Random #331 – 50 Fascinating Random Facts

On November 29, 1990, during a college football game in San Francisco, many people gathered on the roof of a glass-blowing factory to watch the game for free. Unable to support the gathering crowd, the roof collapsed and hundreds of fans fell directly on top of a furnace. Around 23 people were killed, but the game continued. This event is remembered as The Thanksgiving Day Disaster.

27. While the United States Armed Forces are forbidden from using flamethrowers by an international treaty, there are no restrictions on civilian use in 48 states and the District of Columbia.

28. John Carpenter’s “The Thing”(1982) was such a commercial failure upon release that it was called the “Most-Hated Film of All Time” by horror magazine cinefantastique and Universal Pictures even dropped its director John Carpenter from a multi-picture deal.

29. Without thermal controls, the temperature of the international space station would soar to 250 degrees Fahrenheit while in the sun and plunge to minus 250 degrees In the shade.

30. Sedna is a dwarf planet in our solar system that has an extremely eccentric orbit, which has an 11,390-year orbital period, and right now, it's about as close to us as it will be for a very long time.

Dungeons and dragons were demonized back in the 1980s particularly from religious groups due to the fantastical and violent nature of the game.

32. John Magee was a missionary who was working in Nanking during the Nanking Massacre. He ran out of the Nanking Safety Zone and took part in rescuing more than 200,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians. He filmed the event and refused to accept money for it. He instead donated the footage for historical purposes.

33. The Justin Morgan horse is one of the foundational American horse breeds. The line originated with a prepotent horse named Figure. His genes were dominant in his offspring regardless of the mare. Popular as a cavalry horse during the Civil War, the breed was nearly killed off.

34. Contrary to myth, embassies are technically still the soil of the host country, but host country laws don't apply within the premises. 

35. In 2011, the UK tried to eradicate all rats from the Henderson Island in the Pacific Ocean. Only 50 individuals out of a population of 50,000 survived, which was enough for them to grow back to their original numbers.

People that frequently take painkillers for headaches can develop medication overuse headaches, a vicious cycle where the pain is caused by painkillers themselves.

37. Between 43 and 42 B.C., a commemorative coin was produced to celebrate the assassination of Julius Caesar. Marcus Brutus is minted on one side, while the other side has a pileus cap between two daggers.

38. A manga series by the name of Cooking Papa (no relation to the game series Cooking Mama) is one of the longest-running in Japanese comics. It was published from 1985 to 2021 with a total of 157 volumes.

39. The use of the letters Q, X, and W, in official documents, including for people's names, used to be illegal in Turkey and punishable with 2 to 6 months of prison time. The ban was enacted in 1928 and lifted only in 2013.

40. The coat of arms of the Swedish islands of Åland and Öland was accidentally swapped when they were granted in 1560s. This mistake not noticed until 1944.

Palm trees aren't trees. They are just massive plants like bamboo or banana 'trees.'

42. The United States is home to about 43% of Golf courses worldwide, more than any other nation.

43. Jack Barsky was a former KGB agent who lived in the US. The FBI bought the property next door and monitored him for 3 years. When he was caught, he confessed. He later became close friends with the FBI agent tasked with monitoring him. That FBI agent is now a godfather to Barsky’s child.

44. The Sultanate of Women was a period in Ottoman history that lasted for a century where the wives and mothers of the sultans held incredible political power. It all started with Hürrem Sultan, the wife of Suleiman the magnificent.

45. James Marsters worked outside of his contracts to voice Zamasu in Dragon Ball Super entirely for free. He did so to redeem himself to the Dragon Ball community, having previously played King Piccolo in the critically-panned Dragon Ball Evolution.

During the production of The Godfather, actor James Caan used to hang out with Carmine Persico, a.k.a. “The Snake”, who was a notorious Mafioso and later head of the Colombo crime family. Government agents briefly mistook Caan, who was relatively unknown at that time, as an aspiring mobster.

47. The Wright Brothers' first patent wasn't for their airplane. It was for the system of controls they built to control their airplane.

48. "Slack Fill" lawsuits are suits aimed at food companies for packing their food only a fraction of each container's capacity. Most of these are class-action suits and the majority of the U.S. suits are filed from Northern California. In fact, lawyers call San Francisco the "Food Court."

49. Iceland was once covered in trees until the Vikings came and cut them down to make room for sheep.

50. The French have a traditional martial art named Canne De Combat, which is fought with a cane. It was developed by French gentlemen during the 19th century as a form of self-defense to be used in big unsafe cities such as Paris.