50 Random Facts List #236

Michael Jackson composed songs despite not playing any instruments. He would build each element of a track with his voice, so pitch-perfect that studio musicians could match chords to his singing.

27. A man named Jacob French walked across Australia, from Perth to Sydney, dressed in a Stormtrooper costume to raise money for a charity that helps cheer up hospitalized children. Over 9 months he traveled 3000 miles (5000km), lost over 26lbs (12kg), went through 7 pairs of shoes, and raised more than $100,000.

28. A 27-year old man named Raphael Samuel from India attempted to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent. He claims it is wrong to bring a child into the world because they have to put up with lifelong suffering.

29. Mozart sold the most CDs in 2016, beating out Adele, Drake, and Beyoncé, even though all of those artists had Grammy-winning hits that year.

30. An Australian World War 1 general named John Monash was so good at organizing battles and overseeing the wellbeing of his troops, that during the Battle of Hamel in 1918, he managed to arrange the delivery of hot meals to troops, even up to the front line.

Walt Disney took out multiple loans to finance Snow White, even mortgaging his own house to pay for it. At the time, insiders in the film industry thought the film would bomb and called it “Disney’s Folly”. Even Walt’s wife, Lillian, thought it would bomb.

32. When US-born giant panda twins arrived in China, they struggled with local food and language. Mei Lun & Mei Huan were confused by "have you eaten up" in Chinese but responded to English "come here". They preferred "Western fast food" biscuits instead of local "wowotou" (steamed cornbread).

33. In 1965, 6 boys from Tonga skipped school and 'borrowed' a boat. After a storm and 8 days adrift, they survived alone on a small rocky island for 15 months. They stayed friends and worked together to survive and stay fit. After their rescue, they were jailed (shortly) for stealing the boat.

34. Edward Jenner discovered vaccination by injecting pus from a milkmaid's cowpox sore into an eight-year-old boy and then attempting to infect him with smallpox six weeks later. The boy did not develop smallpox, indicating that the earlier exposure to cowpox protected him from infection.

35. During the winter of 1944 during World War 2, a Finnish soldier named Aimo Koivunen overdosed on methamphetamine, got injured by a land mine, survived for a week in a ditch by eating pine cones, skied 250 miles and was found weighing 94lb with a heart rate of 200bpm. Then he went on to live for another 45 years.

In 1925, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) sent a delegation to the USSR to ask for weapons. The Soviet delegation asked the IRA how many bishops they had killed. When the Irish said they hadn't killed any, the Soviets replied: "Ah, you people are not serious at all."

37. The term "goose" is properly used for a female bird, while "gander" refers specifically to a male. Young birds before fledging are called goslings. A group on the ground is a gaggle; when in flight, they are called a skein, a team, or a wedge; when flying close together, they are called a plump.

38. A prison named Feltham Young Offenders' Institution in the UK had to change every lock because a news program showed keys on live TV.

39. Boomerangs used for hunting are not designed for a curved return flight, but to fly straight and hit their target. Returning boomerangs are at most used to frighten birds into movement.

40. On a visit to the US, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was found on two occasions smashed on Pennsylvania Avenue by SS Agents, wearing only his underwear as he yelled for a taxi so he could get a pizza.

Häagen-Dazs was created in the 1960s by an American couple living in the Bronx. They used a Danish-sounding name because it conveyed an "aura of the old-world traditions and craftsmanship" and added an umlaut even though that punctuation doesn't exist in the Danish language to make it stand out.

42. Mad Max: Fury Road had filming moved from the Broken Hill region of NSW to Namibia after unusual rainfall caused the desert landscape to bloom with wildflowers.

43. Teff, the staple food crop of Ethiopia, is a highly nutritious "superfood" like quinoa. After US and European health food trends created a huge demand for quinoa, prices skyrocketed in Bolivia, where it is a staple food. Fearing their own food shortage, Ethiopia banned the export of teff in 2006.

44. In 1996, as a loss-leading tactic, British supermarkets competed so heavily on the price of baked beans that one store decided to sell them for MINUS 2p. This period is referred to by economists as The Bean Wars.

45. Parents who give their children bleach enemas to cure autism have shared photos of "rope worms" expelled from their children, claiming they are parasites killed by the concoction. They are actually intestinal lining.

The source of the internet myth that Mr. Rogers was a sniper: The screenwriters of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood say they discovered in their research that there was another Fred Rogers who was a sharpshooter for the Marines, and his self-promotion confused a lot of people online.

47. During the Nazi Occupation, the Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens spoke out about the deportation of the Jewish population in Greece. When threatened by the Nazis to be executed by firing squad, he sarcastically responded with a request to be hung instead as it was “tradition.”

48. Dwight Eisenhower once wrote that the five most important vehicles used to win World War 2 were the jeep, the bulldozer, the 2.5-ton truck, the DUKW amphibious car, and the C-47 transport plane, none of which are designed for combat.

49. At the age of 35, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

50. There are around 1000 people in Scandanavia/Denmark that follow the old Norse belief system, worshiping the gods Odin, Thor, Njörd, Freya, etc. and the giants as well as their ancestors. This religious revival is referred to as "Asatro" and they meet for ceremonies related to the changing seasons.