Random #263 – 50 Lesser Known Random Facts

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26Madame Popova

Madame Popova

In the late 1800s, a woman named Madame Popova operated a murder-for-hire service in Russia that specialized in liberating married women from their cruel husbands for a fee. She murdered over 300 victims, by using poison, her own hands, a weapon, or hiring another assassin.


27. Due to Galileo's training in Renaissance art and an understanding of chiaroscuro (a technique for shading light and dark), he quickly understood that the moon shadows he was seeing were actually mountains and craters. From his sketches, he made estimates of their heights and depths.


28. A large study found "How's my driving" stickers reduced crashes by 22%. 80% of all the drivers never received a complaint. 10% of the total got only one call ever.


29. Canadian Parliament once discussed how the country would deal with a zombie apocalypse. Then Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared that “Canada will never become a safe haven for zombies, ever.”


30. A friar is a monk without a monastery.


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311833 meteor storm

1833 meteor storm

A meteor storm in 1833 filled the sky with more than 72,000 meteors per hour.


32. California nut crime refers to the organized theft of nuts from the state, shipments of which can make up to $500,000. With California producing 80% of the world’s almonds, almond theft is particularly lucrative and has been linked to the funding of Pakistani terror groups.


33. The fictional characters Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) and Sherman McCoy (The Bonfire of the Vanities) are both employees of the same fictional company - investment firm Pierce and Pierce.


34. When Arnold Schwarzenegger was running for Governor in 2003, he was hit with an egg during a rally. Later during a speech, Arnold responded with “Now he owes me bacon.”


35. The mens' Olympic Javelin was modified in 1986 to reduce throwing distances. The longest throws were beginning to exceed the length of the field and were a danger to people in the stands. The new javelins only fly 90% as far as the previous design and all pre-1986 records have been nullified.


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36Supai Village

Supai Village

People live inside the Grand Canyon. Supai Village, the capital of the Havasupai Indian Reservation, boasts a population of a couple of hundred residents, is considered the most remote community in the continental US, and is the only place where mail is delivered and carried out by mule.


37. Owning a property doesn’t always guarantee that you own everything beneath the surface of that property such as oil, coal, or dinosaur bones. “Mineral Rights” can have a separate deed than “Surface Rights.”


38. Carbon dioxide levels commonly found in classrooms and office spaces can decrease higher cognitive function by up to 50%.


39. Sacha Baron Cohen trained with an FBI interrogator before his conversation with O.J. Simpson for "Who Is America?" in the hope that he could trick OJ into confessing


40. American currency US-Dollar is indirectly named after the Czech town Jáchymov. The town's German name is Joachimsthal and the coins produced here were called “Thaler”. The Dutch called those coins “Daler”, which then later turned into “Dollar.”


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41Tom Kenny

Tom Kenny

American actor Tom Kenny was laughing so much during the recording of the Spongebob episode 'Sailor Mouth' that they had to record him while he lay on the floor of the sound booth.


42. Gerrymandering is named as such because a governor named Elbridge Gerry, in 1812, created a partisan district in the shape of a salamander.


43. US Presidential candidates get intelligence briefings. Harry Truman began this practice in 1952 as a reaction to his own experience at the beginning of his Presidency. He knew next to nothing about the U.S.’s intelligence apparatus, including the Manhattan Project.


44. John Taylor was a charlatan who during the 18th century paraded from town to town doing bogus eye operations. He blinded hundreds of people, including famous composers Handel, and Bach.


45. There was a Breaking Bad Fan-Edit Film created by 2 dedicated fans of the series, simply titled Breaking Bad: The Movie, which condensed the entire series into a two-hour feature film.


46IVF transplant

IVF transplant

Women receiving radiation to their pelvis can have their ovaries transplanted into their forearm (heterotopic transplantation) to be retrieved in the future for IVF and maintain their fertility.


47. The constitution of Monaco is the world’s shortest constitution by word count at 3,814 words, while the longest constitution is India’s at 146,385 words.


48. Michelin is so secretive about their tires that they don't patent the rubber compound they use so it can't be copied.


49. Mike Tyson threw his first punch when he was 10 after another kid ripped the head off of his pigeon.


50. Many blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries have little transparent worms in them which eventually turn into fruit flies unless you eat them first. It is known as “Drosophila suzukii”. This particular species first appeared in the United States in 2008. They are safe to eat.

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