50 Random Facts List #235

Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived president, the longest-retired president, the first president to live forty years after their inauguration, and the first to reach the age of 95 (as of February 2020).

2. The Nazis ordered 2 Auschwitz prisoners to destroy thousands of inmate mugshot photographs as the camp was evacuated in 1945. The inmates recognized the importance of that evidence and sabotaged the furnace thus saving 38,916 photos.

3. Shrek was originally given a thick Canadian accent by actor Mike Meyers. However, after the animation had begun and the dialogue almost finished, Meyers decided the character would be better portrayed with a Scottish accent. The film had to be re-animated and cost over $4 million

4. Roundabouts reduce fatalities from accidents by 72-82%. They also lower wait times and save gas.

5. The line of thinking “If I Can't Have It, Neither Can You” is called ‘Crab Mentality’ because when a crab in a bucket is trying to escape, the others will pull it down.

The Mexican government sent around 500 of its elite soldiers to be trained as commandos at Ft. Bragg in the USA, in order to better combat the rising drug violence in the country. After training, many of the soldiers returned to Mexico, only to start the brutally violent drug cartel: Los Zetas.

7. Author Robert Howard created Conan the Barbarian and invented the entire 'sword and sorcery' genre. He took care of his sickly mother his entire adult life, never married and barely dated. The day his mother finally died, he walked out to his car, grabbed a gun, and shot himself in the head.

8. Johnny Cash’s guitar player died in 1968. Cash found himself at a show where the temporary replacement, Carl Perkins, couldn’t make it. An audience member named Bob Wootton asked Cash if he could fill in for the night, and he said yes. Bob then became Cash’s guitar player for the next 29 years.

9. John Aaron, the man who is credited with saving both Apollo 12 and Apollo 13 was forced to resign years later while serving as the Chief of NASA when Texas Senator Robert Krueger blamed him for $500 million of overspending on Space Station Freedom, which later evolved into the International Space Station (ISS).

10. The popular sleep-aid Ambien has been shown to make paralyzed and brain-damaged people, who have been well past the point of recovery, spontaneously move and talk again because it can reconstruct neurons and make new connections in the brain.

The human brain remains half-awake when sleeping in a new environment for the first time.

12. A former Michelin Guide inspector said an inspector’s life is lonely, underpaid drudgery, driving around France for weeks on end, dining alone, under intense pressure to file detailed reports on strict deadlines, the guide had become lax in its standards, and that some famous chefs are “untouchables.”

13. ‘Married With Children’ never had canned laughter. They used only original laughter, applause, shouts, etc. that came from the viewers while the series was filmed in front of them. Sometimes the audience had to be shut down for the show to continue.

14. OJ Simpson has paid less than 1% of the $33.5 million civil judgment against him for the wrongful death of Ron Goldman.

15. A Russian eagle named ‘Min’ and 3 other eagles being tracked by scientists unexpectedly flew into Iran/Pakistan. The sim card which was used to track the bird then started to rack up so many out-of-network data roaming charges on SMS text transmissions that scientists had to take out a loan and ask for help on social media to pay off the phone bill.

Salvador Dali once conned Yoko Ono out of $10,000. Instead of sending her a hair from his mustache he sent her a piece of dried grass.

17. Charlie Chaplin was one of the planned assassination targets during a May 15, 1932 coup attempt by Japanese naval officers. While the prime minister was killed at home, Chaplin survived as he was at a sumo event with the prime minister's son.

18. Princess Leia’s hair in Star Wars was inspired by women of the Mexican revolution.

19. In 2015, a guide dog in New York was awarded the ASPCA’s “Dog of the Year” award for running in front of an oncoming bus to protect his blind owner and didn’t leave her side until she received medical attention even though he suffered a broken leg.

20. Pilot fish can form a sort of symbiotic relationship with sharks to the point where if their shark is caught, the pilot fish will follow the boat that took it and become distressed when it can’t find it or isn't near its “host” shark.

In 1911, Wyoming State Penitentiary All Stars was a baseball team that was made up of death row inmates who had been told that as long as they kept winning games, their executions would be delayed. Their fourth victory, by a score of 15-10, was also their last.

22. Some farmers in Bangladesh are now raising ducks instead of chicken because ducks can float during floods.

23. According to the United States Flag Code, the flag “should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.” This includes paper napkins or plates printed with the design.

24. While experimenting on a jet pump project for NASA in his bathroom in 1982, Lonnie Johnson shot a stream of water across the room and thought, “This would make a great gun.” The Super Soaker went on to make him some $73 million in royalties.⁠ ⁠

25. In Toy Story 4 instead of creating all of the individual cobwebs by hand, Pixar created AI spiders that were programmed to spin the webs wherever the cobwebs needed to be.