50 Random Facts List #133

Ostriches are the largest and heaviest birds in the world, they can outrun leopards, their kick is strong enough to kill a lion, male ostriches can roar like a lion and they can see as far as 2.2 miles (3.5 km).

2. Upon returning to the Earth and landing in a field, Yuri Gagarin was asked by an astonished woman if he had come from Outer Space, to which he replied: "As a matter of fact, I have!"

3. Taurine, a popular energy drink ingredient, is required in cat food products. Without it, cats will lose their fur, teeth, and eyesight.

4. Despite never having received naval training or participating in naval combat prior to the war, and constantly being outnumbered and outsupplied, Admiral Yi Sun Shin defeated 333 Japanese ships with only 13 Korean ships at the Battle of Myeongnyang in 1597.

5. In 2008, China shut down nearby factories and ordered half the cars off the road to reduce pollution during the Olympics.

In 2011, Google tied 25% of its employee bonuses to the success of Google+ and told employees to push g+ onto their family and friends.

7. There is a pastor in South Korea named Lee Jong-rak, who created a baby box that he attached to the side of his house to collect mentally handicapped or unwanted babies to prevent them from being abandoned on the side of the road and left to die.

8. Karl Urban's character in the 2012 film "Dredd" was required to never remove his helmet and to keep his face obscured. Urban had no issue with this as "if you'd grown up reading Dredd, you'd never really consider taking the helmet off."

9. The idea for YouTube, in part, was conceived when the founders couldn't find a video of Janet Jackson's breast popping out during the Super Bowl.

10. Scientists created a computer memory crystal (Superman memory crystal) that can store 360 TB of data that can last approximately a million years by using pure silica and storing the data in 5 dimensions.

Public Policy Polling conducted a poll in 2013 that found 27% of Americans thought hipsters should be assessed a special tax for being annoying.

12. Every year in ancient Athens, citizens could vote to banish any person from the city for 10 years.

13. As a 2 1/2-year-old girl, Michelle Funk fell into a creek in Salt Lake City and was submerged for 66 minutes. When rescuers arrived she didn't have a pulse and was not breathing. Three hours after that, her blood was warmed. When it reached 77ºF. She came back to life and is still living to this day.

14. Studies have shown that women in poor countries with worse health tend to be attracted more to masculine looking men, while women in rich countries prefer more feminine looking men.

15. When oxygen first developed on Earth, it wiped out nearly 99% of all life.

About 15% of snails survive digestion by birds and are found alive in their droppings, potentially leading to the spread of snail populations.

17. License plates in the Canadian Northwest Territories are shaped like polar bears.

18. When Arnold Schwarzenegger turned down the planned sequel to Commando, it was reworked to star Bruce Willis and was retitled Die Hard.

19. Table knives are rounded instead of pointed to prevent people from picking their teeth and from stabbing each other.

20. The German word Backpfeifengesicht means a face that cries out for a fist in it.

Honey badgers emit smelly, suffocating secretions from its anal glands to fumigate hives, causing bees to flee and leave their honey for the honey badger.

22. An analysis of Justin Bieber's Twitter followers found that around 50% of them are probably fake. The criteria for determining if an account was fake included whether it was used to tweet phrases such as "diet," "make money" and "work from home."

23. Cats are one of the only animals to domesticate themselves and approached humans on their own terms.

24. When bitten by caterpillars, plants send chemical SOS signals to parasitic wasps that attack the caterpillars.

25. During World War 2, a German U-boat (German submarine U-1206) sank due to a toilet malfunction.