50 Random Facts List #161

In English, a ‘French Exit’ is to sneak out of a party without telling anyone. In French, it’s known as ‘partir à l’anglaise’—to leave the English way.

27. NBC refused to produce a Seinfeld episode wherein the script—George Costanza got in trouble for saying he’s never seen a black person ever order a salad.

28. A shogun of Japan named Tsunayoshi Tokugawa loved dogs so much that he set laws for dogs in place such as making it a capital crime for harming a dog and saved over 50,000 dogs from the streets, placing them in kennels begrudgingly funded by citizens of the capital city of Edo.

29. Ninjas didn't wear black masks. The mask associated with ninjas is actually an amalgamation of how a thief dressed in Japan. Ninjas also didn't use shuriken (throwing stars). These were used by Samurai swordsmen.

30. Norse explorer Erik The Red who discovered Greenland, called it Greenland in spite of its ice cover, because people would be attracted to go there if it had a favorable name, and used it as a trick to lure settlers to Greenland.

British writer Virginia Woolf killed herself by filling her pockets with rocks and walking into the River Ouse.

32. In 2017, Harvard scientists managed to store a GIF animation of a galloping horse in the DNA of bacteria.

33. Dave the Slave was a 19th-century potter who would inscribe his wares with original poetry. It is believed that he made over 40,000 pieces in his lifetime.

34. Despite being a tiny country with a large population density, the Netherlands is the world's second largest agricultural exporter. 

35. Since 1951 in Israel it is required by the law that every new building will have a security room that can withstand blast and shrapnel from conventional weapons, and offer protection against chemical and biological weapons.

Upper Peninsula of Michigan (UP) is the only region in the US where Finnish Americans make up a plurality of the population. Even the local English dialect is influenced by Finnish. 

37. American supermarket chain Piggly Wiggly was the first true self-service grocery store. Before their founding on September 6, 1916, grocery stores did not allow their customers to gather their own goods. Instead, a customer would give a list of items to a clerk, who would then go through the store, gathering them.

38. A viewer of "America's Most Wanted" called to report that he'd seen the kidnapped girl named Monica Judith Bonilla who was featured. The authorities investigated and found that while she wasn't the girl featured, she had indeed been kidnapped years ago. She was then reunited with her mother Rosemary Levi.

39. The milk of the Domesticated Eland (large African antelope) can last 80 times longer than cow's milk, and Elands need much less water.

40. The cult that inspired “drink the Kool-Aid” didn’t actually drink Kool-Aid. They drank Flavor-Aid. The phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” refers to the 1978 Jonestown massacre, in which more than 900 people committed mass suicide by drinking a flavored drink mixed with Valium.

American writer Isaac Asimov died of AIDS. He contracted HIV during a blood transfusion but it was kept secret until after a decade of his passing in the early '90s because of the hostility of the general public to the disease.

42. On 12th April 1945, for their last performance before the end of WW2, the Berlin Philharmonic performed Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' - Twilight of the Gods - while the Hitler Youth distributed cyanide pills to the audience so that they could kill themselves.

43. Australian racing driver Sir Jack Brabham finished the 1959 Formula One race on foot when his car ran out of fuel with 500 yards to go. He pushed the car the rest of the way to clinch the title.

44. Jim Carrey's chipped tooth in Dumb and Dumber is genuine, the result of a childhood fight. He had the crown temporarily removed to play the role of Lloyd.

45. Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jonge was scheduled to fly on Malaysia Air flights MH17 (which was shot down over Ukraine) and MH370 (which disappeared). Both times, he changed his plans and booked a different flight.

The Skipper’s real name on Gilligan’s Island was Jonas Grumby, but it was rarely mentioned after the pilot episode.

47. Dead ants produce a chemical known as Oleic Acid that helps ants know if their buddy is dead. If you put some of this acid on a living moving ant, not only will all the ants around it be convinced that it is dead, but also that ant himself. The ant then won't object against throwing itself into ant graveyard.

48. Tigers only have a hunt success rate of about 5%. They let 19 out of 20 possible meals get away.

49. A school suspended a 9-year-old boy named Aiden Steward for pretending to be Bilbo Baggins. He brought a toy ring and told a classmate that he would make him disappear. They considered the child's action to be a threat, under the premise that no threat would be tolerated, whether real or imagined.

50. The concept of being dominantly left or right brained is a myth. Even the neuroscience community has never accepted the idea of 'left-dominant' or 'right-dominant' personality types.