50 Random Facts List #118

In 1998, Venus and Serena Williams challenged any male ranked below 200th in the world. A man ranked 203 promptly beat both of them after playing a round of golf and drinking a six pack of beer.

2. People of the Mongol empire never washed their clothes or themselves due to their belief that washing would pollute the water and anger the dragons that controlled the water cycle.

3. There was supposed to be a Pinocchio film (The Adventures of Pinocchio) released in 1936, predating Disney's Pinocchio by 4 years. It was meant to be the first Italian animated film, but for unknown reasons, the film was never completed and it is considered lost.

4. The Seminole Tribe of Florida is the only Native American group that has never officially been conquered by the US government.

5. The national animal of North Korea is the Chollima, a mythical winged horse that they made up.

In 1976, Bill Gates wrote an open letter to computer hobbyists to stop "ripping off" his software. They told him when it's easier to pay for than to duplicate, it won't be “stolen.”

7. Alexander the Great was embalmed in a coffin filled with honey.

8. Kellogg's was anti-sex and corn flakes were invented as part of an anti-masturbation crusade.

9. There was a documented experiment where someone survived an acceleration of over 46g. John Stapp actually lived on to the age of 89 but did suffer vision damage from the experiments.

10. In 1791, Battle of the Wabash, 920 US Army soldiers faced about 1,100 Native American warriors. At the end of the battle, only 21 Indians were killed whereas nearly the entire US force was wiped out, (623 killed, 258 wounded). This was 1/4 of the entire army's strength at the time.

From the 8th century up until 1978 the Pope wore an ornate bejeweled three-tiered crown solemnly placed on his head during his coronation. Modern popes have done away with the tradition.

12. Over 80% of the world's eyewear manufacturer and retailer brands are owned and operated by Luxottica Group. This is the main reason why glasses are so expensive due to monopoly.

13. Andre-Francois Raffray, a lawyer in France sought out a 90-year-old lady named Jeanne Calment agreed to give him her apartment if he paid her $500 each month for the rest of her life. She went on to become the oldest living person ever, living for another 30 years and even outliving the lawyer who by then had paid her $180,000, which was twice the value of the apartment.

14. Only two words in English contain all the vowels in order: 'Facetiously', and 'Abstemiously.'

15. The decision to ground all planes in the U.S. on September 11th was made by a man named Ben Sliney, one of the FAA's National Operations Managers. It was his first day in that position.

Georgia in USA has a set of giant stone slabs, etched with "rules" for post-apocalyptic humanity in many different languages. It can be used to chart the sun and stars, and warns against "petty laws and useless officials". No one actually knows who funded the construction of this monument.

17. In the Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne actually crawls through chocolate syrup in the sewer scene, and the tunnel where it was filmed still smells like chocolate today.

18. If the Sun was scaled down to the size of a white blood cell then the Milky Way would be the size of the continental United States.

19. In one scene, Matt Damon can be seen laughing really hard with his co-star Robin Williams, in the movie Good Will Hunting because Robin Williams had improvised the last line in the scene where he talks about his wife farting in bed.

20. According to the USA’s National Hot Dog & Sausage Council, you should not put ketchup on your hot dog after the age of 18.

Dolphins can see our skeletons and sense our heartbeats via their sonar. They have even been known to ward off sharks preying on humans.

22. In 1954, a flight Ernest Hemingway was on crash-landed in Africa. He and his companions were rescued and put in another plane, which burst into flames on the runway. Finding the door jammed, Hemingway used his head as a battering ram, butted the door twice and got out.

23. The terms "left" and "right" politics appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left.

24. In New York, a woman named Penny Brown saved a little boy’s (Kevin Stephan) life giving him CPR after being hit in the chest with a baseball bat. About 7 years later, in 2006 that very same boy saved her from choking to death giving her the Heimlich maneuver in a restaurant that he worked.

25. In 1953, after co-discovering the structure for DNA, Francis Crick stormed into The Eagle pub, interrupting people's lunch, to announce that they have "discovered the secret of life." The pub serves 'Eagle's DNA' beer to this day.