Random #358 – 50 Really Good Random Facts

A casino can just kick you out if you win too much, even if you are not cheating or doing anything wrong. There is also nothing illegal about counting cards or using any other skill you have to beat the odds in a casino game. All they can do is kick you out and share that information with other casinos.

2. Snoop Dogg was excommunicated by the Rastafari Council after his attempt to rebrand himself as the Rastafarian "Snoop Lion."

3. Blackout cake, sometimes called Brooklyn Blackout cake, is a chocolate cake filled with chocolate pudding and topped with chocolate cake crumbs. It was invented during WWII by a Brooklyn bakery, Ebinger's, in recognition of the mandatory blackouts to protect the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

4. The Spanish Inquisition would write to you, giving 30 days' notice before arriving, and these were read out during Sunday Mass. Although these edicts were eventually phased out, people always expected the Spanish Inquisition.

5. Michael Caine changed his name legally by deed poll in 2016 from his birth name of Maurice Joseph Micklewhite because he was tired of being stopped at passport control. Everyone knew him by his showbiz name, but his legal documents had his birth name.

Christian ascetic Simeon Stylites lived on top of columns for 37 years as a form of asceticism. When he lived in a cave, people kept making pilgrimages to him and asking him religious questions. Ultimately, his column life drew even bigger crowds, who would climb ladders to talk to him.

7. In 1996, a 21-year-old man burst into New Zealand's Star FM radio station, took the manager hostage, threatened to detonate a bomb, and demanded that Kermit the Frog's rendition of "Rainbow Connection" be played.

8. Hawaii was a sovereign, self-governing kingdom until 1893, totally unassociated with the U.S., until a coup d'état that year by 13 businessmen and 162 U.S. troops, with the openly stated goal of annexing the islands. They succeeded.

9. As a child, Walt Disney's mom convinced his dad, Elias, to buy him a set of colored pencils and some drawing paper. Elias didn't like it because he thought the boy should work hard and do manual labor.Even after Walt became famous, Elias never considered animation a real job.

10. Mary Mallon, also known as "Typhoid Mary", lived in forced quarantine for the last twenty years of her life on an island just off the coast of New York called North Brother Island. This was forced upon her after she didn't stop working as a cook after she had already been repeatedly informed about the harm she had done to others by spreading typhoid.

Professional baseball player Rickey Henderson was so proud of his million-dollar signing bonus that he had the check framed instead of cashing it. Additionally, he saved the envelopes of cash that teams gave players for per diem expenses, allowing his kids to pick them out of a box as a reward for doing well in school.

12. The miscarriage rate is higher than people generally perceive. On average, 12.5% of women who know they are pregnant experience a miscarriage within the first 23 weeks of pregnancy.

13. Barnacles used to be a big problem for ships, but in the 18th century, the British Navy covered their ships' hulls with copper to stop barnacles from growing. This gave them a big advantage.

14. The late president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, owned the Seattle Mariners baseball team, despite never having attended a baseball game before buying the team. Despite owning the Mariners for over 20 years, he never once attended a single one of their games.

15. Hippos have a unique reflex mechanism that allows them to pop up, take a breath, and go back down without waking up so that they can sleep underwater.

Bothie the Polar Dog is the only dog to have traveled to both the North and South Poles. No other dog is expected to match Bothie's achievement after the Antarctic Treaty of 1994, which forbids dogs from going to the Antarctic continent.

17. Beethoven's 3rd Symphony was initially his tribute to Napoleon, whom he admired. However, when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, Beethoven angrily declared that Napoleon had become a tyrant and erased his name from the score's title page.

18. The saying "cried all the way to the bank" is popularly attributed to Liberace, who famously wrote the phrase in a telegram after winning a libel suit against a reporter who had insinuated that Liberace was homosexual.

19. The Aristocrats joke gained public attention when Gilbert Gottfried told it in an attempt to win back the audience after his 9/11 joke at the Friar's Club was poorly received. This happened 18 days after the attack.

20. A special law was introduced in 1987 in the UK to ensure that the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital would forever be able to collect royalties from stage performances, audiobooks, book releases, and other productions of Peter Pan in the UK. This is because JM Barrie gifted Peter Pan's rights to Great Ormond Street Hospital, and his copyright expired in 1987. This is the only work with an "exception" to copyright laws.

In 1988, Tom Cruise starred in two films, Rain Man and Cocktail, which received opposite critical receptions. While Rain Man won the Oscar for Best Picture, Cocktail was awarded the Razzie for Worst Picture. Cruise is the only actor to receive both distinctions in the same year.

22. In Chinese folk religion, a person could attain godhood not through a clergy's decision but by the sheer number of believers. People who achieved extraordinary feats could be canonized as gods, which pressured Confucian and Taoist clerics to legitimize their godhood.

23. At birth, a newborn baby is made up of 75% water, slightly more than bananas but slightly less than potatoes.

24. Walt Disney World was originally known as "The Florida Project." Walt Disney Productions used dummy corporations to purchase 27,000 acres of land to avoid speculation in the Orlando area. Early rumors speculated that NASA, Ford, the Rockefellers, and Howard Hughes might be involved in the project.

25. Caratacus led the fight against the Romans for ten years until he was betrayed and caught. But he gave an eloquent speech to Emperor Claudius that made him change his mind and let him go free.