50 Random Facts List #89

In 2006, a young couple lost for 3 nights in the San Jacinto mountains were rescued in part by a signal fire started from matches found in the abandoned camp of a lost hiker (John Donovan) who vanished exactly 1 year before their predicament.

2. The song "House of the Rising Sun," most famously known from the recording by 'The Animals' in 1964, is actually a much older traditional folk song with no known original artist, composer or place of origin.

3. Americans give more charitable donations than any other nation.

4. Mr. T stopped wearing his trademark gold chains in 2005 after seeing people who had lost everything due to Hurricane Katrina.

5. The movie Clue in 1985 had 3 endings that were randomly distributed to theaters. People argued about the actual ending even after they have seen two different ones.

Between the years of 1995 and 2003 the mayor of Bogotá, Columbia hired mimes to ridicule traffic violators in the streets in an effort to reduce chaotic driving. Traffic fatalities decreased 50% as a result.

7. Oregon had the only state-sponsored rock festival in United States history, Vortex I. It was an elaborate ploy to lure young people away from Portland during a planned visit by President Richard Nixon.

8. Princess Pauline von Metternich and Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg fought a topless duel with swords in August 1892 after arguing about flower arrangements. Baroness Lubinska, who had a medical degree, insisted they fight topless so clothing couldn’t get into a wound and cause sepsis.

9. Penguin prostitutes have sex with unattached males and take a pebble from the male's nest after having sex.

10. René Carmille was a punched-card computer expert and French double agent who is believed to have saved thousands of lives by sabotaging Nazi efforts to identify Jewish citizens. He eventually was found out, withstood torture, and sent to a concentration camp where he died in January of 1945.

Starbucks drains over 23.4 million litres of water down the drains of 10,000 outlets worldwide due to a policy of keeping a tap running non-stop. It is enough daily water for the entire 2 million population of Namibia in Africa.

12. After the false rumors that mixing Pop Rocks (Candy) with soda could cause death, General Foods sent letters to school principals, created open letters to parents, took out advertisements in major publications, and sent the inventor on the road to explain Pop Rocks are not dangerous.

13. M*A*S*H aired on BBC2 in the UK without a laugh track, as the creators of the show intended it to be seen, while CBS studio executives would not air the show in the US without one. Series creator Larry Gelbart later said: "I always thought it cheapened the show. The network got their way."

14. If you are ordering and paying for extra ingredients at a U.S. restaurant, you are paying on the average a 426% markup for extra sour cream, 417% for cheese on a burger, and 525% for any ingredients on a pizza. An unidentified pizza chain has a 636% mark up for meat in their "meat-laden" pizza.

15. Marvel's near-collapse led to its dominance. In the 90’s they desperately sold film rights of their characters for operating capital. A few hits (Blade and X-Men) led studios to consider that comic movies are viable. Failure by most caused many of the rights to return to Marvel, who created Marvel Studios.

In 2009, a New Zealand couple disappeared after £3.9 million ($6 million) was accidentally credited to their bank account.

17. Back when the New York subways used tokens, criminals would jam the slot and then suck out the token with their mouths. To discourage this, subway workers would put hot chili powder in the slots.

18. A low sense of control is highly associated with anxiety, depression, and virtually all mental health problems. Researchers have found that a low sense of control is one of the most stressful things that people can experience.

19. Following the 2010 Olympics, a sled dog tour company based out of Whistler (British Columbia, Canada) sought a veterinarian to euthanize 56 dogs because of a downturn in business. When the vet refused to kill healthy animals, an employee named Robert Fawcett shot them “execution-style” or slit their throats.

20. Modern studies do not show any association between saturated fat and a higher risk of death for any reason (cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, etc.) but they do show up to a 34% increase in death associated with unsaturated industrial plant oil-based fats such as margarine.

When teens are taught that people have the potential to change their socially relevant traits over time, they tend to cope better with social stress and end up earning better grades in school.

22. New Zealand adventurer Chloe Phillips-Harris was denied access to Kazakhstan in 2016 under the guise that New Zealand did not exist because the map in the detention room did not include it.

23. There is a mysterious "hum" in parts of the world that only certain members of the population can hear.

24. Skyscrapers are designed to last at least 500 years on average and are engineered to withstand catastrophic weather events occurring once every 50 years.

25. Because in 1971, 15% of American soldiers in Vietnam were heroin addicts, the government started operation Golden Flow which required soldiers to pass a drug test in order to return home.