40 Weird and Wacky Random Facts You Should Check Out – Part 93

An English Cartographer named John Spilsbury is credited with creating the first jigsaw puzzle. He cut apart wooden maps to use as educational tools to teach geography. He called it a 'dissected map'.

27. When the head of Universal Studios saw a film by a young student named Steven Spielberg, he called him in for a meeting, offered him a 7-year contract and told him, "a lot of people will stick with you in success; I’ll stick with you in failure."

28. The reason soccer lost popularity in America was primarily due to the Great Depression which caused many clubs to default and the shutdown of the American Soccer League.

29. There's a Batman miniseries called "White Knight" which reverses the roles of Batman and the Joker. The comic takes place in the world where Joker has been rehabilitated and now has to save Gotham City from the Batman.

30. Around 80% of ‘close door’ buttons on elevators don’t do anything.

The marshmallow originally came from boiling the mallow plant found in marshes. It has little in common with today’s sugary treat.

32. Tristan da Cunha is a British island in the Atlantic, about 2400 km away from the nearest continent. It is a commune where all land is communally owned and cattle numbers are restricted to discourage wealth accumulation.

33. In "Oblomov", the second novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, it takes the protagonist the first 50 pages, to get up from the bed, and move to a chair.

34. ‘Spirit In The Sky’ was written in 15 minutes after Jewish-raised Norman Greenbaum saw a host sing a gospel song on TV. He said, “Yeah, I could do that.”

35. The 'Baphomet Sigil,' also known as the pentagram with the goat in it is actually trademarked by the church of Satan.

Platypuses and Echidna do not have stomachs.

37. The total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon.

38. William Ellis was a Texas-born slave who crossed the border to slavery-free Mexico and became a millionaire. Later on, he attempted to bring African-Americans to Mexico and even served as a diplomat of the US to the King of Ethiopia.

39. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich was invented in 1901 by Julia Davis Chandler.

40. The first Boeing 747 to fly a commercial route was also the first to be hijacked, 9 months after it flew its maiden commercial flight. 7 years later, it was also one of the planes destroyed in the Tenerife Airport Disaster.