30 Intriguing Random Facts You Probably Had No Idea About – Part 177

Betty Robinson, who won the first Olympic 100 m for women in 1928 at just 16, was later involved in a plane crash. A man who discovered her wrongly thought she was dead and drove her to an undertaker. She awoke from her coma 7 months later, before returning to win a relay gold in 1936.

27. In 1643, Lady Mary Bankes defended a castle from over 200 attackers with only 5 men under her initial command. She would be reinforced by 80 royalists and would hold against a total of 600 men for 3 years before being betrayed and forced to surrender.

28. An old lady named Dorothea Puente ran a halfway house in Sacramento for the down and out. She murdered 7 of the residents and buried them in the front yard.

29. A 96-year old lady from Australia knitted over 1000 tiny sweaters for penguins to protect them from oil spills.

30. In 1860 an 11-year old girl named Grace Bedell wrote to Presidential Nominee Abraham Lincoln, urging him to grow a beard, as "..ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for [you] and then [you] would be President." Lincoln not only wrote back but had a full beard by his Inauguration.