36 Stunning Random Facts No One Told You Before | Random List #260

A Latvian man named Jānis Pīnups evaded the Soviets in bunkers in the woods for the entirety of the 50-year Soviet occupation. He came out at the age of 70 when the last Soviet troops left.

2. A producer on Family Ties felt Michael J. Fox was too short for the role and tried to have him replaced saying “this isn’t the face you'll see on a lunch-box." Fox later gave him a custom-made lunch-box with the inscription "this is for you to put your crow in. Love and Kisses, Michael J. Fox.”

3. Jamie Siminoff, the inventor of the Ring Doorbell failed to secure a deal on ABC’s Shark Tank but later went on to sell his company to Amazon for $1 billion. He then later got the opportunity to guest star on the show alongside the same investors who once turned him down.

4. 96% of Americans use automatic cars while 80% of Europeans use manual.

5. In terms of long-distance running, there is no animal that can outrun a human.

Michel and Edmond Navratil were two brothers whose father kidnapped them after separating them from his wife. He tried to move them to America on the Titanic but died when the ship sank. The brothers were rescued and reunited with their mother after she saw a newspaper picture of them.

7. In 2008, Henri, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, refused to give his assent to a euthanasia bill passed by the Chamber of Deputies. In response, the Chamber amended the constitution so that bills no longer require the Duke's assent, rendering the Duke symbolic. 

8. Beluga whales can mimic human speech and have caused divers to inadvertently surface due to them mimicking commands to surface.

9. In the United States of America, only the license plates in New Mexico have the letters ‘USA’ written on them because many Americans don’t know New Mexico is part of USA.

10. The funk band Vulfpeck released a completely silent album on Spotify and asked their fans to play it on repeat while they slept. The album, called Sleepify, earned $20,000 in royalties before Spotify caught on, allowing Vulfpeck to give their fans a free tour.

Christian Bale didn't socialize with any of his American Psycho castmates, explaining: "I start laughing if I know people too well. I start laughing in the middle of scenes."

12. The neck rings worn by the women from the Kayan tribe in Myanmar don’t actually tend to stretch their neck. They just push the shoulders and the clavicles down to create the illusion of a longer neck. Removing these rings incorrectly is dangerous as it may cause death because the neck muscles of these women weaken so much that they can’t even support their own head.

13. Oil magnate J. Paul Getty, who is one of the richest men in history, was so miserly that he laundered his own shirts by hand, reused envelopes and paper, made all the calls in his home on a coin-operated telephone, and stood in line for hours for show tickets to save 50 cents.

14. Alan Rickman's signature sound was the result of a speech impediment when he could not move his lower jaw properly as a child.

15. Nike fabricated a story about the Air Jordan 1 shoes being banned by the NBA and Jordan being fined every time he wore the shoes on the court which created a tale of defiance and "brazen charisma" that came to define the Air Jordan brand.

A Peregrine falcon was once clocked at 242 mph in a dive. A trained falcon kept pace with a skydiver, and that was as fast as the skydiver could go.

17. During the Lewis & Clark expedition, Sacagawea was reunited with her brother Cameahwait, the "Great Chief" of the Lemhi Shoshones. This led to generous aid including selling horses, carrying cargo, sharing knowledge of the Bitterroot Mountains and the Columbia River, and supplying a guide.

18. Thomas Edison used to hire thugs to destroy movie sets because he felt that he owned the rights to any and all film made since he filed the first patent for the motion picture camera.

19. If a flat worm's head is cut off, it regrows its head and brain. Not only that, the new brain also contains all the memories of the old brain.

20. The only difference between a caribou and a reindeer is that caribou are wild and reindeer are domesticated.

The fourth-place through eighth-place finishers in an Olympic final event do not receive medals, but they do get paper “Olympic diplomas.”

22. Li Bai was Chinese Poet who was considered the greatest poet in Chinese literature. A good chunk of his poems is dedicated to alcohol and drunkenness due to his rampant alcoholism. Legend has it that he drowned after drunkenly trying to embrace the moon's reflection during a ferry-ride.

23. When Roman soldiers stopped the late senator Cicero, his last words were “There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly”. He then bowed to the soldiers and was decapitated.

24. Henry Ford once tried to start a colony in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest called "Fordlandia", in which the locals were forced to live a midwestern American lifestyle until they rebelled and chased their managers into the forest.

25. Swallowing pills without water can make it take longer for them to work, increase the chances of the pill to get stuck in your esophagus, and in worse scenarios make an ulcer in your esophagus mucosa.