46 Surprising Random Facts That Are Worth Knowing | Random List #92

“Happy Birthday” is now in the public domain after Time Warner was sued in 2016.

2. The Sublime band made "40oz. to Freedom" by sneaking into the music department at CSU-Dominguez Hills after hours and recording all night.

3. In the 1950s, two babies were switched at birth in Japan. One family was rich and the other poor. The rich couple's biological baby was raised by a single mother and he became a truck driver and the poor couple's biological baby became a CEO of a company. The truck driver was informed of this mix up when he was 58.

4. Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson had spent a year writing the score for Darren Aronofsky's "Mother" and at some point realized that the film was better with no music at all. He convinced Darren to delete everything.

5. Codependency is characterized by sacrificing one’s personal needs in order to try to meet the needs of others and is associated with passivity and feelings of shame, low self-worth, or insecurity.

During the filming of Gangs of New York, they built what was essentially a full-scale complete replica of the Five Points in 1800's New York. According to the DVD commentary, George Lucas visited the set and explained that CGI effects would be much cheaper but Scorsese insisted on authenticity.

7. Any expensive watch is most likely a fake if it makes an easily audible ticking noise.

8. In 2015, Americans left 658 million vacation days unused. 222 million of those days were lost because they could not be rolled over, meaning Americans worked $61 billion dollars worth of time for free.

9. During the 80’s, drunken calls to Hanna-Barbera studios from Flintstones fans curious to know what Barney Rubble did for a living were so common that the security guard in charge of answering the phones at night would simply reply: "He worked in the quarry."

10. The last name of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" author Dale Carnegie was not originally named Carnegie. In an example of how to influence people, he changed the spelling from Carnegey to resemble the name of the more influential Andrew Carnegie.

Rubbing an injury right after it happens alleviates pain because the spinal chord preferentially forwards pressure signals (to the brain) over pain signals.

12. American singer Marvin Gaye’s real last name was “Gay”. His father was a crossdresser, making Marvin a target of bullying. It was because of this, added with rumors of Marvin's own homosexuality, that Marvin added an "e" to his last name when he became famous.

13. Buddy Bolden, the man who is credited with creating the musical innovations that would lead to the birth of Jazz, had acute schizophrenia and was permanently committed to a mental institution at the age of 30.

14. Anita Hemmings was the first African-American female to graduate (1897) from Vassar College. She did this by pretending to be Spanish, however, she was discovered the day before graduation. She still received her diploma.

15. Before Norm MacDonald's first appearance on the Tonight Show, his dressing room was crashed by Robin Williams. While in the room, he pretended to be a Jewish Tailor, talked to Norm's friend on the phone pretending to be a Chinese Restaurant employee, dressed Norm, and then left.

When the World War 1 began, it was compulsory for all British officers to have a mustache. Poignantly, that edict was revoked in October 1916, because the new recruits were so young that some could not rustle up more than a thin, mousey streak.

17. President Teddy Roosevelt was given strong coffee and puffs of the cigar as a child to 'help' with his asthma. As an adult, his coffee drinking became legendary and he drank up to 40 cups per day. His son, Theodore Jr., remarked that his father's ideal coffee cup might be "more in the nature of a bathtub".

18. When Tater Tots first hit store shelves in 1956, people did not buy them because they were very inexpensive and there was no perceived value. When the price was raised by stores, people began buying the product.

19. NPR CarTalk co-host Tom Magliozzi's gravestone has "It's not hard work that killed him" inscribed in Latin.

20. In 1981, horse meat labeled as beef was discovered at a plant that supplied hamburger and taco meat to Jack in the Box. The meat was originally from Australia, and during their checks on location, inspectors discovered other shipments destined for the US that included kangaroo meat.

California is the 6th largest economy in the world behind the USA, China, Japan, Germany, UK. It's bigger than India, France, Brazil, Italy, Russia, Canada, Spain, Australia, South Korea, Mexico.

22. The apples in the phrase "how do you like them apples" refer to World War 1 trench mortars nicknamed "toffee apples" used by the British.

23. Arnold Schuster was a private citizen who appeared on television in 1952 to discuss how he assisted the police in catching a bank robber. He was later gunned down in the same year by an unrelated mobster who saw him on TV and hated "squealers" (informants).

24. American stand-up comedian George Carlin recorded a comedy album called "I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die" 2 days before 9/11. After 9/11, he decided not to release it. It was ultimately released in December 2016.

25. Martin Lawrence is permanently banned from hosting SNL. The comedian hosted once in 1994 and performed a monologue where he criticized the vaginal hygiene of women. The rant, in which he went into detail about what he felt was a drop in feminine hygiene standards, will never be re-aired.