50 Random Facts List #25

Jellyfish live in every ocean and have survived five mass extinctions, for possibly 700 million years or more, despite most of them lacking specialized digestive, osmoregulatory, central nervous, respiratory, or circulatory systems.

27. When Joseph Heller, author of the classic American novel 'Catch-22' was told that he had never written anything else as good as his book, he replied: "Who has?"

28. The Large Hadron Collider had to be shut down when a weasel fell into it.

29. Marilyn Monroe's mother was schizophrenic, which caused Marilyn to live in several foster homes and orphanages. In two of these, she was sexually assaulted by the foster father. When she was 16, her foster family married her off to keep her from going back to foster care when they moved.

30. The first firecrackers originated when Chinese villagers burned green bamboo, which grows so fast that air pockets get trapped inside of it and explode with a loud bang when heated.

Asbestos was used as fake snow in early Hollywood in films such as, "The Wizard of Oz."

32. In 2004, the Beslan School Massacre took place in Russia where 1100 people were taken hostage by Muslim extremists. The extremists had a standoff with Russia for 3 days. It ended with 333 casualties.

33. The 'National Enquirer' was the most reliable news source during the O. J. Simpson murder trial. According to a Harvard law professor who gave the media an overall failing grade, the 'Enquirer' was the only publication that thoroughly followed every rumor and talked to every witness.

34. The drink called "Punch" has no relation to punching and instead comes from the Sanskrit for "Five", since it was made with five ingredients in India.

35. Long ago, people chewed on tree bark as a method of pain relief. Willow bark has a high amount of salicylic acid, an ingredient still used in aspirin today.

The selective admissions process at universities was originally designed during the early 20th century to discriminate against Jews.

37. The Fossa, a large carnivore and the top predator in Madagascar but it isn't a cat, being more closely related to the mongoose family. And it's scientific name is derived from the fact that it has a concealed anus

38. AIDS denial in South Africa resulted in an epidemic that resulted in an estimated 300,000 deaths.

39. Female dragonflies will fake their own death just to avoid mating.

40. Cashew nuts are actually seeds and not nuts but they're grown outside of the fruit which is called a cashew apple.

When IBM executives first met Bill Gates of Microsoft in 1980, he was so young-looking that they thought he was the office boy.

42. Wyoming's Devils Tower has no apostrophe in its name. It was accidentally left off when Teddy Roosevelt signed the document making it a National Landmark and has never been fixed.

43. The Nazis during World War 2 formed a plan called 'Operation Bernhard' in which they were to crash England's economy by counterfeiting £132 million and dropping it over England by planes. This would be worth £8.3 billion today.

44. In 2006, amateur German radio operators managed to receive radio signals from the Voyager 1 space probe, which at that time was 14.7 billion km away.

45. Saint Lawrence of Rome while being martyred by being placed on a gridiron with hot coals below it joked with his tormentors saying, "I'm well done. Turn me over!" He is now the patron saint of cooks, chefs & comedians.

Carrots do not actually help most people to see in the dark. This myth was propaganda used by the Royal Air Force to explain why their pilots had improved success during night air battles but were actually used to disguise advances in radar technology.

47. When Irish Banks went on strike for 6 months in the 1970s, people used pubs to cash their pay-cheques and to keep the economy running.

48. The viscous liquid that canned beans are preserved in is called "Aquafaba" and can be used as a substitute for eggs in vegan recipes.

49. The wealthy can purchase EU citizenship in 3 countries- Austria, Malta and (the EU half of) Cyprus. Maltese citizenship is the cheapest at €650,000.

50. A bacteriologist killed 90% of all wild rabbits in France in the span of 2 years when he gave a disease called Myxomatosis to 2 rabbits in his backyard.