33 Ludicrous Random Facts That Are Absolutely True – Part 189

Iwao Takamoto, the artist who made Scooby-Doo found desirable traits that you’d look for in a top-level show dog and drew Scooby-Doo to represent the opposite.

2. TV series Scrubs was filmed at a decommissioned hospital and people often showed up seeking medical care thinking it was a real hospital.

3. President John F. Kennedy wanted to put a man on Mars, not the Moon – but engineers told him it was 'a little bit too far'. NASA told him it would take at least 15 years before we could put a man on the Moon after a weekend of intense calculations.

4. Brian May, the lead guitarist for Queen is also an astrophysicist. He dislikes smoking so much that he prohibited smoking indoors at concerts before smoking bans became the norm. His dislike for smoking was due to his father’s heavy cigarette use.

5. Chicago's Field Museum has 10 colonies of flesh-eating beetles who live and work at the museum, cleaning animal bones for display.

The Wait Calculation suggests that we should not do interstellar travel if we can't get to our destination within 50 years because if the current civilization still can advance in propulsion system velocity, a future mission will pass the previous one and get there faster. 

7. Polaroid cameras don't have batteries. They instead have an individual battery in each cartridge to power the camera enough to take the required shots.

8. 37% of all registered Steam games have never been played. This equates to 288 million of the 781 million games registered, are left untouched.

9. Wheelchair athletes with spinal injuries will sometimes intentionally injure themselves on the lower body (e.g. break a toe), causing their bodies to respond by raising blood pressure and enhancing their performance. This practice has been banned as cheating.

10. Deep-Sea Gigantism is the tendency for species to be larger than their shallower-water relatives. Proposed explanations include scarcer resources; greater pressure; and colder temperatures.

A French weightlifter named Charles Rigoulot was jailed for hitting a Nazi guard but broke out of his jail cell by bending the bars. He allowed other prisoners to escape as well. He then beat the guard who jailed him.

12. Juul, an e-cigarette company had to ban their products within their own office, resorting employees to use a tent for smoke or Juul breaks.

13. “Big's Backyard Ultra” is a last man standing marathon, where competitors run around a 4.1667-mile loop until only one remains. The winner in 2018 ran a record-setting 68 laps (283.3356 miles) in 55 hours, 23 minutes. Everyone but the winner is designated DNF (did not finish).

14. Andrè the Giant, while drunk in New York City, fell on a man, seriously hurting him. Afterward, the NYPD sent undercover cops to tail him when he was in the city to avoid such incidents.

15. It is common for dentists to have aquariums because they reduce stress and anxiety. Aquarium Therapy has been shown to reduce stress, insomnia, and high blood pressure; achieving results that are the same, or better than, hypnosis.

On April 1st, 1993 a San Diego Radio station reported that the space shuttle Discovery had to make an emergency landing at the local airport at 8:30 am. Over 1000 people headed there to catch a glimpse, crowding the airport and causing traffic jams. It was an April Fools hoax.

17. 3 Honolulu firefighters were killed and 6 others injured after being attacked by Japanese planes while fighting fires at Hickam Field during the Pearl Harbor bombing. For their peacetime heroism, all 9 men received Purple Hearts, making them the only firefighters to be awarded as such to date.

18. Pigeons can understand when a flock leader is doing a poor job and course correct. The poor leader will also spend less time as head bird and lose flock mates due to poor performance.

19. If you hold in too many farts, the gas can be reabsorbed and then exhaled in your breath.

20. On a hill overlooking the ocean in Otsuchi Town in northeastern Japan is a phone booth known as the "Telephone of the Wind". It is connected to nowhere, but people come to "call" family members lost during the tsunami of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

Groundhogs and Woodchucks are the same animals.

22. During the bombing of Koriyama, Japan in April 1945, a white phosphorus bomb prematurely ignited in a B-29 plane. Crewman Henry Erwin picked up the bomb and threw it out the window, saving the plane and crew while suffering severe burns as a result. He was given a Medal of Honor for this action.

23. After the War of the Worlds broadcast, a similar stunt was tried in Ecuador. Once listeners realized it was a hoax they surrounded the radio station and burned it down with around 100 people still inside. Survivors leaped out of windows but 6-20 people died.

24. Helicopter 66 recovered astronauts from Apollo 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13 giving it the status "one of the most famous, or at least most iconic, helicopters in history."

25. A 14-year-old boy created an elaborate plan where he created several personas including a spy, homosexual stalker, and teenage girl, all in an attempt to convince a fellow boy to murder him.