41 Brutally Honest Random Facts You Should Know | Random List #189

A Japanese warrior named Saitō Musashibō Benkei is said to have killed in excess of 300 trained soldiers by himself while defending a bridge. He was so fierce in close quarters that his enemies were forced to kill him with a volley of arrows. He died standing upright.

2. The German military manual states that a military order is not binding if it is not "of any use for service," or cannot reasonably be executed. Soldiers must not obey unconditionally, the government wrote in 2007, but carry out "an obedience which is thinking."

3. In January 2019, 5 teenagers died after a fire in escape rooms in Poland. Poland’s interior minister then ordered fire safety inspections at more than 1,000 escape room locations across the country. Previously, there was no official requirement for fire safety certificates at such locations.

4. The band Chicago was so fond of cocaine that during a tour in the 1970s, they put a fake phone booth on stage called the "Snortitorium", so that they could do lines mid-concert without going backstage.

5. Slave Bible was an abridged version of the bible that was made for slaves. In it the enslaved Israelites never left Egypt and lines that condemn slave owners were removed. Most of the Old Testament was missing, and only about half of the New Testament remained.

A chimp named Ham, originally from Cameroon was sent into space and recovered alive in a test to ensure that a human being could survive space flight and perform useful functions outside Earth's atmosphere. He died at the age of 25 and is buried at the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.

7. Steve McQueen was supposed to attend the dinner party where the Manson family murdered Sharon Tate and others, but skipped it after he "ran into a chickie and decided to go off with her instead."

8. Iwao Takamoto, the artist who made Scooby-Doo found desirable traits that you’d look for in a top-level show dog and drew Scooby-Doo to represent the opposite.

9. TV series Scrubs was filmed at a decommissioned hospital and people often showed up seeking medical care thinking it was a real hospital.

10. President John F. Kennedy wanted to put a man on Mars, not the Moon – but engineers told him it was 'a little bit too far'. NASA told him it would take at least 15 years before we could put a man on the Moon after a weekend of intense calculations.

Brian May, the lead guitarist for Queen is also an astrophysicist. He dislikes smoking so much that he prohibited smoking indoors at concerts before smoking bans became the norm. His dislike for smoking was due to his father’s heavy cigarette use.

12. Chicago's Field Museum has 10 colonies of flesh-eating beetles who live and work at the museum, cleaning animal bones for display.

13. The Wait Calculation suggests that we should not do interstellar travel if we can't get to our destination within 50 years because if the current civilization still can advance in propulsion system velocity, a future mission will pass the previous one and get there faster. 

14. Polaroid cameras don't have batteries. They instead have an individual battery in each cartridge to power the camera enough to take the required shots.

15. 37% of all registered Steam games have never been played. This equates to 288 million of the 781 million games registered, are left untouched.

Wheelchair athletes with spinal injuries will sometimes intentionally injure themselves on the lower body (e.g. break a toe), causing their bodies to respond by raising blood pressure and enhancing their performance. This practice has been banned as cheating.

17. Deep-Sea Gigantism is the tendency for species to be larger than their shallower-water relatives. Proposed explanations include scarcer resources; greater pressure; and colder temperatures.

18. A French weightlifter named Charles Rigoulot was jailed for hitting a Nazi guard but broke out of his jail cell by bending the bars. He allowed other prisoners to escape as well. He then beat the guard who jailed him.

19. Juul, an e-cigarette company had to ban their products within their own office, resorting employees to use a tent for smoke or Juul breaks.

20. “Big's Backyard Ultra” is a last man standing marathon, where competitors run around a 4.1667-mile loop until only one remains. The winner in 2018 ran a record-setting 68 laps (283.3356 miles) in 55 hours, 23 minutes. Everyone but the winner is designated DNF (did not finish).

Andrè the Giant, while drunk in New York City, fell on a man, seriously hurting him. Afterward, the NYPD sent undercover cops to tail him when he was in the city to avoid such incidents.

22. It is common for dentists to have aquariums because they reduce stress and anxiety. Aquarium Therapy has been shown to reduce stress, insomnia, and high blood pressure; achieving results that are the same, or better than, hypnosis.

23. On April 1st, 1993 a San Diego Radio station reported that the space shuttle Discovery had to make an emergency landing at the local airport at 8:30 am. Over 1000 people headed there to catch a glimpse, crowding the airport and causing traffic jams. It was an April Fools hoax.

24. 3 Honolulu firefighters were killed and 6 others injured after being attacked by Japanese planes while fighting fires at Hickam Field during the Pearl Harbor bombing. For their peacetime heroism, all 9 men received Purple Hearts, making them the only firefighters to be awarded as such to date.

25. Pigeons can understand when a flock leader is doing a poor job and course correct. The poor leader will also spend less time as head bird and lose flock mates due to poor performance.