Random Fact Sheet #121 – 40 Facts to Make Your Friends Jealous

During the Iraq-Iran war, Minister of Health Riyadh Ibrahim Hussein suggested Saddam Hussein step down temporarily. When no one else supported the idea, Saddam escorted Minister of Health to the next room, closed the door, shot him, then returned to the meeting. His widow received his dismembered corpse the next day.

2. Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve became close friends after meeting at Juilliard in 1973. According to Christopher Reeve, “Occasionally Robin would need to switch off and have a serious conversation with someone, and I was always ready to listen... This has remained true for twenty-five years.”

3. Russell Crowe commissioned script for Gladiator 2 would have seen a resurrected Maximus appearing in World War 2 and the Vietnam War, and would have ended with him in a suit and tie at the modern-day Pentagon.

4. The Romans were aware that lead mining and lead pipes were toxic, but they did not connect that toxicity with lead cooking vessels.

5. A slave from Mozambique called Yasuke was the first black samurai in the history of Japan.

New York City is the most linguistically diverse city in the world, with 800 languages spoken.

7. A 15-year-old Ray Kroc (American Businessman) lied about his age during World War 1 and became a Red Cross ambulance driver. In Kroc's Red Cross company, there was another boy who lied about his age to get in and his name was Walt Disney.

8. When Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was stepping out of her carriage one day, an Irish dustman exclaimed: "Love and bless you, my lady, let me light my pipe in your eyes!" Thereafter, whenever others complimented her, she would say, "After the dustman's compliment, all others are insipid."

9. Studies have found that laparoscopic surgeons who play video games recreationally perform faster and better compared to their non-gaming counterparts.

10. Betsy Aardsma was a graduate student who was stabbed at the Penn State University library in 1969. Because the wound was so small and the fact that she was wearing a red dress, no one noticed that she was stabbed until after she died, and EMTs thought she was suffering a seizure. The case still remains unsolved.

Electronics sniffing dogs are a real thing. They can even sniff out tiny microSD cards that are less than a millimeter thick.

12. After the 1980 film Popeye flopped, the set was abandoned, so the locals of Mellieha, Malta reclaimed it as a Popeye theme park.

13. After analyzing data from nearly 10,000 smartphone users, online dating website OkCupid has found that iPhone user has had twice as many sexual partners than an Android user of the same age.

14. Ramin Djawadi, the composer for Game of Thrones, has Synesthesia, a sensory condition which allows him to visualize and associate music with color.

15. Abraham Lincoln replied to a critic questioning emancipation by writing: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."

American business magnate Howard Hughes was an insomniac and was frustrated that there was nothing good on TV late at night, so he bought a TV station and had it play his favorite movies 24/7.

17. Anne Frank's older sister, Margot Frank also kept a diary, but no trace of it has ever been found.

18. Mary Ann Brough, the wet-nurse chosen by Queen Victoria to nurse her son, the future King Edward VII, several years later would use her husband’s razor blade to slit the throats of her 6 children.

19. In 2017, three infertile mice were able to give birth to healthy offspring after being implanted with artificial 3-D printed ovaries.

20. A World War 2 pigeon named Mary of Exeter survived an assassination attempt by a German Warhawk, was shot, hit with shrapnel, and survived a bombing of her loft while delivering messages across the English Channel to France.

Zimbabwe's total bank balance was just $217 at the beginning of 2013.

22. In 1847, theoretical physicist Max Planck was told not to get into the field by his physics professor because "in this field, almost everything is already discovered." He did so anyway and originated Quantum Theory which revolutionized the field.

23. Romans may have invented the burger, called Isicia Omentata, over 1,500 years ago which was made with minced meat, pepper, wine, pine nuts and a rich fish-based sauce called garum. The Romans also introduced the first fast food restaurants, called a thermopolium, that sold hot ready-to-eat food.

24. 75% of the world's spices come from only one country i.e., India.

25. The human body literally emits light (like fireflies do), but 1/1000 times the sensitivity of naked eyes. The light emission is rhythmic and peaks at 4 pm.