50 Random Facts List #50

The computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor were all demonstrated for the first time in what is the called the "mother of all demos" back in 1968.

27. Oprah Winfrey was born to a single mother, wore potato sacks for clothes, was molested by her family, and gave birth to a stillborn child at 14.

28. SIM cards are self-contained computers featuring their own 30mhz CPU, 64kb of RAM, and some storage space. They are designed to run "applets" written in a stripped down form of Java.

29. In 1986, the store chain Silo advertised a stereo as costing "299 bananas", with "bananas" being a slang word for "dollars". However, 32 people legally bought the stereos with 299 banana fruits.

30. In 1980, oil drillers in Lake Peigneur, Louisiana accidentally poked a 14-inch hole in an active underground salt mine, which drained the entire 2.5 billion gallon lake. Incredibly, there were no fatalities.

Michael Keaton's real name is Michael Douglas, but he was forced to use Keaton because the other actor was already using his name. As a result, he often inadvertently plays tricks on people expecting Michael Douglas only to get Michael Keaton.

32. The Mace Kingsley Ranch was a Scientology Private School where students were forced to do hard labor and the director, Wally Hanks, would punish the students with beatings (he was caught on audio tape). The school shut down in 2002.

33. Margaret Hamilton who played the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, went on the Mr. Rogers show many years later to help show kids she was a nice woman and not just an old witch who wanted to get kids and their dogs.

34. In 1898, doctors began to suspect that smoking caused lung cancer, despite the fact that there were only 140 published cases of the then rare disease in 1900.

35. A 5-year-old William Everetz wanted to spend his allowance on kindness, so he saved his money for 5 months to buy lunch for the entire Winslow Township in New Jersey. He bought them Subway so they could 'be healthy' and the police gave him a shirt and badges, and made him an honorary officer.

In 1906, Eleanor Roosevelt bought a chicken-wire cage to hang out the window of her New York City townhouse for her first child, Anna Roosevelt Halsted, to nap in a practice known as "airing" for city dwelling children.

37. Suicide by the volcano is an actual thing with more than 1200 people killing themselves in a single volcano until a barrier was erected.

38. In 1968, Canada gave a $3,500 grant to a 35-year old man (Joachim Foikis) in Vancouver "to revive the ancient and time-honored tradition of town fool."

39. Despite it's more than half a century old, SR-71 Blackbird still holds the official Air Speed Record for a manned airbreathing jet aircraft with a speed of 2,193 mph (3,530 km/h)!

40. In a farm in Japan (Kitagawa farm), pigs are given a green tea in place of water to help with stress relief, flavor, and potential disease.

Purple butterfly stickers on incubators are for infants with a twin who passed away.

42. The guy who invented 5-hour energy (Manoj Bhargava) is a billionaire who has pledged 99% of his wealth to philanthropic solutions to help the developing world.

43. A man who spent 11 years (Shon Hopwood) in federal prison for robbing banks became well-known as a jailhouse lawyer. While in prison, he started spending time in the law library and became an accomplished United States Supreme Court practitioner by the time he left in 2008.

44. Japan banned beer vending machines from public sidewalks, not to prevent public drunkenness or sales to minors but because liquor store owners didn't like the competition.

45. Ninjas actually wore blue. Black stands out in the moonlight, and blue hides just as well in the dark.

Coca-Cola has been used effectively as a first line of treatment for phytobezoars, a trapped mass in the stomach composed of indigestible plant material which can lead to serious symptoms. 93.1% cases were resolved with Coca-cola

47. After her Super Bowl performance (Super Bowl XLIX), Katy Perry's lawyers tried (unsuccessfully) to copyright and trademark 'Left Shark'.

48. Tom DeLonge, the lead singer of Blink 182, opened a company with former top-level CIA, Lockheed, and DoD engineers. They want to gradually release protected information on the UFO phenomenon.

49. The city of Holland, Michigan, has 168 miles of tubing coiled underneath its streets, circulating hot water in order to melt any snow on the ground.

50. After a police search failed to find ex-WWE wrestler Ray Rougeau's friend who was lost in the Canadian wilderness, Ray successfully found him by flying his own plane above the woods.