50 Random Facts List #27

For the first 35 years of his life, Jack Nicholson didn't know his sister was actually his mother. He didn't find out until 9 years after her death from cancer, thanks to a TIMES Journalist.

27. Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of the Holocaust memoir "Night", started the Elie Wiesel Foundation For Humanity. The charity lost nearly $16 million in the Madoff Ponzi Scheme. Wiesel and his wife also lost their entire personal life savings.

28. The Soviet Union lasted long enough to be given its own internet domain name, .su, which it received only 15 months before dissolving.

29. Bliss, the default computer wallpaper of Microsoft's Windows XP, was taken by former NatGeo photographer, Charles O'Rear while he was on his way to his girlfriend in 1996.

30. Boba Fett was originally not introduced in Episode V, but in the infamous 1978 Star Wars Holiday TV Special.

O.J. Simpson earned $3,000,000 just from signing autographs while in prison.

32. When emperor Caracalla visited Alexandria, he was greeted with satires of him and other insults. He responded by massacring the city's citizens and pillaging it afterward.

33. It's very common for people in Japan to peel grapes before eating them, due to a perception that the skins are dirty and/or bitter.

34. The Pebble Toad will throw itself down a cliff to avoid predators and will survive it by tucking in its legs and being light enough to bounce without being injured.

35. It can cost $289,500 a year just for the right to operate a single hot dog cart in Central Park.

A photon spends 40,000 years getting from the core of the Sun to the surface, but then only 8 minutes to get to Earth.

37. In 1755, Oxford University burned a taxidermied Dodo bird, unaware that it was the last complete specimen in the world.

38. There are more Chinese restaurants in the United States than McDonald's, Burger Kings, Wendy's, Domino's, and Pizza Huts put together.

39. The girl in the red coat from Schindler's List played by Oliwia Dabrowska was told by Spielberg to not watch the film until she was 18. She watched it at 11 and was traumatized. She watched it again at 18 and understood "Spielberg was right: I had to grow up to watch the film."

40. Historians believe the fate of Christianity hinged on the Battle of Tours where an Arab invasion force was defeated by a Frankish force in present-day France, preventing the spread of Islam to all of Western Europe and preserving Christianity as the religion of Europe.

After 20 months of war and a 13-month siege, the Numantians (old Spanish civilization) chose to burn their city and die free rather than live and be slaves to the Roman Empire.

42. Mongooses, honey badgers, hedgehogs, and pigs are the only mammals with a natural immunity to snake venom.

43. Jordan Peele's "Get Out" made $252.4 million at the worldwide box office, over 55 times more than its production budget of $4.5 million.

44. There are roughly 46 million people enslaved in the world today, which is actually significantly higher than the total American population at the start of the Civil War (31 million).

45. While Beats by Dre headphones sell for $200-700, experts estimate that the manufacturing cost of each headphone is as low as $16 per unit. The company is now worth over $3.2 billion and controls 27% of the entire headphones market.

Tom Delonge quit Blink-182 not because of artistic differences, but because he wanted to research the existence of aliens.

47. North Korea has its own version of the Ten Commandments called "The Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System", which consists of total and complete devotion to Kim Il-Sung.

48. The Havasupai people are a Native American tribe who have lived in the Grand Canyon for over 800 years.

49. Wasps are extremely valuable in horticulture since they prey upon almost every pest insect and are used as a natural form of pest control.

50. Breeding Hummingbirds cluster around Hawks' nests. Hummingbirds which breed closer to Hawks' nests have a higher survival rate than those who don't because the Hawks protect the Hummingbirds from animals which prey on their eggs.