocurrency—purchasing two Papa John’s pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins. While the transaction was lauded as a milestone for cryptocurrency, it has also become a tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale—the value of the purchase price exceeded $620M at bitcoin’s all-time high.

Legend has it that the Margherita pizza was named after an encounter with Queen Margherita

The Queen of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, visited Naples in 1889. As the story goes, chef Raffaele Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi made her a pizza with basil, mozzarella, and tomato, to represent the colors of the Italian flag, and eventually named the pie in her honor. Historians, however, note that the facts don't line up: The proof of her visit to the pizzeria is suspected to be a forgery created when the business was in dire straits in the 1930s.

The title of 'World’s Largest Christmas Tree' is disputed

Cities in the US, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands all claim they have the world’s largest Christmas tree—ranging from massive evergreens, TV and communication towers, and hillside light displays.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Pizza boxes are square for practical reasons

Although circular pies have sometimes appeared in circular boxes, they usually travel in square, cardboard boxes. That's because the cardboard industry manufactures them with edges so they can be made in one piece and be easily stacked.

See how CES comes to life with a massive setup across Las Vegas

This behind-the-scenes video shows crews assembling the sprawling CES show—filling more than 2.5 million square feet of exhibition space with booths, lights, and tech from around the world ahead of the event’s opening.

The most fireworks launched from a pyrotechnics suit is 642

Frenchman Laurent Nat, a pyrotechnics artist and performer with over 10 years of experience, set the world record on June 13, 2014. The suit, inspired by clothes worn by professional firefighters, is made out of 100% cotton and incorporates stilts to allow fireworks to be fired in all directions.

How Guinness World Records has pivoted to a publicity business

Now that Guinness World Records gets paid to host record-breaking events, is there a conflict of interest? Here's a look at the worldwide record keeping business's pivot toward publicity.

What we know about the mysterious colossal squid

The colossal squid, the world's largest invertebrate, remained hidden from human discovery until nearly a century ago. Explore the world of the enormous and mysterious creature, including its features, habitat, and scientific significance. You can even plan a visit to the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and marvel at a real-life display.

Purdue students' robot solves a Rubik's cube faster than most people can blink

The solution time of 0.103 seconds is a Guinness World Record. A robot created by Mitsubishi Electric engineers held the previous record of 0.305 seconds.

Angler catches nine-foot-long catfish

An Italian fishermen struggled for 43 minutes to reel in an over nine-foot catfish in the river Po, marking one of the largest such catches in history.

As of 2025, the Factory of the Future 1.0 is the world's largest 3D printer

Housed at the University of Maine, the machine incorporates AI and can utilize bio-based materials to construct homes exceeding 3,000 square feet in size. Homes made from these materials are fully recyclable, as their components can be deconstructed, ground up, and reused as raw materials for printing.

An 800-ton shake table is the world's largest earthquake simulator

After the 1995 Kobe earthquake killed over 6,000 people, Japan created E-Defense to reproduce the force of earthquakes and test them against structures as tall as 10 stories, leading to changes in Japanese building codes to reduce collapse rates.

Earth's total mass is equivalent to 13 quadrillion Egyptian pyramids of Khafre

Newton's law of universal gravitation was used to calculate the value after Henry Cavendish torsion balance experiments determined the missing value of the universal gravitational constant from Newton's equation.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Figuring out how to get a sofa around a corner has been a math problem since 1966

A sofa with the largest possible area that can make a 90-degree turn is known as Gerver's sofa, named after the mathematician who determined the shape in 1992. In 2025, a 119-page paper provided the proof confirming this shape.

See a database of large companies owned by private equity firms

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project tracked more than 200 companies owned by private equity with more than 7,000 employees. Companies on the list include J. Crew, Jersey Mike's Subs, Barnes and Noble, Panera Bread, and Tropical Smoothie Cafe.

In late 2007, Wikipedia became the world's largest general encyclopedia

The record had been held for approximately six centuries by the Yongle Encyclopedia, which was commissioned by the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty in 1403 to preserve information from ancient and imperial China. The text comprised 22,937 manuscript rolls in 11,095 volumes.

The agricultural history of the pumpkin

Pumpkin pie holds a special place in Thanksgiving traditions, but its journey from everyday produce to a seasonal treat spans over 10,000 years. Trace the history of this oversized fruit with this fascinating dive. Pumpkins belong to the species...

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

TikTok is obsessed with weird cottage cheese recipes

Cottage cheese “cookie dough.” Pizza cottage cheese bowl. Cottage cheese queso dip. TikTok influencers are suddenly posting nonstop cottage cheese recipes. It might be echoes of the 1990s weight-loss obsession, when diet culture encouraged the consumption of questionably tasty low-fat foods and not much else. Now, cottage cheese’s high protein content has made it an intriguing prospect for online fitness gurus who say that it’s the key to building muscle.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Larger animals like giraffes, elephants, and blue whales have developed a unique defense against cancer, a phenomenon known as Peto's Paradox

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'