Random Fact Sheet #114 – 45 Facts That Will Make You See The World in a Different Dimension

Kansas City blatantly ignored the prohibition. In fact, people were able to buy booze a few blocks down from the police station. They got away with it scot-free for all 13 years (1920 to 1933).

2. 20% of Greenland's population (56,186) have attempted suicide at least once.

3. In the complete darkness we see a specific color called “Eigengrau”, which is a form of dark gray.

4. In 2001, drug kingpin El Chapo escaped from prison in a dirty laundry basket. After bribing multiple guards, he was wheeled out of prison hidden inside it. The escape allegedly cost him over $2.5million. Over 70 guards were implicated including the warden, who's now in prison for the part he played.

5. When Dungeons & Dragons was released, various groups believed it was a front for murderous Satanists. This lead to Tom Hanks’ first starring role in the TV propaganda movie Mazes and Monsters, in which he becomes his D&D character and stabs a hobo in Manhattan because he thought it was a goblin.

Gillian McKeith is a self-declared nutritionist who has appeared on mainstream UK television presenting herself as a doctor with a Ph.D., despite having no medical qualifications, and has made misleading claims regarding illegal products that she sells.

7. Mattresses can have up to 900% markup (a $3000 mattress can cost as little as $300 to make).

8. American broadcaster and author Art Bell set a Guinness World Record by staying on the air for 116 hours and 15 minutes. Using the money raised on air, Bell chartered a plane to fly to Vietnam and rescue 130 stranded Vietnamese orphans, who were eventually brought to the United States and adopted by American families.

9. A donut shop in Portland, Oregon named “Voodoo Donut” used to serve a donut drizzled in Nyquil and also had a shot of Nyquil in a cup in the center of the donut, until FDA stepped in and made them stop serving it.

10. Former NBA Champion and Chicago Bulls player Horace Grant continued to wear sports-goggles after receiving Lasik surgery to help kids who were teased over wearing glasses.

In 2001, American-Canadian singer Alanis Morissette single-handedly extended the Broadway run of "Jane Eyre" by a month, donating $150,000 worth of tickets to poor kids.

12. When USSR premier Nikita Khrushchev visited IBM's Silicon Valley research facility in 1959 he showed indifference to computing technology, but he was so impressed by their buffet style cafeteria that he instructed factories across the Soviet Union to implement the self service dining concept.

13. Johnny Cash has a younger brother named Tommy Cash who is also a country singer and songwriter. He released a single called “I Didn’t Walk the Line” in 1965.

14. In 2005, a cardboard box was added to the US National Toy Hall of Fame. According to them, “Inside a big cardboard box, a child is transported to a world of his or her own, one where anything is possible.”

15. In 2013, an 82 year old nun named Megan Rice and two fellow activists broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, spray-painted antiwar slogans, and splashed blood on the outside of the heavily guarded Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. She was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

There are more than 20,000 abandoned villages in the Russian country.

17. The ancient myths of Australian Aborigines portray the formation of geographical features in Australia, dating to 10,000 B.C., with striking accuracy. The myths corroborate modern geological evidence, indicating they originated as firsthand accounts, preserved for millennia.

18. A termite queen can live for up to 30 to 50 years.

19. In 1914, the Puerto Rican Congress voted unanimously for independence from the United States. The US Government ignored the vote.

20. The world’s oldest brewery, Weihenstephan Abbey, is still in operation in Bavaria, Germany. It will turn 1000 years old in 2040.

Rogue waves or “freak waves,” the unexpected and massive waves that sailors have long told stories about, were generally considered to be mythical until confirmed by scientific instrumentation in 1995.

22. During the “Monkey Love Experiments,” infant monkeys were housed with two artificial mothers: one, made only of wire, dispensed food, while the other had no food but was made of soft terrycloth. The monkeys spent nearly all of their time clinging to the soft mother despite the lack of food.

23. In the 1940s, a Californian night school teacher discovered fossils in a local quarry and formed a small archeological group consisting of his students, whom he taught how to uncover fossils. One of their discoveries included an Antelope with four antlers.

24. Some scientists theorize that the origin of life is just the inevitable outcome of thermodynamics as a middle-step to increase overall entropy in the universe.

25. Captain Herbert Sobel (portrayed by David Schwimmer in 'Band of Brothers') landed at Normandy, fought in World War 2 and received a bronze star. He later attempted suicide but failed, blinding himself. He died from malnutrition 17 years later. No services were held after his death.