34 Informative Random Facts You Had No Idea About – Part 220

In 1999, 40 million people suddenly lost power in the Philippines, igniting fears of a possible military coup, only to find out that the cooling pipes of one power grid had sucked up 50 dump truck’s worth of jellyfish which caused the outage.

2. Tivadar Kosztka, an early twentieth-century Hungarian painter, made an oddly asymmetrical artwork called The Old Fisherman. It was recently discovered that the painting contains two hidden images by mirroring just the left or the right side, which creates a symmetrical image of God or the Devil.

3. Elysis is a new smelting process for aluminum that releases oxygen instead of carbon dioxide. This new production process cuts operating costs by 15% and increases production by 15%. Apple has invested $11 million in the venture behind it and is offering technical support.

4. Primatology pioneer Dian Fossey determined to save the nearly-extinct Mountain Gorillas waged a war against poachers. She led armed patrols, burned their huts, arrested and placed bounties on poachers and convinced the locals that she practiced black magic, in order to scare them away.

5. Jack Black's older half brother, Neil Siegel, is a prolific computer scientist and engineer who has developed key systems for the US military and inventions that make GPS possible in our phones.

Only one commercial entity in America can import coca leaves with approval from the DEA, The Stepan Company. After extracting the Cocaine, the leaves are then shipped to Coca Cola to be used as an ingredient in the secret recipe thus making an imitation recipe near impossible.

7. Plastic and petroleum were originally environmental saviors because they eliminated the need to kill whales, elephants, turtles, and many other creatures for their materials.

8. Female psychopaths appear to be more prone to promiscuity than male psychopaths, and while they.prefer to date non-psychopathic men in the short-term, for long-term relationships they tend to look for a fellow psychopath.

9. A long-lost Rembrandt painting was found in a basement in New Jersey. It was initially valued by a local auction house at $800, who was unaware of its true value. But numerous art buffs recognized its true value, resulting in it selling for $870,000 ($1.1 million with the sale premium).

10. Draconian laws are named after the first Greek legislator, Draco, who meted out severe punishment for very minor offenses. These included enforced slavery for any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor and the death sentence for stealing a cabbage.

As a kid in D.C., American composer Duke Ellington loved to play baseball. Sometimes Teddy Roosevelt, who was president at the time, would ride by on his horse and stop to watch Duke and his friends play.

12. An 8 months Pregnant Mary Turner protested the lynching of her innocent husband Hayes Turner by a white mob in 1918 and threatened to have them arrested. In order to “teach her a lesson”, she and her unborn child were brutally murdered. No one was charged.

13. The Ibrahim Prize is a $5 million payout plus $200,000 per year given to African leaders who were democratically elected and left office after their term was up as part of their criteria. For 7 of the 12 years, it was offered, it was never awarded to anyone.

14. A study of Holocaust survivors found that they passed their trauma on to their children. Their children were found to have an increased likelihood of stress disorders when compared to Jewish families who were living outside of Europe during World War 2.

15. Anthony Pellicano is a Hollywood fixer who was recently released after 15 years in prison for multiple indictments. He walked out to a six-figure trust that was funded by high-level executives and Hollywood stars for his silence while he was incarcerated.

Sue Jones-Davies, who portrayed Judith in Monty Python's Life of Brian, later became Mayor of Aberystwyth. She discovered that the town had banned the Life of Brian for 30 years, and her first act was to overturn the ban and stage a screening with Terry Jones and Michael Palin.

17. The song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” from The Lion King, was originally meant to have been sung by Timon and Pumbaa. This idea was scrapped after Elton John himself intervened, saying “I don't want a big, stinky warthog singing my love song!"

18. People with depression feel better after listening to sad music.

19. Jazz on bones or "Ribs" were bootleg vinyl recordings made from old x-rays with holes burned in the middle from cigarettes. In the '50s and '60s they were a black market method for smuggling banned music into the Soviet Union such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Elvis Presley.

20. A 13-year old girl named Eliza Armstrong was purchased for £5 by journalist W.T. Stead in his attempt to expose sex slavery in Victorian London. Though his newspaper story led to tighter laws protecting women and girls, he was still arrested and jailed for abduction and procurement.

The U.S. Constitution forbids members of Congress from holding ‘any office under the United States’ concurrent with their congressional service. Legal scholars have concluded that individuals holding military commissions should be barred from serving in Congress.

22. Anoka, Minnesota was the first U.S. city to put on a Halloween celebration when they did so in 1920 to divert youngsters from Halloween pranks. It was also proclaimed "The Halloween Capital of the World" by Congress in 1937. Today, tens of thousands of people visit Anoka annually for Halloween.

23. In 1991, the Republican Party accidentally sent out a fundraiser invitation to Eazy-E. He trolled everyone by donating and attending a luncheon at the White House with George H.W. Bush.

24. After Warren Harding’s Teapot Dome scandal, the House and Senate were given subpoena power for review of tax records of any US citizen without regard to an elected or appointed position, nor subject to White House interference.

25. Simon in Simon Says (children's game) is different in other countries. In France it's Jack Says, Chinese is Teacher Says, Norway is The King Commands, and Ireland is O'Grady Says.