42 Beautiful Random Facts That’ll Make Your Life Better – Part 75

A Norwegian 10-year-old once took his 18-month-old sister on a trip to his grandparents in his parent's car. 10km down the road he ended up in a ditch and when police turned up he claimed to be a dwarf.

27. Falcons are more closely related to parrots than hawks or eagles.

28. In 1984, a group of paleontologists ate a buffalo stew that had been frozen for 30,000 years. The flavor was reported as tough with an earthy mushroom smell.

29. There is a grave (Scotia's grave) in County Kerry in Ireland that is the supposed burial ground of an Ancient Egyptian princess called Scotia, who led settlers named ‘The Scots’ (After the princess) to Scotland after whom Scotland is now supposedly named.

30. We have two nostrils because different smells are detectable at different airspeeds, so one nostril is always more open than the other to give us a wider olfactory range.

When the parents of a nine-year-old named "Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii" went to court in a custody battle, the judge was so mortified by their daughter's unusual name that he ordered them to rename her.

32. English Comedian Eddie Izzard ran 47 marathons in 52 days with only 5 weeks of training.

33. Michael Jackson had over 1,000 unreleased songs on a hard drive at home which Sony bought for $250 Million after he died.

34. Although the ancient Greeks had a myth in which Prometheus is tied to a rock and his liver is eaten every day by an eagle, we did not actually learn about "liver regeneration" (the liver's remarkable ability to regenerate itself) until the 19th century.

35. The Amish population doubles every 21 years.

The University of Oregon (duck mascot) and Oregon State University (beaver mascot) play annually for the Platypus Trophy.

37. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning while drowning than winning the Powerball.

38. A Petersburg Virginia home is built with marble tombstones from the graves of 2,200 Union soldiers buried in a Virginia cemetery.

39. The New Zealand Black Robin went from extinct to threatened after scientists found 6 males and 1 female on a rocky island isolated from introduced predatory species. Today there are hundreds of Black Robins.

40. Blackjack basic strategy (the optimal strategy for winning) was developed by four US army engineers, who called themselves the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In 2008 they were inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame.

The Clash, even at the height of their fame, had an open-door policy where anyone who wanted to could come backstage.

42. The green falling code in The Matrix is just loads of sushi recipes.