Random Fact Sheet #138 – 35 Facts That Will Leave You Baffled and Amused

In 1992, a lawyer and a judge were looking for files on a former prisoner in a police station near Paraguay. Instead, they stumbled upon archives documenting an international conspiracy involving the torture, murder, and imprisonment of 480,000 people. It is now known as the Archives of Terror.

27. Keith Moon hated drum solos and refused to play solo in concert. During one show, Townshend and Entwistle decided to spontaneously stop playing to hear Moon's drum solo. Moon immediately stopped too, shouting "Drum solos are boring!"

28. Igloos can retain a temperature of 60°F on the inside during -50° weather. Ice is a bad conductor of heat. Any heat generated from inside the igloo, usually from body heat or a small fire, stays inside. A fire inside an ice structure? Won’t that melt the igloo? The warmth inside the igloo does melt the inner layer of snow and ice, but the air outside–often much colder than the air inside–freezes it back. The result is an additional sheet of ice on the interior walls, which adds to the insulation.

29. Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, American Airlines and two other corporations released a movie called Proud American in 2008. The movie featured an overly-patriotic storyline about the wonders of American life. It was a failure and became IMDB's worst movie of the 2000's.

30. J.R.R. Tolkien was rejected for a Nobel Prize because of 'poor storytelling'.

In World War 2, the US Army asked Americans to loan their dogs to the war effort. The dogs' handlers even sent letters home to their owners for Christmas and to inform them of their dog's performance throughout the war.

32. Restaurants often serve a fish called Escolar, disguised to be Tuna on the menu. Eating too much of this fish, more than 6 ounces, will cause explosive, oily, uncontrollable orange diarrhea. Accidents can also happen while passing gas.

33. Gordon Ramsay challenged James May from Top Gear to eat three delicacies as a "test of a man." The third delicacy was a rotten shark, which Ramsay spat out, while May finished and responded, "You disappoint me, Ramsay."

34. North Korea has a "three generations of punishment" system, where individuals found guilty of a crime are sent to the labor camps with their entire family. The subsequent two generations of that family are born in the camp and live their lives locked up inside.

35. Russell Crowe was born in New Zealand, not Australia. However, despite living most of his life in Australia, identifying as Australian, and appearing on Australian stamps, he was refused Australian citizenship in 2006 and 2013.