34 Exciting Random Facts We Bet You Never Would Have Heard – Part 274

One in three women in Europe inherited the receptor for progesterone from Neandertals—a gene variant associated with increased fertility, fewer bleedings during early pregnancy, fewer miscarriages. and birthing more children.

2. A 37-year-old opera singer named Frederick Federici died whilst performing the role of Mephistopheles in "Faust," on opening night. At the end of the opera, Mephistopheles sinks through a trapdoor in the stage, returning to hell. As Federici was lowered, he suffered a heart attack and died in minutes.

3. Many of the sports/ basketball phrases we use every day - "Slam Dunk", "Air Ball", "No Harm, No Foul", "Throw A Brick", "Garbage Time" etc, were coined by one man - Lakers announcer Chick Hearn.

4. Harold Harmsworth, the founder of The Daily Mail in the UK, openly supported fascism and regularly sent telegrams to Adolf Hitler describing him as “Adolf the great” while praising the “genius” of Mussolini.

5. Marian 'Joe' Carstairs who was born in 1900 in London dressed as a man, had tattoos, drove ambulances in World War 1 France, had affairs with Garbo & Dietrich, inherited a Standard Oil fortune, became a successful powerboat racer, employed 100s of Bahamians, died at 93, and was buried with a doll Lord Tod Wadley.

Tater tots were invented in 1953 to use up leftover slivers of cut-up potatoes.

7. Rapper Lil Wayne was kicked out of an anti-violence charity basketball game after he tried to fight a referee.

8. In Hindu astrology, someone born under the influence of Mars is said to have a "Mars defect", and such a bride will cause her husband's early death. To prevent this disaster, the bride will be married to a tree, an animal, or an object, and her subsequent marriage to a human will be a happy one.

9. After the samurai class was dismantled in Japan, some samurai became farmers. These samurai were given apple seedlings in the town of Aomori so that they could produce them. Aomori would later become Japan's apple capital.

10. The largest mass mailing in American history was the ‘Understanding AIDS’ pamphlet in 1988. 126 million pamphlets were sent out hoping to reach every household in the USA. It contained information to avoid AIDS and encouraged the reader not to fear day-to-day contact with people with AIDS.

Princess Diana was a member and patron for more than 100 charities, many of which are now supported by her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.

12. The Aztec noble class spoke in parallelisms, repeating a phrase in two different ways, and in difrasismo, words said in a metaphorical sense. Examples are "may we not die, may we not perish" and "The flower, the song" – meaning "poetry."

13. A Semordnilap (The Word Palindromes spelled backward) is a word that describes a word that spells a different word backward. Like the word "Stops" spells "Spots" backward.

14. Beaver colonies can occupy an area for 1000s of years. Lewis Henry Morgan observed and mapped beaver ponds in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the 1800s and 150 years later 75% of the original dams and ponds were still there.

15. “Knotty pine” paneling was made popular in New England homes because ship captains requested that their ship quarters be well-outfitted with knot-free pine. Shipbuilders took the leftover knotty pine to use in their own homes.

Volkswagen was sued by the Czechoslovakian car maker Tatra before World War 2 because the KdF-Wagen (the original Beetle) was so similar to the Tatra 97. Porsche was willing to settle but Hitler said he would "would settle the matter." After Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, T97 production was stopped.

17. The 1947 British partition of India was driven by fear of civil war. Yet, in haste, borders went unannounced for days after Independence Day. As a result, Hindus didn't know if they would wake up one day in Pakistan, or Muslims in India. 15 million were displaced and over a million died in the chaos.

18. In 2004, the computer worm "Slammer" almost took down the entire internet in 15 minutes. The malware was very small (404 bytes) and once it infected a server it would send millions of copies to random IP addresses. It caused over $1 billion in damages and the creator has never been identified.

19. The study that was reported in saying “cheese is just as addictive as drugs” actually found no such thing. The dietician who made the questionable claim works for an advocacy group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which pushes veganism and urges people to shun cheese.

20. Worker ants take up to 250 naps everyday, with each nap lasting just over a minute. This equates to 4 hours and 48 minutes of sleep per day.

Young Komodo dragons roll around in entrails and feces to avoid being eaten by older, cannibal Komodo Dragons.

22. In 2008, the BBC created a film trailer for a nature documentary featuring flying penguins. It was hosted by Monty Python’s Terry Jones and directed by Professor Alid Loyas, an Anagram for April Fools Day. Indeed, the trailer premiered April 1st, as an elaborate April Fools prank made using CGI.

23. The Roman punishment for the killing of parents was known as Poena cullei ('penalty of the sack') and it consisted of being sewn up in a leather sack, with an assortment of live animals including a dog, snake, monkey, and a chicken or rooster, and then being thrown into a body of water.

24. Anteaters do not produce their own stomach acid. Instead, the ants consumed are digested in the very own acid the ants carry in their bodies: Formic acid.

25. There is a subculture in Japan for tricking out and drag racing old full-size Dodge Ram Vans called “Dajiban” (literally “DodgeVan” with a Japanese accent).