50 Random Facts List #129

Opossums are great at reducing the tick population in a given area. Scientists estimate that a single opossum can kill about 5,000 ticks in a single season.

2. There is a government program in USA called “Every Kid in a Park” that gives a free year-long national park pass to every fourth-grade student that prints one out.

3. Steve Jobs in 8th grade called then CEO of HP, Bill Hewlett for parts of his project to build a frequency counter and Bill not only agreed to give him parts but also offered a job at HP, assembling frequency counters.

4. In the 1990s, the Galapagos Conservancy launched Project Isabela, an all-out war against 250,000 goats in the Galapagos Islands to save the dwindling population of Galapagos tortoises. The mission involved snipers picking goats off from helicopters. The project was a success and ended up restoring the population of the tortoises.

5. People who believe Osama Bin Laden is still alive are more likely than most to believe Osama Bin Laden was already dead before the raid. Believing a conspiracy theory makes you more likely to believe other conspiracy theories, even if they are directly contradictory.

In 1999, a 69-year-old Alaskan hunter named Gene Moe after being attacked by a 750-pound bear, stabbed it in the neck repeatedly, then punched it so hard, he broke its neck.

7. Buddy Holly & The Crickets were the first white band to play at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. They were initially mistaken for the R&B group “The Crickets.” Booked for six nights, the crowd began at first to boo at first, but by the third night the band had won them over.

8. After France surrendered in June 1940, the Royal Navy sailed down to Algeria to seize the bulk of the French navy. When the French refused to surrender control of the ships, the Royal Navy open fired, destroying the fleet and killing 1300 French sailors.

9. If humans lived long enough, they would all eventually develop cancer. This is because of inherent limits in the DNA repair mechanisms.

10. Coffee does not dehydrate you. In fact, it hydrates the body nearly the same as water.

Jurassic Park's visual effects were so groundbreaking to filmmakers that it inspired Peter Jackson to begin work on Lord of the Rings, George Lucas to start on the Star Wars prequels, and Stanley Kubrick to invest in his pet project, A.I (Artificial Intelligence).

12. In 1931, a 15-year-old girl suffering from paralysis was mistakenly injected with the blood from a pet parrot after her family physician called a nearby hospital for advice and misheard “parent's blood” as “parrot's blood.”

13. Crocodiles play by carrying flowers in their mouths and giving their smaller companions rides on their backs.

14. During their 2002 World Cup qualifying match against Australia, American Samoa team had 19 of its players out because of passport issues and the under-20 team replacements were unavailable due to school exams. As a result, they only fielded one regular player. They lost 31-0.

15. Almost any parent-child combination of eye colors can occur. The genetics of eye color are complex and has moved on from the original thought that eye color was determined by a single gene, with brown being dominant and blue recessive.

Hospitals in the United States report a 24% spike in heart attack visits due to patients getting one hour of less sleep when switching to daylight saving time.

17. An estimated one in fifty people suffer from Aphantasia, a condition in which the person’s “mind eye” is blind and they can’t picture things just by thinking about them.

18. When Peru’s national football team qualified for the 2018 World Cup, their fan celebrations were so loud that it produced enough of a seismic wave to trigger earthquake alerts in Lima, the capital city of Peru.

19. The band Boston, the album and the hit single “More Than a Feeling” were all created by one person, Tom Scholz, mixing tracks in his basement. The actual band was formed later to play the songs live.

20. An 18-year-old from the United Kingdom was arrested after attending a youth group session about dealing with anti-social behavior, as he had an anti-social behavior order banning him from congregating with 4 or more youths and the group was larger than 3.

Male menstruation was considered a normal part of growing up in 20th century Egypt, but it turned out they were actually suffering from an endemic parasitic bladder infection called blood fluke (Schistosoma) which caused bloody urine.

22. In 1934, Swiss banking secrecy laws were strengthened to encourage Jews of Central and Eastern Europe who fearful of Nazis to hide their assets in Swiss banks. After a majority of those depositors died during the Holocaust, the laws were used to wrongfully deny their heirs access to those accounts.

23. The Romans used to send each other little postcards made of a thin layer of flexible wood, written in ink and then folded in two. About 400 tablets (in fragments) have been found near where Hadrian's Wall would be built. They tell us a great deal about the nature of life on the Roman frontier.

24. The US Post office delivers mail to the people of Supai, Arizona by the only way possible, by mule.

25. Because of a treaty signed in 1795, the state of New York still gives 150 bushels of salt to the Onondaga people every spring.