48 Timeless Random Facts That’ll Make You Do A Double Take | Random List #119

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1Xiao Yun

Xiao Yun

A Chinese woman named Xiao Yun who went missing for a decade and presumed dead was found in 2015 living in an internet cafe playing games for over 10 years.


2. The human womb has oxygen levels equivalent to the top of Mount Everest, designed to keep the fetus asleep 95% of the time.


3. Dave Grohl has tried to live as frugally as possible after watching his mother have a stroke while filing her taxes.


4. Bruce Lee was absolutely convinced he would lose in a fight to Muhammad Ali. “Look at my hand,” he said. “That’s a little Chinese hand. He’d kill me."


5. In 2003, a South African woman named Alison Botha survived 46 stabs to her throat and abdomen. She used one hand to hold up her partially severed head and the other to carry her disemboweled intestines in a t-shirt until she reached help.


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6Pingelap

Pingelap

There is a small Pacific Island named Pingelap where about 10% of the population is completely colorblind. They only see shades of black/white/grey. This condition limits vision in full sunlight but supports sharper vision at night, which is useful for night fishing.


7. In 2010, the Forest Service made American actress Betty White an honorary forest ranger. White said in previous interviews that she wanted to be a forest ranger as a little girl but women were not allowed to do that then. When White received the honor, more than 1/3 of Forest Service employees were women.


8. The University of Oregon's "O" hand sign is equivalent in American Sign Language to screaming "Vagina."


9. The so-called 'Autism Epidemic' isn't an epidemic at all but rather an increase in reported incidents due to a growing awareness of autism and changes to the condition’s diagnostic criteria.


10. A woman named Mariya Oktyabrskaya whose husband died fighting the Nazis requested to be allowed to drive a tank to avenge her husband. She proved herself a skilled tank driver, died from injuries obtained in battle, and was posthumously named Hero of the Soviet Union.


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1160-pound pumpkin

60-pound pumpkin

In 1997, someone impaled a 60-pound pumpkin on the top of a spire at Cornell University in the middle of the night. It was over 170 feet off the ground. To this day, no one is really sure how this was accomplished without anyone noticing.


12. Jupiter's Giant Red Spot is expected to disappear within the next 10 to 20 years despite lasting for an estimated 400 years so far.


13. The Trevor Project, an LGTBQ youth charity, was started when HBO wanted to air a helpline number during a short film about a suicidal gay teen. Upon realizing that no such hotline existed, the filmmakers decided to create one themselves.


14. In the middle of the Great Depression, an anonymous man placed an offer in an Ohio newspaper, saying: “If you’re in trouble, write me.” Many people sent him desperate letters, needing things like shoes, a coat, mercy, food, and to save their family from despair. Many of them got back checks from someone who used a pseudonym.


15. In 2003, an F-16 patrolling in Iraq was called in to assist British special force troops ambushed by Iraqis. Because it was night-time, the pilot couldn’t drop his bombs without hitting the allied troops. So he dived and pulled his jet up, forming a sonic boom that hit the Iraqis, causing them to flee.


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16Milton Olive III

Milton Olive III

In 1965, Milton Olive III sacrificed his own life to save a group of soldiers by smothering a live grenade. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor award, becoming the first African American of the Vietnam War to do so.


17. Even though the Pied Piper of Hamelin is just a story/myth, the town of Hamelin's records state that many children disappeared from the town around the time of the story. The town chronicle even wrote in 1384 "It is 100 since our children left."


18. Singapore's crime rate is so low that many shops do not even bother to close the door when they close at night.


19. In 1938, Henry Ford was awarded Nazi Germany's Grand Cross of the German Eagle. That is the medal awarded to foreigners sympathetic to Nazism.


20. In 1959, Martin Luther King Jr. made an impromptu stop at the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation to meet with tribal leaders with whom he was "fascinated" by. This visit would later lead Dr. King to speak out against the government's treatment, both past, and present, of Native Americans.


21Wolf packs

Wolf packs

Wolf packs exist to prevent loss of killed meat to ravens and other birds. When one wolf kills a moose, 47% of it is lost to the birds while a pack of six loses only 17%. One research team witnessed a lone single wolf killing 11 moose, which weakened the notion that wolves hunt in packs because of difficulty.


22. The Tesla Model X has a “Bioweapon Defense Mode” that purifies the air within the vehicle and keeps all harmful particles out in the event of an apocalyptic event.


23. From at least the 14th century, belief in a flat Earth among the educated was almost nonexistent.


24. The canaries sent down into mines to detect gas weren't sacrificed but placed in a device to revive them when they succumbed to the dangerous gases.


25. When scientists injected mouse pups with human glial cells, within a year the human brain cells integrated and replaced over half of the natural cells. The mice developed supercharged intelligence- scoring much higher on cognitive and memory tests than their unaltered kin.

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