Random #295 – 50 Random Facts You Need to Know

In the extinct Aboriginal Mbabaram language, the word for 'dog' is 'dog'. This is purely coincidental as Mbabaram is unrelated to the English language.

27. The buzzers on "Jeopardy!" will lock contestants out for .25 seconds if they ring in before the host has finished the last syllable of the question.

28. Clint Eastwood's agent told him not to appear in, "Fistful of Dollars", calling it a 'bad step' for his career. The film launched Eastwood's path to stardom, and he later named his production company, 'Malpaso', Spanish for 'bad step.' 

29. Catherine Zeta-Jones was initially offered the lead role in Chicago, but turned it down in favor of playing Velma just so she could sing "All That Jazz."

30. In the last year of his presidency, Teddy Roosevelt rode a horse 100 miles in one day in order to prove that his new military physical standards (100 miles in three days) were not unreasonable.

Sir Anthony Hopkins was actually the second person considered for the part of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. Sean Connery was offered the role first, but turned it down because he thought the script was “disgusting.”

32. Frederick McKinley Jones was an orphaned black American who, in the 1930s when racial segregation was the norm, invented the first successful automatic refrigeration system for trucks. This led to the development of supermarkets and better combat-zone medical supply.

33. François and Joseph Blanc, two French brothers hacked a national semaphore-based telecom system in 1834 to beat the stock market. Later caught, they were not convicted because no law existed to prevent their actions.

34. In the 1930s, lots of Mexicans were repatriated from USA. Scapegoated for taking jobs away from “real” Americans during the Great Depression, state and local governments illegally forced hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens into forced exile simply for having Mexican ancestry.

35. During the filming of "Trading Places", Aykroyd's and Murphy's presence on the floor distracted the active traders and over $6 billion of trading had to be halted.

The stereotype of Native Americans saying "how" as a greeting comes from the Anglicization of the Lakota word "háu", which was used by men to greet other men. 

37. British actor Roger Moore, best known for playing James Bond, thought he looked awkward running so every scene that showed Moore running was performed by a body double. He also had hoplophobia, a fear of firearms, due to a childhood accident.

38. Waluigi wasn’t actually created by Nintendo- he was created by Camelot designer Fumihide Aoki solely for the purpose of being Wario’s duos partner/Luigi’s rival in Mario Tennis N64.

39. In 2006, 50 Cent was sued by Luther Campbell's manager for plagiarizing the lines "It's your birthday" in the song "In da Club". However, the lawsuit was dismissed because the phrase was ruled a "common, unoriginal and noncopyrightable element of the song."

40. The martial arts style portrayed by Denzel Washington in the 2010 movie "The Book of Eli" is called Kali and is the national martial arts form of the Philippines. It teaches to focus on and react to angles of attack rather than particular strikes/attacks.

During the Battle of Cannae, Hannibal encircled the entire Roman army with his troops and killed between 50,000 - 70,000 Roman soldiers while losing only 6,000 of his own men. Today this battle is often considered to be the perfect defeat of an enemy army.

42. In 1978, two punk bands, "the cramps" and "the mutants", were booked to play a live show at a mental institution in Napa, California. At another point, the mutants played at a school for the deaf, with the kids holding balloons in their hands in order to "feel the music."

43. RAM, Daft Punk's last album had such a colossal amount of recordings and musical assets that one option was to release a quadruple album. They cut no corner in the most legendary musicians, gear, or studios, going as far as recording orchestra parts for nearly all tracks on the album.

44. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a US Government-sponsored work program that provided training and income for young men and their families during the Great Depression. The program is credited for having improved morale, physical health, and employability for those who participated.

45. The largest power outage in U.S. history was caused by a software bug in an alarm system and knocked out power for most of the Northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada in 2003.

A Bible museum in Ohio saved money on its displays by using a discarded Tom Cruise wax figure to depict Jesus.

47. The original proposal for the plot of the movie Anchorman was about news anchors trying to escape a mountaintop plane crash while being stalked and killed by orangutans wielding ninja stars.

48. The release of Rise of the Skywalker on Disney+ was set to Star Wars Day (May 4th) in most places, but it was delayed by one day in the Netherlands. May 4th is the anniversary of the surrender of Nazi forces in their country, and it is their equivalent of Remembrance Day or Memorial Day.

49. The word “huh” is a universal word, with almost identical meanings across 31 languages.

50. Marilyn Monroe suffered from Endometriosis, a condition that causes severe pain due to the uterine lining growing throughout the body. She had multiple surgeries for it and couldn't carry any of her much-wanted pregnancies to term.