50 Random Facts List #160

A soldier in World War 2 named Vaclav Bozdech found a puppy (Antis) while on the run and planned to kill it so its barking would not alert the Germans. Unable to bring himself to do so, he took it with him, and the dog later helped find survivors of an air raid and saved Bozdech's life during the Cold War.

27. Patty Cannon was notorious for leading a gang that kidnapped free blacks and sold them back into slavery in what was known as the Reverse Underground Railroad. In 1829, she was arrested for murdering a slave owner and stealing his $15,000.

28. Because of their tendency to take the form of whatever container they are in, a study was conducted over whether cats should be classified as liquids or solids. It later won the Ig Noble Prize.

29. In 1926, due to the near eradication of predators, 50 million mice flooded into Taft, California - a 20,000 to one mouse-to-person ratio. There were so many mice, that the roadkill from mice on streets made roads too slick for cars to drive on.

30. In 1961, J.R.R. Tolkien was rejected by Nobel Prize committee because The Lord Of The Rings had 'not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality.'

After the police chief in a small New Mexico city stepped down in 2012, the only certified member of the police department was a drug-sniffing dog named Nikka.

32. The hit movie Mrs. Doubtfire was originally written as a movie spin-off for the TV show Home Improvement. Tim Allen turned down the role of 2 characters and the idea was scrapped, re-written and handed over to Robin Williams.

33. The Silkie Chicken is a breed named for its atypically fluffy plumage, which is said to feel like silk and satin. The breed has several other unusual qualities, such as black skin and bones, blue earlobes, and five toes on each foot, whereas most chickens only have four.

34. No one has ever summited K2 in winter, making it one of the greatest mountaineering firsts that is still up for grabs.

35. The cleaning up of World War 1 battlefields is still ongoing and some estimate it will take 300-700 more years to complete. However, there are also some areas which are so toxic 99% of animals and plant life cannot survive.

When Spider-man married Mary Jane in 1987, Marvel held a public wedding featuring actors dressed like the characters and Stan Lee officiated the wedding ceremony.

37. Ron Stallworth infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan back in 1978-1979. He orchestrated an entire investigation into the Colorado Springs chapter and prevented 3 cross burnings during his time undercover.

38. After getting fed up with poor driving manners, a retired schoolteacher named Yang Zhiguo in Lanzhou City in China began throwing bricks at cars which refused to yield to pedestrians. A few elderly men joined him, with onlookers providing them food and bricks. They damaged 30 cars before police stopped them.

39. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator, and father of Pokemon is a high-functioning autistic.

40. In 1935, a seaplane carrying two million rubles in cash vanished in a remote part of Siberia. The wreckage and remains of the crew were found 80 years later. There was no sign of the cash.

Certain antidepressants can actually increase the risk of suicide, especially in young adults. When a depressed person wants to commit suicide, they often lack the energy to do so. However, certain antidepressants can give the edge needed to move from plan to action.

42. Great Western train company apologized when passengers were shocked by an announcement made after a fatality on the line. "Someone couldn't be bothered to live anymore. Because of this, there are severe delays. Some of you have missed your connecting flights for the Bank Holiday."

43. There was a cat shot for treason in World War 1 because it went back and forth between the German and French trenches carrying friendly notes after the Christmas armistice.

44. If engulfed in flames in a forest fire, some fire trucks can go into 'burn over mode' when a sprinkler system keeps watering the truck (including each tire) while the firefighters hide behind heat shields.

45. A man named Gerald Mayo once sued Satan for all the obstacles in his life. The case was dismissed as the court found it did not have jurisdiction over a foreign prince.

Stirling Colgate, the heir to the Colgate toothpaste family fortune, was a physicist who proposed the use of satellites for detection of nuclear weapons testing. He went on to conduct research that helped American-Indian mathematician Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar win a Nobel Prize after realizing that the satellites were detecting supernovae.

47. President Roosevelt's dog, Fala, was so well known to Americans during his presidency that American soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge would ask each other what the president's dog was named in order to prove that they weren't Germans in disguise.

48. An Arkansas man reportedly had his kidneys fail after drinking a gallon of black tea a day. This is the equivalent to 16 cups. Black tea contains Oxalate which is known to cause kidney stones at excessive amounts. 

49. The President's desk in the Oval Office of the White House was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was carved from the HMS Resolute, a 19th century British Royal Navy ship that an American whaler recovered from the Arctic.

50. William Brewster, the leader of the Plymouth Colony in America, named his children Jonathan, Patience, Fear, Love, and Wrestling.