50 Random Facts List #166

The Hercules beetle, despite weighing only 100 grams, can lift 8 kilograms, making it one of the proportionally strongest animals in the world.

27. In 1984, five Argentinians crossed the Atlantic. The boat was a raft of 13.6 meters long by 5.8 meters wide, built of logs, rudderless and with only one sail. The aim was to prove that 3500 years before Christopher Columbus, African sailors may have accidentally reached the shores of America.

28. When the leading emergency asthma medication Albuterol's patent expired, the patent-holding pharmaceutical companies lobbied to have their own inhalers banned based on environmental issues, allowing them to file a new patent, and continue to monopolize the market.

29. Allie Brosh's (of Hyperbole and a Half) comic on depression is considered "one of the best contemporary portraits of the condition" by psychologists.

30. The British government's advisor (David Nutt) on illegal drugs was fired in 2009 after arguing that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco.

In the fall-out with Don King, Mike Tyson discovered a fan-club that had been hidden from him for years. Among the fan letters was one from a boy dying of cancer, asking for a phone call. Mike called immediately but was a year too late. He broke down and cried.

32. Professional bowling involves different, specific oil patterns on the lanes that the bowler must figure out, as it affects the performance of the ball, adding an unperceivable level of difficulty to the sport.

33. The first British spy known as 007 was Dr. John Dee, in 1560. Queen Elizabeth called him "my eyes".

34. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen admitted to weeping after watching the montage featuring Jessie's abandonment in Toy Story 2.

35. A Catholic bishop named Robert Grosseteste described the birth of the Universe in an explosion and the crystallization of matter to form stars and planets in a set of nested spheres around Earth in 1225 A.D., about 4 centuries before Newton proposed gravity and 7 centuries before the Big Bang theory.

Harvard earns enough money on interest from its endowment that it could offer free tuition to all students and still make the profit on the interest.

37. In the late 1980s, Iraq began building the largest artillery piece (Big Babylon) in history, a gun that could have put satellites into orbit and conceivably hit any spot on the planet. However, the mysterious assassination of its Canadian designer and the first Gulf War ended the project.

38. In 5 years, a Pakistan squash player named Jahangir Khan played 555 consecutive squash matches, maintaining an unbeaten run the entire time. During this winning streak, he won the International Squash Players Association Championship, without losing a single point.

39. Leonardo da Vinci may have written backward, not for secrecy, but because he was left-handed and it was easier for him to do so.

40. Bicycles have no speed limits in the United Kingdom, but you can get charged with 'cycling furiously'.

Animators and visual effects artists for Disney's Frozen were sent to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to experience walking, running, and falling in deep snow. Both male and female personnel tried on long skirts to see how they interacted with the snow.

42. The disclaimer "No animals were harmed during the making of this film" can be put on movies, even if animals died during the production, as long as cameras weren't rolling at the time.

43. For the Guinness World Records, it is required in the guidelines of all "large food" type records that the item be fully edible, and distributed to the public for consumption, to prevent food wastage.

44. A Formula One driver named Alan Stacey was killed when a bird flew into his face during a race in 1960.

45. A convict named Billy Hunt tried to escape Port Arthur Prison (Tasmania) by disguising himself as a kangaroo. The plan worked until a couple of hungry guards decided to supplement their rations with some kangaroo meat and took him. Billy had no choice but to surrender.

The "Sailors' Handshake" is a special handshake that can detect if a potential partner has Syphilis.

47. Although Martin Luther King Jr. was only 39 at the time of his death, autopsy results revealed that he had the heart of a 60-year-old. Doctors believed this was a result of stress.

48. A Croatian man named Frane Selak, escaped death several times throughout the mid-1900s, including (but not limited to) falling out of an airplane, being hit by a bus, and swerving off a road and over a cliff to avoid an auto accident. In 2003, he purchased his first lottery ticket and won.

49. George R.R. Martin bought the first ticket to the first Comic-Con in 1964.

50. Old NYC subway cars are dumped into the Atlantic Ocean to help build an artificial reef to serve as a habitat for marine life.