35 Incredibly Wonderful Random Facts From Around the World – Part 188

Harvard student and seminarian Jonathan Daniels traveled to the south to aid the civil rights movement. He was walking with a black girl when a deputy pointed his shotgun at her. Daniels jumped in front of her, sacrificing his life so that she could live.

2. In 2006, a 14-year-old girl named Elizabeth Shoaf was abducted and held captive in an underground bunker for 10 days. To survive, she befriended her captor and outsmarted him to obtain his phone. She texted her family and police were able to trace the number to a nearby phone line.

3. During World War 2, the Japanese military used plague-infected fleas and flies, covered in cholera, to infect the population of China. They were spread using low-flying planes and with bombs containing mixtures of insects and disease. 440,000 people died as a result.

4. The last victim (David Gunby) of the 1966 University of Texas at Austin shooting died in 2001 after having to undergo dialysis for 35 years, 3 times a week, 5 hours each time. His death was ruled a homicide.

5. An Australian bird, called the rainbow lorikeet, routinely gets drunk from spring to summer. The small birds drink the fermented crimson flower nectar from the Weeping Boer-bean tree. When intoxicated these birds make loud drunken noises which many people find bothersome.

Märket is a tiny island divided by the Finnish-Swedish border. When the Finns inadvertently built a lighthouse on the wrong side of the border, the Swedes agreed to trade it for an equal spot of land on the other side, causing the border to zig-zag.

7. American singer Gwen Stefani wrote "Hollaback Girl" in response to Courtney Love calling her a cheerleader in an interview.

8. Heinz ketchup became so popular because Heinz invented a way to keep commercially produced ketchup red, which allowed him to package it in clear glass bottle and look more appealing. Before it, commercially produced ketchup was brown.

9. Astronauts returning from space report higher concern with universalism, spirituality, and references to “values orientated toward the collective good.”

10. Walt Disney wasn’t cryogenically frozen. He was cremated and his ashes interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. The rumor that he wanted to be frozen was started in 1972 by the president of the California Cryogenics Society and has since been denied by Disney’s family.

On the set of "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" the stunt double for Milla Jovovich was so badly injured that her arm was amputated. Olivia Jackson had performed stunts in several hit films including Star Wars, Mad Max, Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

12. President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated that if the atomic bomb had been ready in time, he would have ordered the military to drop them on Germany.

13. Tennis player Roger Federer has spent roughly $13.5 million on 81 pre-schools in Malawi, hoping to improve the lives of over 150,000 Malawian children by 2021.

14. Smoking areas existed in public high schools back in the 1980s. Students could smoke cigarettes on school grounds between classes in designated lounges.

15. The band Joy Division is named after the group of Jewish inmates in concentration camps, that had to fulfill sexual demands of the guards.

In 1937, a French celebrity named Angelo Hays was declared dead and buried 3 days later. 2 days after that, an insurance investigation exhumed him and found him in a coma. He made a complete recovery. He later invented a coffin complete with upholstery, a food locker, chemical toilet, library, and radio transmitter.

17. The English word “weird” originally meant 'having the power to control fate', which is why Shakespeare named his witches in Macbeth “The Weird Sisters.” Later depictions of them dressed in odd and strange ways led to the current definition of the word.

18. Since 2017, when Waymo, began testing self-driving vans in Chandler, Arizona, police have responded to dozens of calls regarding people threatening and harassing them. People have thrown rocks at Waymos, slashed a tire, chased them, tried to run them off the road and aimed a gun at one of them.

19. In 2004, nearly one-third of the adult male population of the Pitcairn islands was convicted of child sex assault, even the mayor. His son, the current mayor is also a convicted sex offender. Another mayor who served in between them was convicted for possession of child pornography.

20. Irish singer Van Morrison recorded 31 nonsense 'revenge' songs to get out of a bad contract including one where he is telling the listener they have ringworm over his out of tune guitar.

Surgeons removed 27 contact lenses from a 67-year-old woman's eye. She's quoted to have thought that the discomfort was just a part of aging. After an initial "lump" of 17 lenses was removed during preparation for cataract surgery, 10 more were discovered.

22. In 2015, a pet mouse named snuggles consumed heroin that was left on a table. It was unresponsive and barely breathing when brought into an overdose prevention site in Vancouver, British Columbia. Volunteers at the site administered Narcan and were able to save Snuggles’ life.

23. Domino's Pizza locations in Scotland have the official, registered tartans for employees who would prefer to wear a kilt.

24. An American serial killer named Nannie Doss is responsible for the deaths of 11 people between the 1920s and 1954. Also referred to as the “Giggling Granny,” it was revealed that she had killed four husbands, two children, her two sisters, her mother, a grandson, and a mother-in-law.

25. Before the Battle of Pratapgarh, Shivaji met with the enemy general Khan; prepared for treachery. He wore an armor under his clothes which saved him from being stabbed during a hug, to which he retaliated by disemboweling the general with Wolverine-style claws. The battle was won.