By Leigh Blander
As a child, Margaret Bacon did not just want to memorize the date of the Battle of Hastings. She wanted to know why it was fought.
“It was always the date and the event, William the Conqueror, 1066, the Battle of Hastings,” she said. “But why? That’s what always interested me.”
That lifelong curiosity shapes Very Cool Facts, a website she launched two years ago. The site is designed to explain ideas clearly and calmly, offering readers context, meaning and the quiet satisfaction of understanding something they may not have noticed before.
For 30 years, Bacon worked in the investment business. Her job was not to pick stocks, but to make sense of them for others.
The role combined analysis with clear communication and included writing published pieces on global markets and economic themes. “Good explanations make complex ideas feel approachable,” she said.
Now retired from finance, Bacon shifted gears after losing a friend to ovarian cancer. She spent two years writing grants for the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition, work that required careful explanation around the importance of early detection. The experience also shaped a broader decision to direct a portion of the project’s revenue toward charitable causes.
A different kind of search experience
“I was responsible for describing why the market was up or down, why we bought a stock, why we sold a stock, to investors and internal teams,” she explained.”
That impulse led to Very Cool Facts and its related platforms, which she describes as an alternative to the modern search experience.
“What frustrated me was trying to look something up and being bombarded by pop-up ads,” Bacon said. “It’s exhausting. You almost don’t want the answer anymore.”
So, she built something different: a site designed to be calm and intentional, with quiet, mostly fact-related ads placed unobtrusively along the side. No pop-ups. No autoplay videos. No tracking that follows readers around the internet.
Research and rigor
Asked what sets the site apart from trivia outlets, Bacon draws a clear distinction.
“It’s not about random facts,” she said. “It’s about context. A fact without meaning is forgettable. When you understand why something happened or how it shaped us, it stays with you. I focus on stories that are accurate, grounded and quietly surprising.”
Each fact begins with something that catches her attention, often from academic or science publications. From there, she digs deeper.
She regularly scans a wide range of sources, including National Geographic, Britannica, The Financial Times, The Atlantic, the BBC, and JSTOR (a digital archive), following threads across science, history, economics, culture and human behavior. The site includes a dedicated page listing its source material.
She sees Very Cool Facts as a human counterweight to an AI-driven information landscape, where information is faster to retrieve than ever, but editorial judgment still matters.
Human behavior
She is particularly drawn to the patterns that shape how people think and act.
“I’m fascinated by the instincts we still carry,” she said. “Modern life can feel complicated, but when you look at it through the lens of human nature, patterns begin to emerge. I’m interested in why we respond the way we do.”
Beyond the website, she publishes a free weekly newsletter and continues to build a presence across social platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.
“It’s interesting how the same fact can draw tens of thousands of reactions in one place and far less attention in another,” she said.
Beyond the website
The project is also moving into public spaces through interpretive displays — single, carefully chosen facts distilled into one sentence and paired with a complementary image. Already in production, the displays are designed for libraries, museums, historic sites and hotels, places where a brief pause can turn into a moment of curiosity or recognition of something easily overlooked.
The concept is intentionally simple and visual, the kind of clarity Bacon values, designed to make learning feel approachable rather than demanding.
A regional library, for example, might share the little-known history of “Goodnight Moon” being excluded from the New York Public Library’s collection for more than two decades, largely due to the judgment of a single influential librarian.
To support that work, she formed Safe Harbor Media Group, the publishing and licensing arm behind Very Cool Facts.
The site itself is designed to remain free to readers. Long-term growth, she said, depends on building traffic and sustainable revenue, with the aim of directing more funds toward charitable causes.
A Marblehead base
Originally from just outside New York, Bacon moved to Marblehead about 40 years ago, where she raised her three children. Two daughters live nearby, and her son lives just north of San Francisco.
“I have six grandchildren,” she said. “I’m lucky to spend time with them whenever I can.”
At heart, her mission has not changed since childhood. She still wants to know why, and she hopes others do, too.
For more information, visit verycoolfacts.com.
Bacon is a new columnist for the Current. You can read her first column, “Why we do the things we do” HERE.
