Expand Your Knowledge With These 44 Random Facts That Were Unearthed – Part 122

To create an accurate depiction of a black hole in the movie Interstellar, Kip Thorne, a theoretical physicist, wrote pages of theoretical equations to help the VFX team. The resulting visual effects provided Thorne with new insights, resulting in the publication of three scientific papers.

2. It's illegal in Florida to charge more to pay by credit card, but legal to offer a discount to pay by cash.

3. Japan has a popular TV show called "My First Errand", where little kids are sent to do minor tasks for the family on their own while a camera crew secretly follows them.

4. In Game Of Thrones, the Meereenese rider challenging Daenerys was actually saying a Low Valyrian translation of the French guy's insults from "Monty Python And The Holy Grail."

5. As part of a study, scientists were able to predict a person's political orientation with 95% accuracy based solely on how their brain reacts to viewing disgusting (but non-political) images.

Herbert Hoover was so fat that his doctor invented Hooverball, where "On a tennis-like court, two teams of three players throw a 6-pound medicine ball back and forth over an 8-foot net." Hoover lost 21 pounds in his term.

7. After crashing during the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna's excuse was that the "wall must have moved". Nobody believed him until he insisted it to be checked, which found that the wall had moved less than half an inch closer to the track as a result of an earlier crash.

8. The term ''Nickelodeon'' was used for early movie theaters that cost 5¢ to enter. An ''odeon'' was any building used for live entertainment in ancient Greece and Rome.

9. The Centennial Light is the world's longest-lasting light bulb, burning since 1901. It is often cited as evidence for the existence of planned obsolescence in later-produced light bulbs.

10. When Tom Green won a Golden Rasberry Award for "Freddy Got Fingered", he showed up in a white Cadillac, rolled out his own red carpet, told the crowd he wanted to win the award, then pulled out and played the harmonica until security dragged him offstage.

When Helium is cooled to a few degrees below its boiling point, it will suddenly be able to do things that other fluids can't. It can then dribble through molecule-thin cracks, climb up and over the sides of a dish, and remain motionless when its container is spun due to its frictionless flow.

12. Japan has a national exercise routine and millions of people across Japan do the same routine at the same time.

13. Strong odors, such as cologne and perfume, may cause a person's blood vessels to swell and dilate and, in turn, stimulate the nervous system in the brain associated with head pain causing headaches and migraines.

14. American financier J.P. Morgan died with an estimated fortune of “only” $80 million (approximately $1.5 billion in 2015 dollars). Upon hearing this John D. Rockefeller remarked, “and to think, he wasn’t even a rich man”.

15. Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer, Artimus Pyle survived the 1977 plane crash that killed fellow band members. After the crash, he attempted to seek help from a nearby farm only to be shot at by the farmer who lived there.

Marcella LeBeau is a World War 2 Army Nurse who served in the wake of D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. She received the French Legion of Honor, the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits. This Native American woman is still active in her community in South Dakota as of May 2018.

17. Nazi Party lawyer Wilhelm Stuckart was responsible for the Nazi regime’s program of euthanasia for “deformed newborns.” Two years after creating the laws, his own son born with Down syndrome became one of their victims.

18. Diarrhea was one of the most common causes of death in the American Civil War and that soldiers had an unwritten code of honor against shooting someone who was pooping.

19. Bridesmaids all wear matching colors because of an old tradition that dictated they not only dress like each other but like the bride herself in order to confuse evil spirits or those who wished to harm the bride.

20. After Arthur Conan Doyle ‘killed’ Sherlock in 'The Final Problem' (1893), readers got upset and relentlessly pressured him to resurrect the character. In 1901, he released 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' in a bid to pacify, and finally, in 1903 he resurrected Holmes in 'The Adventure of the Empty House.'

It's unknown where the tomb of Archimedes is located today. The last known record of his tomb was in 75 B.C., 137 years after Archimedes had died, when Cicero had found the tomb in a neglected condition and overgrown with bushes, and had the tomb cleaned up.

22. Peter Scott (who described himself as Master idiot) was a burglar whose victims include Sophia Loren and the Shah of Iran. Disturbed during a heist by a woman, he shouted: "'Everything's all right, madam,' and she went off to bed thinking I was the butler." On other occasions, he would reassuringly shout "It's only me!".

23. Slav Squatting is a learned behavior attributed to Russian prison culture to avoid sitting on the cold ground.

24. Satirical news site 'The Onion' was almost "...Sued out of existence" in 1996 by Janet Jackson. The article that prompted the lawsuit? "Dying Boy Gets Wish: To Pork Janet Jackson."

25. English musician Brian Eno wrote the Windows 95 start-up sound on a macintosh.