36 Really Powerful Random Facts You Need to Know in Life – Part 127

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1John Denver

John Denver

Neither American singer John Denver, nor the writers of "Take Me Home, Country Road", had ever been to West Virginia. The road that inspired the song is actually in Maryland, and the landmarks mentioned in the lyrics more aptly describe the western region of Virginia.


2. Food Network's 'Chopped' was originally supposed to be set in a mansion with the host being a butler. The butler was also to be holding a Chihuahua and when a chef was chopped, the Chihuahua was supposed to be fed the dish made by the losing contestant.


3. For every pound/kilogram of weight that someone loses, 86% of it is breathed out of the body in the form of CO2. Human body literally exhales the majority of its weight loss.


4. Before "A Hard Day's Night" was released in America, a United Artists executive requested to dub the voices of the Beatles with mid-Atlantic accents. McCartney angrily replied, "Look, if we can understand a f*cking cowboy talking Texan, they can understand us talking Liverpool."


5. Stan Lee had a contract awarding him 10% of the net profits of anything based on his characters. The first Spider-Man made more than $800 million in revenue, but the producers claimed it did not make any profit and Lee received nothing.


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6Belt-fed machine gun

Belt-fed machine gun

In 1917, you could order a belt-fed machine gun from a Sears catalog that said: "Machine guns are used largely by police organizations, home guards and municipalities in case of riots."


7. Evidence suggests that 'Brainstorming' is counter-productive, and produces fewer original ideas than when individuals work alone.


8. Japan's largest Yakuza group, the Yamaguchi-gumi, holds an annual Halloween party for neighborhood children in Kobe. "Not only were the decorations great and the gift bags full of tasty stuff, there were two big lines for cotton candy. And the gangsters were super nice."


9. A popular form of software debugging aptly named ‘rubber duck debugging’ exists. The name is in reference to the book “The Pragmatic Programmer”, where a programmer would debug code by explaining it, word by word, to his rubber duck.


10. Pronoia, the opposite of paranoia, is the delusion that everyone is secretly plotting your success.


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11Ghost trains

Ghost trains

There are certain rare train services running in United Kingdom that have been nicknamed ghost trains, which only see a couple of passengers every day. They only exist and serve because closing lines and stations is difficult and costly, so rail companies would rather run infrequent services than go through the cumbersome process.


12. English singer Robert Plant once donated $10,000 to KBOO, a non-profit community radio station in Portland Oregon, to never play "Stairway to Heaven" ever again.


13. A British ex-POW named Eric Lomax was captured in 1942 by Japanese forces. Many years after the war, he tracked down the Japanese man who had tortured him, and forgave him.


14. In 1985, a private party sold about 1.5 million Apple shares which caused the Apple stock to hit a 12-year low. This helped Steve Jobs in a proposal in which Apple ousted its CEO Gil Amelio and Jobs become his replacement. It was later revealed that it was Steve Jobs who sold the 1.5 million shares (valued at over $60 billion today).


15. Attacking parachutists from an aircraft in distress is a war crime.


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16One Wilshire

One Wilshire

1/3 of all internet traffic from the U.S. to Asia passes through a single skyscraper (One Wilshire) in Downtown Los Angeles, where 260 ISPs lease space for interconnected networks.


17. Pablo Picasso demanded his mistresses to be submissive and shorter than him. He thought women were "either goddesses or doormats". Dora Maar, one of his lovers, called him "an extraordinary artist but morally worthless".


18. The Muslim majority country of Albania saved countless Jewish lives during World War 2. Under the oath of “Besa”, a uniquely Albanian code of honor, a guest in one's home must be protected at all costs, even if it means laying down your life for your guest.


19. Because almost all cheetahs were wiped out by the last ice age, modern cheetahs are all practically genetic clones of each other.


20. The iconic surf motto “Eddie would go” was inspired by Hawaiian legend and lifeguard Eddie Aikau who was famous for surfing and saving people from big waves on the north shore. When no one would Eddie would go.


21Running

Running

Running a mile only burns 105 net calories (about 7 Doritos.)


22. The CPU from the original PlayStation guided a space probe (New Horizons) to Pluto.


23. The high opera note in Bohemian Rhapsody was not sung by Freddie Mercury, but drummer Roger Taylor.


24. The Arlington Ladies are a group of volunteers that attend funeral services at Arlington National Cemetery to ensure that no Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Coast Guardsman is buried alone.


25. There is a temple named Karni Mata Temple in India where approximately 25,000 black rats live and are revered. Eating the food that has been nibbled on by the rats is considered to be a 'high honor' and few white rats among the black rats are considered especially holy.

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