35 Immersive Random Facts That’ll Fill You With Awe | Random List #47

In 2010, the fastest supercomputer in the entire U.S Defense Department was primarily compromised of 1760 PlayStation 3 Consoles.

2. Writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ray Bradbury, actors Christopher Reeve and Linda Hamilton, and astronaut Alan Shepard are all descendants of Mary Bradbury, a woman tried and sentenced in the Salem Witch Trials who escaped death and lived to age 85.

3. Hugh Jackman had no idea what a wolverine was when he auditioned for the role and actually spent two weeks studying wolves instead.

4. The last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor named Ben Ferencz (age 97) says that what he witnessed in Europe still haunts him "every single day of his life."

5. Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

During a 6-year span, drug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to pharmacies throughout West Virginia. 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers during this time.

7. The gender-neutral "they" was used as the 3rd person singular in English until about 1800, when "he" and "she" became widespread to make English more like Latin.

8. London black cab drivers must first pass The Knowledge, a multi-sequence oral exam requiring memorization of all 25,000 street names, landmarks, and points-of-interest in a 6-mile radius from London center.

9. A French colony in Texas was wiped out by Karankawa Native Americans in 1688. Four surviving children of the colonists were adopted by the tribe.

10. After the Burning Man Festival, a cleaning crew combs through the grounds to clean up “MOOP” or trash as small as single hairs from wigs in order to pass a federal inspection.

The China Syndrome is a movie about a nuclear meltdown caused by a faulty sensor reading and a stuck-open pressure release valve, aired only 12 days before the 3 Mile Island Meltdown, caused by a faulty sensor reading and a stuck open pressure release valve.

12. In 1168 A.D., Fustat, the then-capital of Egypt was ordered to be burnt to the ground by its own vizier to stop it from falling into the hands of the crusaders.

13. In 1977, Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia, a poor Indian artist, rode a second-hand bicycle for 4 weeks and 3 days from New Delhi to Gothenburg in Sweden to meet his love Charlotte Von Schedvin because he didn't have enough money. They married and have 2 children.

14. In 1911, 2 teenage boys (Vandersarl brothers) with no money, no formal education or training, and no flying skills successfully fabricated, built, and flew a Bleriot aircraft. The aircraft was restored and flew again in 2012.

15. In 1982, Universal Studios sued Nintendo on the grounds that Donkey Kong was an exact copy of Universal-alleged owned King Kong. The judge ruled that Universal acted in bad faith by threatening Nintendo's licensees and it had no right over King Kong due to being in public domain.

Wilmer Valderrama purchased the Vista Cruiser used on "That '70s Show" for $500 when the series ended.

17. 90% of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere.

18. The backstory of Casper the Friendly Ghost is that he was a young adolescent who went sledding all day and died of pneumonia.

19. General Ferdinand Foch (Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War I) said of the Treaty of Versailles "This is not a peace treaty. This is an armistice for twenty years." The Second World War began 20 years and 64 days later.

20. Vincent Van Gogh didn't start to paint until the age of 28 and only started drawing at the age of 26. In the 9 years, until his death at 37, he painted over 800 paintings.

Edward Bernays manipulated the fashion industry to make green the "in" color in 1934 just to sell more Lucky Strike cigarettes. He is also the man who made Bacon & Eggs a typical American breakfast!

22. In 2010, Microsoft held a funeral to mark the death of the iPhone when it launched its own line of phones.

23. Twenty babies born in Britain since the World War 2 have been named Adolf.

24. Different dolphin species will attempt to speak a 'common language'. When Bottlenose and Guyana dolphins come together in the waters near Costa Rica they change the way they communicate and begin using an intermediate language.

25. 'Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends' is actually a song dedicated to Billie Armstrong's father who died of cancer on September 1st, 1982.