50 Random Facts List #219

Horror director Eli Roth showed the villagers in a remote native village deep in the Peruvian Amazon the controversial 1980 horror film "Cannibal Holocaust," to show them what a movie was. The villagers thought it was a comedy and the funniest thing they have ever seen.

2. English writer Brian Jacques wrote the Redwall series for the children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind in Liverpool, whereas a truck driver, he delivered milk. This is the reason for his very descriptive writing style.

3. Sponges (animal) can survive being squeezed through a fine cloth and are able to reassemble themselves afterward.

4. Researchers washed the cells off a donor's heart leaving only the connective tissue "scaffold" behind. They then added stem cells which began to grow and organize properly. This would alleviate the need for powerful anti-rejection drugs, which are very damaging. A rat heart has been successfully made.

5. Cockroaches can make group decisions. During a study when 50 cockroaches were presented with 3 shelters that could only house 40 of them, they split evenly into two groups and left one shelter empty.

Some penguins get "depressed" and walk away from the sea alone, to their deaths. No one knows why.

7. According to the US Flag Code, "The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery", and "No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform."

8. A homeless man named Richard Dorsay in Chicago lived for 3 years in the spaces between the girders of a drawbridge, complete with working TV and Playstation. He held on to the beams every time the bridge was raised and lowered to keep from falling.

9. Separating bananas slows down the ripening process.

10. Food Network’s Guy Fieri didn't register his Times Square Restaurant's internet domain, so a random person bought it and made a fake website.

Dave Grohl's hometown of Warren, Ohio honored him with gigantic 902 lb drumsticks in 2012. The massive pair broke the Guinness World Record.

12. Paul McCartney used the pseudonym “Bernard Webb” on the song, “Woman” to prove that his music would be successful no matter who took credit for it and sure enough, “Woman” went to #14 on the U.S. pop charts and #28 in the UK.

13. In the early 2000’s students at an elite Japanese university formed 'Super Free', a social club revolving around meticulously planning and regularly executing gang rape. They targeted women from out-of-town schools using cult techniques. The rape club made huge profits by making it a pyramid scheme for its members.

14. Art Scholl, the pilot who was hired to do inflight camera work for Top Gun, died while filming the scene leading to Goose's death. His plane spun through its recovery altitude, at which time he radioed "I have a problem... I have a real problem". The film is dedicated to his memory.

15. Europeans traditionally swam the breaststroke, while Native Americans swam the front crawl. When two Native Americans won an 1844 swimming competition in England, newspapers criticized their barbaric, "un-European" form. Europeans refused to use the faster front crawl for decades.

Chinese armed forces use crossbows at all unit levels to stop persons carrying explosives without risk of causing detonation.

17. People with schizophrenia are not fooled by the Charlie Chaplin Optical Illusion.

18. In 1964, a 49-year-old man named John Thomas Doyle left a puzzling suicide note before he jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge. It read "Absolutely no reason except I have a toothache."

19. California Penal Codes 837, 839, and 844 allows citizens to round up a posse Wild Wild West style and kick in the front door of someone's house to arrest them for committing a felony, whether or not a police officer is present for the arrest.

20. The entire declaration of independence of Indonesia reads: We the people of Indonesia hereby declare the independence of Indonesia. Matters which concern the transfer of power and other things will be executed by careful means and in the shortest possible time. Djarkata, 17 August 1945.

Dire wolves' extinction has been related to their inability to compete for prey against faster wolves, making them scavengers.

22. When a Ford plant pulled out of Green Island, New York the town seized it's water-powered electrical turbine by eminent domain and now it provides electric to its residents for about 40% cheaper than surrounding areas. Most residents have electric heat.

23. A man received an emergency satellite locator beacon as a present, didn't read the instructions and ended up triggering 9 false alarm Search and Rescue deployments over the course of 12 weeks.

24. A California man driving in an HOV lane claimed the Articles of Incorporation of his business, which had been placed unbuckled on the driver’s seat, constituted a person, citing a California law that defines a person as "natural persons and corporations". The courts ruled against him, citing "common sense."

25. An American schoolgirl named Samantha Smith became famous in the USSR after she wrote a letter to the newly appointed Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Yuri Andropov in 1982, and received a personal reply which included an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, which she accepted.