34 Downright Awesome Random Facts You Never Knew | Random List #33

While 71% of Americans believe in hell, only half of 1% think that they are likely to end up there.

2. There are only 6 people left on the planet who can still ‘speak’ the whistled language known as sfyria.

3. Poorly designed doors (doors that aren't obvious if you push, pull, turn a handle, etc to open) are called "Norman Doors" and are named after Don Norman who writes about how it should be obvious as to how everyday items function.

4. Hollywood father-son duo Sean Connery and Harrison Ford are only 12 years apart in age.

5. Edvard Grieg, the composer of "In the Hall of the Mountain King," hated the song. He intended it to be a parody of bad music from that time and it ended up becoming iconic.

Over 50 of the largest life insurance companies in the US are being sued for not paying claims on millions of policies. In many cases, the insurers knew the client was deceased and continued collected premiums via policy loans which would cause them to lapse over time.

7. A soldier named Major Hunter Reinburg posted on Peleliu in 1944 craved ice-cream so much that he together with aircraft engineers put a can filled with milk onto the underside of each wing tip of their planes, attaching a stirring shaft to a wind-driven propeller and then taking off. They made 100 portions of ice every day.

8. The biggest cashew tree in the world named Maior cajueiro do mundo covers an area of about 80,000 square feet and produces over 60,000 fruits each year. The tree gets its size from two genetic issues, which allow branches to grow outwards instead of upwards, taking new roots when touching the ground.

9. Across all the European countries fighting in World War 2, only three national capitals were never occupied: Moscow, London, and Helsinki.

10. MIT puts almost all of its course materials online for anyone to access for free.

Motorcyclists are almost 30 times more likely to die than other motorists.

12. The current Empress of Japan, Empress Michiko is a Hibernophile and has a keen interest in Irish mythology most notably ''The Children of Lir'' and recites I See His Blood Upon The Rose by Joseph Plunkett as a party piece and even speaks passable Irish.

13. A 2005 research by the University of Miami on lethal injections in the U.S. found that the post mortem blood concentration of anesthetic (Sodium thiopental) in 43 out of 49 executed inmates were lower than that required for surgery. 21 inmates had concentrations consistent with awareness.

14. In 1919, a dog named Tang saved 92 people after their boat capsized in stormy seas. The dog jumped into the stormy seas with the boat's tow rope in his mouth and swam to shore, where the rope was used to tow the boat in.

15. The Trachtenberg speed math system can be used to multiply large numbers in your head. It was developed by a jew named Jakow Trachtenberg while being held in a Nazi concentration camp. He developed this technique as a distraction from the horrors surrounding him.

Some breakfast cereals, like Wheaties, are fortified with enough iron that individual flakes can be lifted and carried using common magnets.

17. A single Viking is said to have killed 40 Saxons at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, temporarily halting the advance of the entire Saxon army.

18. When King William II of England was 'accidentally' shot through the lung with an arrow, his body was abandoned by the nobles, found by a peasant and returned to Winchester Cathedral by farmers.

19. Chicago had a huge heat wave in 1995 that killed hundreds, and that 41 victims' bodies were never claimed. They were buried in a mass grave in Homewood, Illinois.

20. Top Gear staged breakdowns of the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Roadster, making electric cars seem unviable. Show defenders said that it was all in fun.

The US still hasn't used up all of the Purple Hearts minted in anticipation of a bloody landing of Japan in World War 2.

22. The hard blue end of an eraser wasn't designed for erasing ink. It is meant for erasing pencil from a heavier paper that would otherwise wear down the softer, pink side.

23. Apple in the 80s paid gaming magazines to downplay Mac's gaming abilities, which was better than the PC's, to project them as professional tools.

24. In the Victorian era, people used rocking bathtubs, tubs of water that could be sloshed back and forth to recreate the feel of the ocean in their homes.

25. The government of Nazi Germany memorialized the victims of European witch trials of the 16th to 18th centuries, as they thought witchcraft represented the remnant of an indigenous "Aryan" religion untainted by the Judaic influence of Christianity.