50 Random Facts List #150

Before Neil deGrasse Tyson went on The Daily Show, he paid attention to how many sentences Jon Stewart usually allowed before interrupting. He picked up on the kind of phrases Stewart liked to pick up on, which is why he described astronomy using sexually suggestive language.

27. Al "Scarface" Capone got his infamous scars when he told a woman "You got a nice a*s" in front of her brother while working at a bar.

28. A Chernobyl fireman who claimed they didn't know that the Chernobyl meltdown flames were radioactive, 20 years later said "Of course we knew! If we had followed regulations, we would never have gone near the reactor. It was a moral obligation, our duty. We were like kamikaze."

29. There is a metal band called Hatebeak whose lead singer is an African grey parrot.

30. Hollywood comedy My Cousin Vinny is often praised by lawyers due to its accurate depiction of courtroom procedure, something very rare in films which portray trials. It is even used as a textbook example by law professors to demonstrate voir dire and cross-examination.

The word "Oxymoron" is actually an oxymoron, "oxy" meaning sharp and "moron" meaning dull.

32. The British king or queen has two birthdays: their real birth date and one assigned to them during the summer, to ensure better weather for the parade.

33. Irish brewer Arthur Guinness was an exceptional individual who used the money he made from brewing to help relief of the poor, abolish dueling, promote literacy, and provided his workers with a higher standard of living.

34. Fox News threatened to sue the Simpsons in order to stop them from parodying its famously anti-democratic party agenda.

35. Clint Eastwood "wore the same poncho, without ever having washed it, in all three of his 'Man with No Name' Westerns."

North Korea used to buy full-page ads in the New York Times and other popular newspapers of the West. At least 100 such ads were published from 1969-1997.

37. Children's author Roald Dahl was given a 'Viking funeral' and buried with wine, snooker cues, pencils, and a power saw.

38. In London, there is a library (Human library) where you can check-out humans as a living book and listen to their stories.

39. In 2005, a Japanese man named Tatsuya Sakai won a world pistol shooting championship even though he practiced only with Airsoft and hadn't even held a real gun until a month before the competition.

40. Clint Eastwood bought David Webb Peoples' script for The Unforgiven in 1976 and sat on it for 15 years until he was old enough to play the lead role of William Munny.

The pilot script for "Scrubs" called for a "John McGinley type" for the part of Dr. Cox. He still had to audition five times to get that role.

42. There has been a book written from the perspective of a successful sociopath/psychopath about the intricacies of the life of someone with this condition called "Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight". The book, for obvious reasons, was written under a pseudonym.

43. In Newfoundland, there is a berry called a bakeapple. The word comes from French "Baie qu'appelle?" meaning "What's this berry called?"

44. Due to changes in local gravity, a pendulum clock accurate at sea level will lose around 16 seconds per day if moved to an altitude of 4000 feet.

45. American Journalist Anderson Cooper, soon after graduating college, forged a press pass and gained entrance to Myanmar to meet with students fighting the Burmese government. He was ultimately able to sell his home-made news segments to Channel One, launching his journalism career.

There is an underwater island (Graham Bank) nearly Sicily where divers have planted a flag in for when it breaches to the surface they can claim it.

47. In North Korea, citizens are forced to choose one of 28 government-approved haircuts.

48. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt sold the rights for the first images of their twins to People and Hello! Magazines for $14 million, thereby making them the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. The money went to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

49. You can actually donate your voice to help people with speech impairments so that they can select a vocal identity of their own.

50. US ZIP Code 12345 belongs to the main corporate campus of General Electric. GE receives thousands of Santa letters each year from kids believing it would make the most sense for Santa's workshop to have 12345 as his ZIP code.