50 Random Facts List #23

Bruce Willis was forced to sign a three picture deal with Disney after he pulled out of 'The Broadway Brawler', a romantic comedy about a hockey player. The three movies he made were 'Armageddon', 'The Sixth Sense', and 'The Kid.' The movies combined to gross an estimated 1.3 billion worldwide.

27. The USSR sent so many scientists and engineers to the gulag prisons that the government set up labs for them. While workers in the 'Sharashka' facilities did not have to perform hard labor like other inmates, their work was published under the names of more famous Soviet scientists.

28. Edith Head has won 8 Oscars for best costume design and was the inspiration for Edna Mode in The Incredibles.

29. While developing the 1994 hit game "Donkey Kong Country," programmers found that real-life gorillas moved too slow for a fast-paced game. Instead, Donkey Kong's movements were based off a horse's gallop.

30. Red cup plungers are not toilet plungers; they are designed for use with sinks. Real toilet plungers have an additional flap that fits in the bottom of the toilet bowl.

More than 90% of Greenland sharks are blind, due to a parasite called ' Ommatokoita elongata' that lives exclusively in the eyes of the sharks, damaging their corneas.

32. Soviet scientists have been genetically breeding a species of fox since the 1950's and have created the only known tame species of fox in the world in just over 50 years.

33. Hay Bales that are too wet have a higher chance of spontaneously combusting, and "excessive moisture is the most common cause of hay fires."

34. In the 1940s, the Idaho Fish and Game Department relocated beavers into the wilderness by dropping them out of airplanes with parachutes.

35. If a submarine is downed and there is no submarine rescue vehicle nearby, the crew put on special pressurized suits which float them to the top and act as a one-man life raft.

Snow is actually considered a mineral, along with naturally occurring ice. Water, however, is not a mineral.

37. The Slinky was conceived of in 1943 by Richard James. While working at a shipbuilding company, he watched a torsion spring fall off a table and flip end over end. His wife came up with the name Slinky after looking through the dictionary for a word that described the motion of the spring.

38. In Korea, everyone is 1 from the time they are born. And everyone gets a year older on New Year's day.

39. In 2008, Bebo the popular social network was bought from its creators by AOL for $850 million. It was then run into the ground and after 5 years the site filed for bankruptcy and was sold back to the original creators for $1 million.

40. Candy pumpkins were placed on the seat of every U.S. Senator by the candy industry in 1985 in hopes of extending U.S. daylight saving time to cover Halloween.

More than 30% of the calories and 60% of the fat in the BK Original Chicken Sandwich come from the Mayo alone.

42. Before the heart/lung machine was invented, a doctor oxygenated his patient's blood by routing it through another person. Parents often served this purpose while their children had heart surgery.

43. When Pink Floyd was designing the iconic 'Animals' album cover, the inflatable pig tied to Battersea Power Station broke free causing Heathrow Airport to cancel all their flights due to a giant flying pig over London.

44. From the 8th to the 18th century, Arab scientists experimented with marijuana for medicinal purposes and were well aware of its benefits.

45. There was a Confederate ship that circumnavigated the world attacking Union merchant ships. It did not have a single war causality and eventually surrendered in Liverpool, England after the Civil War ended.

There once existed a giant frog named Beezelbufo, or Devil Frog that was the size of a beach ball.

47. Some of the most powerful known earthquakes in the continental U.S. occurred in Missouri between December 1811 & February 1812. Multiple quakes occurred with a magnitude of 7.5 or greater shaking an area ten times larger than that affected by the magnitude 7.8 San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

48. Aurora enthusiasts in Alberta discovered a previously undocumented ribbon of light in the sky similar to the aurora borealis. They named it 'Steve' in tribute to the animated film "Over the Hedge," in woodland creatures name an unknown object "Steve" to make it appear less frightening.

49. Despite box office records being broken every year, only one film in the 21st century so far has managed to sell more than 100 million tickets domestically - Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

50. Socrates complained about the technology of writing. He said it would "create forgetfulness in the learners' souls because they will not use their memories."