50 Random Facts List #36

It's A Wonderful Life movie was a box office flop that caused the sale of its production company. It only became popular after the copyright holders forgot to file for a renewal and TV stations could play it all day and night without paying for it.

27. Asians are more likely to die from heart failure on the 4th of the month than they are any other day of the month (7.3% death rate above expected), due to increased stress from Tetraphobia (their cultural fear of the number 4). This has been termed the Baskerville effect.

28. Seattle's first openly-gay bar, Shelly's Leg, was founded using settlement money after Shelly, a dancer, lost her leg in a glitter cannon accident at a Bastille Day parade.

29. When Barry Allen "died" in the DC Comics, Marvel introduced an amnesiac speedster with blonde hair and red suit who can't remember his name but knows it sounds like "Buried Alien". He was named the "fastest man alive" in his first appearance.

30. The final total solar eclipse will be in 600 million years time, as the moon will be around 30,400 km further from the Earth while the sun's diameter will be around 5% larger.

Idaho got its name because some guy George M. Willing proposed the name to Congress, claiming that it was Shoshone Indian for "Gem of the Mountain," when it was really just a word he made up.

32. In order to charge more for cinnamon Arab traders claimed that the sticks were used by deadly birds to build their nest. The only way to get it was to trick the bird into trying to fill its nest with heavy pieces of meat. The nest would fall and the cinnamon would be taken before the birds attacked.

33. There are classes in Japan that teach kids how to use the Soroban Abacus to develop faster skills in arithmetic. After a few years they no longer even need to use a real abacus to perform fast mental calculations since they can already visualize an image of it.

34. Early coffee shops in England were frequented by students, philosophers, and other intellectuals who engaged in a reasoned debate on the latest issues of the day. The shops charged a penny for admission and were dubbed 'Penny Universities' for the alternative form of education they offered.

35. In 1985, Switzerland accidentally bombed Liechtenstein during a drill. In 1992, they accidentally 'invaded' their neighbor while setting up an observation post. In 2007, Swiss soldiers lost their way and crossed the border. A spokesman of Liechtenstein simply said, "No problem, these things happen".

The IRS uses 56-year-old software to receive taxpayer data and dispense refunds.

37. Cob in "cobweb" is actually an old and forgotten English word for "spiders".

38. The largest art heist in history was completed in 1990 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, totaling 13 paintings worth $500M. To this day, all of the empty frames are still hanging, acting as placeholders until the pieces are returned.

39. Steel was forged prior to the 1945 atom bomb explosions is highly sought-after because all steel forged after is 'contaminated' with Cobalt-60.

40. Allen Klein, Rolling Stones manager and owner of the song "Dead Flowers," which plays at the end of "The Big Lebowski," initially wanted $150,000 for it. He was then convinced to let them use it for free when he saw the scene in which The Dude says, "I hate the f*ckin' Eagles, man!"

In 1504, Christopher Columbus scared the natives of Jamaica to continue to provision him and his hungry men by successfully predicting a total lunar eclipse. When the moon turned red, showing his God was 'inflamed with wrath", the frightened community quickly agreed to his request.

42. The German Reichstag/parliament in 1933 voted to give Hitler absolute control. One person spoke against it: Social Democratic leader Otto Wels spoke the last free words in the Reichstag: "You can take our lives & our freedom, but you cannot take our honor. We are defenseless but not honorless."

43. Europeans feared eating tomatoes for 200 years because when wealthy Europeans used pewter plates which was high in lead content, ate tomatoes off the plates. The high acidity in tomatoes would cause the fruit to leach lead from the plate, resulting in many deaths from lead poisoning.

44. Pope Francis only has one lung. It was removed when he was a teenager due to an infection.

45. Older U.S.A. presidential limousines are at the Henry Ford Museum, but after Sept. 11, 2001, the Secret Service adopted a policy to destroy the limos after they are taken out of service in order to protect their security secrets.

According to top addiction experts, "Giving your child a smartphone is like giving them a gram of cocaine".

47. Canada and USA share the longest border and most mutually beneficial international relationship in the world.

48. Praying mantises only have one ear. They are the only species of animals known to have only one ear.

49. In 2016, rhino poaching-related arrests in South Africa doubled. 680 arrests reported in 2016 compared to that of 318 in 2015.

50. The word for "the day after tomorrow" is "Overmorrow".