34 Random Everyday Facts That We Think Would Surprise You – 19

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1Fourth graders

Fourth graders

All fourth graders in the US have free admission to national parks


2. Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain were friends. They met at a club in New York and struck up a friendship. Tesla even helped Twain with some gastrointestinal issues by having Twain stand on an oscillating platform for 90 seconds, causing him to run for the bathroom!


3. The current president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust, wrote a letter to President Eisenhower asking him to desegregate schools when she was 9-years-old.


4. In 1955, Pennsylvania set a goal of having a state park within 25 miles of every citizen.


5. Nirvana's cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World" off of their 1993 MTV Unplugged album revitalized people's interest in Bowie while also leading his younger listeners to think he was covering Nirvana, much to his annoyance.


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6Indian vulture crisis

Indian vulture crisis

Nearly all vultures in India have died due to eating corpses of animals recently treated with the drug diclofenac. In a butterfly effect, there is now a major rabies problem, with an annual cost of US$26 billion per year.


7. Between 1996 and 2001, Afghanistan had no national anthem because the Taliban had banned music altogether.


8. The directors for Guardians of the Galaxy wrote a script with actual dialogue for Vin Diesel so that he would know what inflections to give when he said his lines as "I am Groot".


9. Black musician Daryl Davis, who dissolved Maryland's KKK by befriending its members.


10. In May of 1993, a Japanese Doomsday cult (Aum Shinrikyo) situated deep in the Australian Outback reportedly set off some form of an explosion that registered as seismic activity.


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11Carl Djerassi

Carl Djerassi

A scientist named Carl Djerassi not only developed the birth control pill, but also wrote over 1200 papers on different subjects, and wrote one of the first artificial intelligence programs in 1965. A program called DENDRAL, which could automatically discover unknown forms of medications.


12. Talking to yourself improves concentration and mental recall


13. Airplane windows were once square until 3 fatal crashes in the 50's were caused by the windows. Corners are weak points(4 on a window) and stress/pressure can cause these points to crack


14. Jetlag from traveling west is associated with depression, while jet lag from traveling east is associated with mania


15. Movie trailers were originally shown after the movie, which is why they were called “trailers”


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16Carlos Dardano

Carlos Dardano

In 1988, a one-eyed pilot (Carlos Dardano) landed a Boeing 737 on a narrow grass levee after dual engine failure. No one was seriously injured. The plane was repaired at the site of the landing and remained in service until December 2016.


17. Spotify has a CPR playlist. All the songs on the playlist have a tempo of 100 to 120 bpm, which is the same tempo at which one should give chest compressions during CPR. Coincidently, two of the songs are: "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen and "Stayin' Alive" by The Bee Gees.


18. They shot "The Karate Kid" entirely on the camcorder before they filmed it for real (and it's on youtube!)


19. In 1971, a barber by the name of Merle Robbins from Reading, Ohio invented a card game called Uno. The barber invented Uno to help resolve an argument between his sons about the rules to Crazy Eight.


20. China had a civil war at the same time as the American Civil War, resulting in 30 million dead


21John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun

Upon hearing his former Vice President John C. Calhoun's talks of secession in the 1830's, President Andrew Jackson said to him, "If you secede from my nation I will secede your head from the rest of your body."


22. A road called the King's Highway was built from Boston MA to Charleston SC starting in 1650, on the order of King Charles II. Its northern section had been a Native American path for so long before that it was dug 2 feet into the ground, and it evolved into the first highways in North America.


23. When Winnie-the-Pooh author A.A. Milne was growing up, one of his public school teachers was H. G. Wells.


24. In 2007 Paul Boyd, an animator for cartoon series Ed Edd 'n' Eddy, was shot dead in public by police after suffering a breakdown from his bipolar disorder


25. For 150 years, whenever a new heir was born to the Annheiser-Busch brewing family, they would be fed five drops of Budweiser before even having their mothers milk

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