50 Random Facts List #21

The inventor of the fidget spinner (Catherine Hettinger) surrendered the patent in 2005 because she could not afford the $400 fee to renew the patent.

2. Most Korean Pop stars are molded for years in 'boot camps' where they are charged for their housing and dance/singing lessons, before being signed under "slave contracts" that allow their agencies to control their wardrobe, diets, love lives, and their behavior.

3. Stan Lee planned on quitting the comic book industry until his wife Joan told him to write the type of characters he wanted to for his last project. The result was the Fantastic Four, which created a more humanly flawed type of superhero.

4. The Middle East is experiencing its worst drought in 900 years.

5. When Andre the Giant would go drinking in Manhatten, the NYPD would have an officer follow him around town to make sure he didn't drunkenly fall on anyone again.

Without the presence of dominant male elephants, juvenile elephants of Pilanesberg bullied rhinos and female elephants until fully grown male elephants were introduced to quell the bad behavior.

7. Warren Buffet filed his first tax return at age 13 to report income from his paper route and claimed a $35 deduction for use of his bicycle.

8. The 9/11 tragedy released a cloud of asbestos fibers over NYC. 400 tons of asbestos was in the WTC building. An estimated 410,000 people were exposed to the toxic substance. Nearly 70% of rescuers have lung problems. Experts expect cancer diagnoses to peak in 2041-four decades after the attack.

9. It is legal to drive cars while being barefoot in all 50 states.

10. The snake from Britney Spears's "I'm a Slave 4 U" VMAs performance is still alive and is a lot bigger now roughly 100 pounds and nearly 15 feet today.

Judd Apatow watched the movie "True Romance" and had the idea of Floyd, the beloved stoner character played by Brad Pitt, finally leaving the apartment and getting chased by bad guys. That idea ended up becoming "Pineapple Express".

12. In Welsh folklore, woodland fairies rode on the backs of corgis. A corgi's markings were said to come from the harnesses and saddles that were used to mount them.

13. In the late 1980s, young punk rockers in Cuba, known as “Los Frikis,” were so fed-up with the stifling life of the communist regime that they chose to inject themselves with the AIDS virus so they could live in a sanitarium and be free from constant police-state harassment.

14. In 2015, 2 men escaped paying for their £140 (€195) taxi fare by bringing a mannequin wearing a hat with them into the car. After they both got out (leaving the mannequin) they told the cabbie where their "sleeping friend" lived and that he would settle up payment at the end of the journey.

15. Queen Elizabeth II is a trained mechanic. She learned her skills in World War 2 (1945) as part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

There used to be a system of mountain beacons, much like in Lord Of The Rings, where a message could be sent hundreds of miles in less than an hour.

17. Marie Curie is the only person to ever win two Nobel Prizes in differing science fields in chemistry and physics.

18. A super massive star called Eta Carinae (7,500 light years from Earth) is nearing the end of its life. It could explode tomorrow or 1000 years from now in what is known as a supernova. The explosion will create a blast so violent that its flash will briefly outshine the entire Milky Way.

19. The sculptor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Gutzon Borglum, planned to make a secret room behind the hairline of Abraham Lincoln which was supposed to be a doorway to a chamber originally intended to hold some of America's most treasured documents but was left unfinished due to his death.

20. 35 restaurants in China were busted or under investigation for dosing food with opium poppy in order to get customers hooked.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was under Martial Law. The government fingerprinted residents, imposed blackouts & curfews, rationed food & gasoline, censored the news and media, censored all mail, and prohibited alcohol. Violations meant punishment without appeal by military tribunals.

22. Double Stuf Oreos are actually made with less than double the creme of a regular Oreo (1.86 times the cream of a regular Oreo).

23. Between 1798 and the Civil War, the U.S. Navy lost two-thirds as many officers to dueling as it did to more than 60 years of combat at sea.

24. The Declaration of Independence refers to Native Americans as "The Merciless Indian Savages".

25. Two notes can be sung by one person at the same time, also known as polyphonic overtone singing.