30 Energizing Random Facts That’ll Refresh Your Mind | Random List #176

Alexander Graham Bell offered to sell his telephone patent to Western Union for $100,000 in 1876. The committee appointed to investigate the offer concluded the telephone was "hardly more than a toy" and "inherently of no use to us."

2. Pregnancy physically changes a woman's brain structure. Grey matter volume is decreased in certain areas, giving mothers a higher capacity for empathy to help better understand their baby.

3. After Fyre festival failing miserably and facing a class action lawsuit of $100 million, the company actually threatened legal action against attendees for tweeting negative comments about it.

4. A toilet cleaner in the Netherlands was advertised using the slogan "We, the people at Toilet Duck, recommend Toilet Duck." The slogan is still being used as today a general saying to dispute the independence of an expert when his statements align with his self-interest.

5. 25% of Spongebob Squarepants viewers are adults with no children.

George Lucas was fined $250,000 and "The Empire Strikes Back" was nearly pulled from theatres because he put screen credits at the end of the movie (which was rare) to preserve the dramatic opening sequences.

7. Olympic and professional figure skater Brian Boitano went to the South Park movie alone, had never met Stone or Parker and felt surreal when the theater reacted with appreciative laughter to the question of What Would Brian Boitano Do and the song along with it. It has since become a big part of his life that he seems to embrace it.

8. Rory McCann ('The Hound', Game of Thrones) was incredibly anti-social until he learned that fellow actors in the show's group, the 'Brotherhood Without Banners' (Thoros, Lord Beric) were musicians, and formed a band called 'Brotherhood Without Banjos' with them.

9. London based study in 2018 discovered that 70% of women are bullied by "Queen Bees" in the workplace. "Queen Bees" have been characterized as women who adopt socially aggressive behaviors such as gossiping, exclusion, alienation and stealing friends/partners due to insecurity.

10. The plagues of the Middle Ages have made around 10% of Europeans resistant to HIV. These individuals carry a genetic mutation (known as CCR5-Ä32) that prevents the virus from entering the cells of the immune system. The plagues of the Middle Ages played a part in creating these mutations.

Egypt is building a new capital city as a replacement for Cairo. The city is being developed to have a "smart traffic" system and a green space larger than New York's Central Park. They haven't picked a name yet.

12. The song Iron Man by Black Sabbath is unrelated to the Marvel character. It’s about a time traveler seeing an apocalyptic future. Back to the present, he is turned into steel by a magnetic storm rendering him mute. He warns people about the apocalypse but when they can't understand him, he causes the apocalypse.

13. Lidl The German supermarket chain has been involved in over 20 controversies, such as putting additives in meat to avoid salmonella testing, unauthorized surveillance of its employees, as well as being awarded The Big Brother award for acting almost like slave masters towards its employees.

14. While performing the first spacewalk in human history, Alexey Leonov’s spacesuit inflated so much he couldn’t get back inside his space capsule. He had to let air out of his suit while still in the vacuum of space and was barely able to fit back through the airlock.

15. The ozone layer is healing and a full recovery is expected by the year 2050-2060.

In 1971, Pink Floyd played a show in London that was so loud it killed all the fish in a lake 100 yards away.

17. Maria Sharapova's on-court grunt has been recorded at a volume of 101 decibels. That's louder than a motorcycle, a lawnmower, and a small aircraft. In fact, it's only 5 decibels less than a lion's roar.

18. Henry Ford used his personal newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, to argue that "the Jew" had caused World War 1. He placed these newspapers in every new Model T automobile.

19. The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Australians in Tasmania from the 1820s to 1832. A bounty of ₤5 was paid for every captured Aboriginal and ₤2 per child. Historians debate whether the war should be defined as an act of genocide.

20. Long-time professional baseball pitcher Satchel Paige, who debuted in the MLB at the age of 42, would sometimes instruct his infielders to sit down behind him, and then he would strike out the next three batters.

In 1952, President Truman gave the first televised tour of the White House. He explained its history, stopped in front of paintings and furniture to tell stories, and even played the Steinway piano in the East Room.

22. Ronald McDonald was required to tell children that McDonald's hamburgers grew in a magic hamburger patch and were picked whole so children weren't upset about cows dying.

23. Scientists have created a microparticle filled with oxygen that can be injected into the bloodstream, enabling users to stay alive without breathing.

24. The Southern American folk song, "Come By Here", when recorded by academics, was misheard, and was retitled, "Kumbaya".

25. Alzheimer's can't be "officially" diagnosed until after death. They have to confirm the diagnosis with an autopsy. So essentially they say a person has "dementia." The proteins involved still can't be detected without the autopsy. Today new methods can diagnose it with a 90% accuracy rate though.