50 Random Facts List #83

Israel merged the front half of a damaged rare 2 seat F-15 with the back half of an obsolete retired single seat F15. When they asked Boeing for advice Boeing never responded thinking the Israeli Air Force was joking.

27. The infamous car decal of Calvin peeing on the Ford logo wasn’t sanctioned by the “Calvin and Hobbes” syndicate and when asked about it, Bill Watterson said, “he clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo.”

28. The 1971 film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" was funded by Quaker Oats to coincide with the launch of their new line of Wonka candy. It wasn't until years later that they sold the candy line to Nestle and the movie rights to Warner Bros.

29. DEFCON 5 is actually the lowest level of nuclear alert, and DEFCON 1 means imminent nuclear war.

30. John Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician, and subject of the film A Beautiful Mind, earned a Ph.D. thesis in 1950 with a 26-page dissertation. It had 2 citations, one being an article that Nash had written.

Rob McElhenney (Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) intentionally got fatter as the show progressed as a way of fighting the trend of actors on TV shows getting more attractive over time.

32. Buddy Holly's wife, Maria Elena, did not attend his funeral and has never visited his grave site. She blames herself for his passing and said that had she gone on tour with him (she stayed home as she was pregnant), Buddy would never have gotten into that airplane.

33. A 54-year-old German x-ray technician named Carl Tanzler fell in love with a dying 20-year-old Tuberculosis patient named Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. After she died, he exhumed her body and began a romantic relationship with her corpse. He kept the corpse in his broken “airship” while he tried bringing her back from the dead.

34. Despite China spanning five different time zones, the entire country uses the same time: Beijing Time (UTC+8:00). This causes sunrise to come as late as 9 am, during winter, and sunset to come as late as 9 pm, during summer, in certain parts of China.

35. If you're allergic to bananas you're likely to be allergic to latex (and vice versa) as they contain similar proteins.

The telemarketing trick that makes it seem like a telemarketer is calling from a local number is called "neighbor spoofing".

37. Magpies passed the mirror test showing that they are capable of self-awareness, the first non-mammal to do so.

38. Legendary horror director George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) got his first job in Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. "I still joke that 'Mr. Rogers Gets a Tonsillectomy' is the scariest film I’ve ever made. What I really mean is that I was scared sh*tless while I was trying to pull it off."

39. The word armadillo is Spanish for "little armored one".

40. Saying "Roger" at the end of radio conversation (to signify "r" for "received") dates back to Morse code days.

The classic rock band Boston secretly recorded their debut album in Tom Scholz' basement, while they pulled off an elaborate ruse to make the record label think they were actually recording it in a state-of-the-art west coast studio.

42. After the events of the Star Wars prequels, Jar Jar Binks becomes a street performer where he was scorned by adults but beloved by the children who came to watch his antics.

43. The 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army used a swastika on a red background as a unit symbol until the 1930s. The division wore the patch while fighting against Germany in World War 1.

44. During World War 2, “Rumor Clinics” were set up to professionally track down and dispel rumors circulating civilian and military communities. “Morale Wardens” would research these rumors and find the truth, which helped keep civil unrest out of communities when a rumor spiraled out of control.

45. A Dutch girl named Laura Dekker in 2011 became the youngest person to sail around the world solo. She did it in a year and celebrated her 16th birthday on the trip.

Industrialist Andrew Carnegie was at one point so wealthy, his fortune represented 0.6% of the entire US GDP.

47. Conspiracy Theory Rock is a banned segment from Saturday Night Live. It was part of a March 1998 "TV Funhouse" segment. It has been removed from all subsequent airings of the Saturday Night Live episode where it originally appeared because it "wasn't funny".

48. The International Space Station has been described as the most expensive single item ever constructed at $150 billion.

49. 1907 Sydney Bathing Suit Protests: Thousands of men poured onto Sydney's beaches wearing "their sisters' or grandmothers' underwear, ballet frills, curtains or tablecloths" to protest an increase in clothing regulations.

50. There is a place (Mutianyu Great Wall Toboggan) on the Great Wall of China where you can take a toboggan (slide) to get down.