Random #300 – 50 Random Facts You Need To Know Right Now

ADHD doesn't always mean 'short attention span'. 'Hyperfocusing' on a task for hours on end is also a known symptom of ADHD, where the inability to stop is considered to be the problem.

2. Hanns Scharff, the most successful Nazi interrogator in World War 2 never physically harmed an enemy soldier, but treated them all with respect and kindness, taking them for walks, letting them visit their comrades in the hospital, even letting one captured pilot test-fly a plane. Virtually everybody talked.

3. Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and hundreds more, started smoking at the age of 9, changed his last name from Blank to Blanc, survived a car accident resulting in a two-week coma, recorded The Flintstones in a full-body cast, and died only a year after recording Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

4. Danny DeVito did the dub for his role as the titular character in The Lorax (2012) in Russian, German, Italian, Catalan, and Castilian Spanish, despite not speaking any of those languages.

5. The soundtrack for the 2019 miniseries Chernobyl (which concerns the 1986 nuclear disaster) was composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir, who incorporated field recordings from a real power plant in Lithuania, capturing the sounds of pumps, reactors and turbines.

Walt Disney once accidentally “kidnapped” Richard Nixon by dispatching his monorail train before the Secret Service could get on. The agents ran after the train and attempted to jump on board but the doors had already closed. Monorail pilot Bob Gurr was terrified. Nixon got a kick out of it.

7. Habsburg Emperor Joseph II tried to reform Austria into an "ideal Enlightened state". He abolished serfdom, removed restrictions against Jews, gave religious freedom to Protestants and Orthodox, and tried to weaken the power of the Catholic Church. As soon he died, all his reforms were abolished.

8. Growing almonds in California takes more than half of the commercial honeybees in the US, meaning they have to be temporarily shipped in from almost every other state.

9. Dogs and cats circle around before bedding down as a throwback to their wild ancestors. Their survival instincts provoked them to position themselves in the direction of the wind to pick up predator scents and choose the best angle for keeping an eye on the environment.

10. The 2011 earthquake off the coast of Japan was so powerful, measuring almost 9.0 on the Richter scale that it moved Japan 8 feet closer to North America and shifted the planet on its axis, causing the length of a day to shorten by almost 1.8 microseconds.

Every fall, Alaska’s Katmai National Park hosts “Fat Bear Week” and crowns the park’s fattest brown bear. It aims to highlight the park and wildlife conservation.

12. Laminated safety glass was invented by chemist Édouard Bénédictus after a lab accident in 1903. A glass flask coated with the plastic cellulose nitrate was dropped, shattering but not breaking into pieces. In 1909, he filed a patent, after hearing of a car accident causing injury by glass debris.

13. French astronomer and mathematician Urbain le Verrier used observational data from Uranus to deduce the position of an unknown planet. German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle then used his data to find Neptune, within one hour of searching and within one degree of Verrier’s prediction in 1846.

14. Evel Knievel (born as Robert Craig Knievel) got his nickname after spending a night in jail next to the well-known William 'Awful' Knofel. The jailer made a joke about 'Awful Knofel' and 'Evil Knievel' and Evel decided to keep the name.

15. Serotonin, the neurotransmitter responsible for happiness, can be toxic. When injected into the skin it causes extreme pain and is the main ingredient of wasp venom.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote two letters to Hitler, in which he asked him to stop the war because it would cause many victims. Neither of the letters he wrote was allowed to be sent by the British colonial government in India.

17. In State v. Linkhaw (1873), the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the conviction of William Linkhaw, who sang so badly in church that a jury had found him guilty of “disturbing a religious congregation.”

18. Neanderthals, who were traditionally thought of as extremely primitive humans, are now believed to have been extremely intelligent, even comparable to the intelligence of modern humans. They used tools, had social structures, thrived in hostile environments, and lived long lives.

19. Frank “Cannonball” Richards was a carnival entertainer whose most famous act involved getting hit by a 104 lbs cannonball from close range. He performed the act twice a day because “more than that was too painful.”

20. There is a community in Cairo, Egypt that collects the trash of the residents of Cairo and recycles upwards of 80% of it. Nicknamed "Garbage City", these mostly Christian residents have been collecting and recycling Cairo's trash for several decades.

An ape named Oliver preferred walking upright. He was bald, freckled, showed sexual attraction towards humans and even liked to pour himself a cup of brandy every night while wearing a smoking jacket. Due to his human-like features and mannerisms he was once believed to be a "Humanzee."

22. There is a street that is split down the middle by the USA-Canadian border, aptly named Canusa street. People who live in houses on the south side of the street are in the USA, and the north side, in Canada. Crossing the street requires having to report to the border crossing office.

23. Rome was basically a ghost town during the Middle Ages. After the fall of the West-Roman empire, the population of Rome dropped from 1 million in 330 A.D. to just 20,000 in 650 A.D. The population remained roughly the same till 1600 A.D.

24. Not all people have an internal monologue and people with them have stronger mental visual to accompany their thoughts.

25. Grasshoppers are older than grass, having evolved roughly 250 million years ago.