42 Incredible Random Facts That’ll Blow Your Mind | Random List #156

Many African-Americans have Irish surnames (e.g. Shaquille O'Neal) because Irish and blacks lived side by side in the ghettos of 19th century America.

2. Bert Williams was a black man and the most popular vaudeville minstrel star of his time, went to the Hotel Astor in New York, and when the bartender, trying to get rid of him, told him drinks were $50 because of his race, Williams pulled a wad of $100 bills and bought a round for the bar.

3. In Bude, United Kingdom there is an elongated tunnel providing rain shelter for customers to the local superstore (Sainsbury's). As a running joke, it has received numerous 5-star reviews and it's the #3 top thing to do in Bude, leading to some underwhelmed tourists.

4. Birds not only can see in Ultraviolet but that their feathers have patterns which can only be seen in UV. This explains why the males and females of certain species may look the same to us, but in reality, are very different in each other's eyes.

5. "The Truman Show Delusion" is a term used in psychology to describe patients who believe they are part of a staged reality. A psychiatrist reported on one patient who had traveled to New York after 9/11 to ensure the event really happened and wasn't just a plot twist in his show.

In 2013, a photographer recorded seventeen seconds of footage of an elusive night parrot—a Lazarus species that hadn't been spotted in nearly a century. A bird expert called it "the bird-watching equivalent of finding Elvis flipping burgers in an outback roadhouse."

7. The Pope cannot be an organ donor despite having a donor card, because his body belongs to the church.

8. The only university that would allow the movie Animal House to film on their campus was the University of Oregon. The Dean of the school had previously refused to allow ‘The Graduate’ to film there and didn't want to miss another opportunity so he gave them full access without reading the script.

9. Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph but never mentioned he was president. The epitaph reads: "here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."

10. Two people named Sean and Dave used nothing more than high visibility vests to gain free entry into a movie, a zoo, and a Coldplay concert.

Due to the popularity of television shows such as Criminal Minds, the FBI has an FAQ that states that no job called “profiler” exists and that “despite some popular depictions...FBI Special Agents do not get “vibes” or experience “psychic flashes” while “walking around fresh crime scenes.”

12. Ancient Egyptian's tried to domesticate cheetahs as house pets, and also tamed them to be used for hunting.

13. The female Kangaroo can produce both full-fat and low-fat milk at the same time in order to feed two joeys at different stages of development.

14. The BBFC, the UK's film censorship board, was once forced to watch a 10-hour film of paint drying on the wall before it could give it an age rating. The film was rated as a "U" (Universal) with "no material likely to offend or harm."

15. Australian artist Gotye turned down $10 million dollars in YouTube royalties for hit 'Somebody That I Used to Know'. He said 'I'm not interested in selling music and that's the reason I don't put ads on my channel.'

Ghost sheet comes from burial sheets. In old theater productions, when you wanted someone to look as if they had risen from the dead you would have them appear in their burial sheet thus representing that they were corpses.

17. During the sinking of the cruise ship MTS Oceanos, captain and crew were among the first to leave and left all passengers on board to their destiny. Entertainment staff took control and successfully evacuated and saved everyone on board.

18. The woman in the famous "Migrant Mother" photo was Florence Owens Thompson, a Cherokee woman, and widow who came from Oklahoma to California with her second husband during the Great Depression. Her 10 children all survived poverty and starvation and later bought her a house. She lived to the age of 80.

19. "Lactose-free milk" is just milk with an added enzyme that helps lactose-intolerant people digest it.

20. Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti wore a 'Star Trek' uniform in space.

Infants will stare at an attractive face longer than an unattractive one.

22. Isreali Labor Party delayed their elections in 2017 because of a Britney Spears concert. They feared that party members would rather go to a concert than find a polling station and vote.

23. Australians don't traditionally celebrate Halloween, and its increasing popularity there is often considered to be an example of encroaching American cultural imperialism, despite it being a millennia-old Celtic European holiday.

24. There are no pain receptors in the brain itself. Surgery can be done on the brain and technically the brain does not feel that pain. But the meninges (coverings around the brain), periosteum (coverings on the bones), and the scalp all have pain receptors, which is where migraines occur.

25. When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station in 2018, they found so much human excrement in its works that they had to call a hazardous-materials team.