Random Fact Sheet #133 – 45 Intriguing Facts from Around the World

During the Italian invasion of France, 9 French soldiers defended the Pont Saint Louis against 5000 Italians for 10 days, of which 700 Italians were killed or injured. Eventually, an armistice was agreed.

27. In 2012, Italian doctors saved the life of a 16-month-old boy by implanting the world's smallest artificial heart to keep the infant alive until a donor was found for a transplant.

28. At normal speed, it takes a fully loaded supertanker/oil tanker approximately 20 minutes to stop. Therefore they cut their engines 15 miles away from the dock.

29. Craisins are not dried cranberries (like raisins are dried grapes). They are in fact discarded cranberry husks re-infused with cranberry juice.

30. The water between India and Sri Lanka is only 3-30 feet deep and was purportedly passable on foot until 1480 A.D. when a cyclone moved some sand around.

Beethoven actually intended many of his most famous pieces (including the 5th Symphony) to be played much faster than they are generally always played. So fast, in fact, that many professional orchestras are unable to successfully play them.

32. The last meal is based on a superstition from pre-modern Europe. By accepting the last meal, the condemned was believed to forgive the executioner, the judge, and witness(es). This would prevent the condemned from returning as a ghost to haunt those responsible for their killing.

33. Leo Tolstoy was an adamant vegetarian. In one instance his aunt requested chicken for dinner. When arriving at the table, she found a live chicken tied to her chair, and a butcher knife on her placemat.

34. There is actually a superhero called "normalman." He was the only person without superpowers on a planet full of superheroes.

35. Grace Hall Hemingway, the mother of Ernest Hemingway (author, soldier, hunter, boxer, drinker, famous manly man) often dressed young Ernest and his older sister in matching pink flowery dresses (and similar outfits) to fulfill her obsessive desire to instead be a mother to a pair of twin girls.

If you hear "Would Inspector Sands please report to the operations room immediately" in a UK Railway Station, it's coded alert to emergency personnel that could mean anything from a fire to a bomb alert. This code is used to avoid causing a panic.

37. If a Bald Eagle loses a feather, it will lose the same feather on the other side to remain balanced.

38. The first pizzeria (Lombardi's Pizza) in the US Opened in 1905 and still runs to this day, it even offered Pizzas for 5 cents for its 100th Birthday.

39. Steve Carell owns the 158-year-old Marshfield Hills General Store in Marshfield Massachusetts. He even claims he mans the cash register there "as time permits."

40. Cabbage, kale, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, and savoy are all the same species of plant (Brassica oleracea) but have been selectively bred so much that they barely resemble the same genus, let alone the same species.

Fluoroantimonic acid is the strongest super-acid known to man. It is 2x10^19 times more acidic than 100% Sulfuric and can dissolve glass and many other substances.

42. Cats are banned from the world's northernmost city of Longyearbyen in Norway because they pose a threat to the local bird population.

43. A study has revealed that when you tell someone your goal or a thing you're planning on doing, it chemically satisfies your brain in a manner that's similar to having actually completed the goal.

44. In 1995, Newsweek published an article scoffing about the future of the internet. It laughed at the idea that people would get news, learn, or buy airline tickets online. It is still available on their website.

45. A British company made a laptop named Psion MC 400 Mobile Computer with a graphical user interface, a 60-hour battery life, an SSD storage, and a touchpad in 1989 that was up for sale in the UK at £845.00.