34 Awesome Random Facts That’ll Surprise You | Random List #153

Charlie Chaplin was criticized when he did not volunteer during the First World War. Although he registered for the U.S. draft, he received thousands of white feathers and angry letters. It was later revealed that he was rejected because he was undersized and underweight.

2. Pink Floyd is inducted into the National Association of Brick Distributors' Hall of Fame for their services to the brick industry through their 1979 album, "The Wall".

3. Before 9/11 there were only 16 people on the no-fly list. As of 2013, there were over 47,000 people on the no-fly list.

4. In 2009, British PM Gordon Brown hand-wrote a letter of condolence to a mother whose son had died in Afghanistan, in which he misspelled the son's surname. The Sun (a tabloid) wrote a scathing article criticizing his mistake. In this article, the paper misspelled the same name.

5. When it rains, people publish more negative posts on Facebook. Each negative post negatively affects one to two other people. The negative post spreads like a contagion, negatively affecting people's moods in cities without rainfall. In short, social networks magnify the synchronization of global moods.

During the entire filming of Mary Poppins, nobody, not even Julie Andrews, let Dick Van Dyke know he had the “most atrocious cockney accent in the history of cinema.”

7. The Flying Wedge was a popular football play in the early 1900's where the entire team would form a V and charge down the field, sweeping down the field like a tank. Teddy Roosevelt threatened to abolish the sport after 18 players died and 159 were badly injured during one season.

8. Plaid is not meant to describe a pattern. It was an article of clothing (blanket draped over shoulder). The pattern is named tartan.

9. The author of Forrest Gump had a deal to receive a lump sum and a cut of the film's net profits, but Paramount reported a loss and refused to pay him the cut. He settled with Paramount and they bought the rights to the sequel, which has been stuck in development for over a decade.

10. In 1900 a young clerk named E. D. Morel at a British shipping company observed the massive amounts of rubber returning from the Congo while only guns and manacles were being sent in return. He correctly deduced that these resources were being extracted from the population by force and campaigned to expose the abuses.

Michael Keaton, a longtime Pittsburgh resident, and fan of its sports teams negotiated a break in his Batman movie contract in case the Pirates made the playoffs that year. "They thought I was kidding," he said. "I wasn't."

12. Actor Jon Heder’s famous dance finale in the cultural phenomenon comedy movie "Napoleon Dynamite" was shot with a roll of about 10 minutes of film left. Heder danced three times, and the entire dance sequence in the final cut was taken from those. The film earned $46 million from a budget of $400,000.

13. Friedrich Wilhelm I, the King of Prussia had a personal army of 3000 tall men and admitted that "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers—they are my weakness"

14. George Harrison wrote his last ever letter to actor Mike Myers. In the letter, he praised the Austin Powers movies and told Mike about his Dr. Evil doll. Mike received the letter on November 29th, 2001, the date of Harrison's demise.

15. Diego, the 'unstoppable sex tortoise' is 100 years old, lives on the Galapagos archipelago and has fathered over 800 tortoises.

In 2003, Baltimore assistant attorney Jonathan Luna was found stabbed 36 times, his hands, scrotum, and throat slashed. Nevertheless, the FBI theorized that he committed suicide.

17. A grandma named Grietje Scott kept an interesting secret for over 90 years from her family. At the age of 90, she revealed that she was actually a highly decorated member of the Dutch underground during WWII and was part of an elite fighting force.

18. All Space Shuttle flights were outfitted with explosives that an Air Force officer would detonate if the Shuttle veered off course & endangered a populated area.

19. German nationalists in the 1930s created their own version of physics because real physics was too Jewish.

20. Worker ants take hundreds of 1-2 minute naps per day so that they can essentially work around the clock.

The original lightsaber prop used in Star Wars by Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker is inside the International Space Station and was flown by STS-120 in August 2007.

22. The actor of Scruff McGruff was arrested in 2011 for possession of 1000 marijuana plants, 9000 rounds of ammunition, and 27 weapons including a grenade launcher.

23. Studies have shown that 47% of adult male prisoners have a history of traumatic brain injury. Over two-thirds had their first brain injury before their first offense.

24. The original title of Saturday Night Live was "NBC's Saturday Night", due to the existence of an ABC show titled "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell". This is why the famous opening phrase is worded "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!".

25. From 1982-1983, three men in Allentown, PA competed in a radio contest in which they lived on top of a billboard in tents. Whoever stayed up longest would win a house. Due to economic pressure from the recession, none of the contestants wanted to give up, so the contest lasted almost 9 months.