40 Absurd Random Facts That (Believe It or Not) Are True! – Part 210

James Earl Jones demanded David Prowse receive sole credit for portraying Darth Vader believing that his voice was 'just special effects.'

2. Tina Turner was diagnosed with kidney failure after she opted to take homeopathic remedies instead of high blood pressure medication, something she now regrets. She was considering an assisted suicide until her current husband donated a kidney to her, saving her life.

3. After arresting a man named Jack Gilbert Graham for blowing up an airplane federal agents learned that it was not in fact a federal crime to blow up an airplane. Colorado instead charged the man for the single murder of his mother, a passenger on the plane.

4. The motto, "In God We Trust," is not the original motto of the United States. During the Cold War, it was changed from "E Pluribus Unum" ("from many, one") in an effort to differentiate the United States from atheistic communism.

5. The Navajo language was once in danger of losing a lot of speakers, but the Navajo nation set up programs to teach the language in many bilingual schools. Now there are even institutes, community colleges, and technical universities with classes in the Navajo language.

Coco was originally about a Mexican-American boy coping with the death of his mother, learning to let her go and move on with his life. As the movie developed, Pixar realized that this is the opposite of what Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is about.

7. When the Six Flags Over Texas theme park opened in 1961, it had a section dedicated to the Confederacy where actors would hunt through the crowd for Union "spies" and "execute" them by firing squad, and where boys and girls could sign up to defend the South as soldiers and nurses.

8. Glitterex, one of the top glitter manufacturers in the USA cannot name their biggest client since the client doesn't want it known they use glitter. When a manager was asked if they could name them in a New York Times interview they instantly replied, "No, I absolutely know that I can’t."

9. When cockroach poisons claim to kill the whole nest, it's not because roaches share food with others. Roaches are cannibals and a single dose of poison can often be eaten many times and still be deadly.

10. In 1848, two slaves, Ellen and William Craft escaped slavery by traveling openly from Macon, Georgia to Boston. Ellen, who was light-skinned, dressed as a man with a sling to hide the fact that she could not write and passed as William's slave owner. Eventually, they fled to Liverpool, England.

Americans are now tipping more money, and for more services, than ever before. It’s a phenomenon called “Tip Creep” where social pressure encourages tipping for counter-service interactions where a tip was previously never given.

12. There is a hero in the X-Men named ForgetMeNot who's main power is that nobody is able to remember he exists.

13. The dictionary isn't as much an instruction guide to the English language, as it is a record of how people are using it. Words aren't added because they're OK to use, but because a lot of people have been using them.

14. The MIT has developed a camera that uses terahertz radiation to read closed books. This is a fascinating breakthrough that could mean reading dated and delicate documents such as historic manuscripts without touching or opening them.

15. Casualty or ‘Mercy’ dogs were vital in World War 1. They carried supplies so wounded soldiers could help themselves to supplies and tend to their own wounds, whilst other more gravely wounded soldiers would seek the company of a Mercy dog to wait with them whilst they died.

It took E. B. White 17 takes to read the death scene of Charlotte, as he recorded the audio version of his book Charlotte's Web. He is said to have walked outside, come back in, and start crying again when he got to that moment, "a grown man crying over the death of an imaginary insect."

17. In 2016, news anchor Anderson Cooper donated bulletproof vests to every K9 unit in the Virginia Police Department after finding out that a police dog was shot and killed during a shootout.

18. Pringles are technically not potato chips. They are molded out of powdered potato, wheat, and other additives.

19. Before a key battle in Alexander the Great's campaign in Persia, the Persian king offered Alexander generous terms for peace. One of Alexander's generals is said to have remarked: "I would accept the terms, if I were you". Alexander responded: "So would I, if I were you". He won.

20. In the 90s, Tina Turner left America and started living in Switzerland. She now is a Swiss citizen, lives permanently in a village in the Alps, and has stated: "I could not imagine a better place to live."

Latchkey incontinence is the phenomenon where the closer that one gets to the restroom, the more urgently one has to use the restroom.

22. A study concluded that when humans forbid dogs to eat foods, dogs are 4 times more likely to steal the food in the dark when they think humans can’t spot them. Dogs based their stealing strategies on their belief that humans can’t see in low light conditions.

23. Charles Vance Millar, a rich Canadian financier, made his will one giant practical joke. In it, he left three men who hated one another a joint lifetime tenancy in a villa, some protestant ministers $700,000 in Catholic beer stock, and anti-horse racing advocates $25,000 in a Jockey club.

24. Before the advent of reliable and affordable alarm clocks, British and Irish workers were woken up by human alarm clocks, who made sure they could get to work on time. The knocker-up used a baton to knock on clients’ doors or a long and light stick to reach windows on higher floors.

25. Walt Disney gave his housekeeper, Thelma Pearl Howard, stocks of the company during holidays and birthdays every year, instead of cash. The stocks were valued very little at the time, but by the time she was in her 70s, they were worth $9 million.