Random Fact Sheet #193 – 40 Fun Facts That Will Make You the Life of the Party

Till Lindemann, the lead singer of German industrial metal band Rammstein was given his position after being heard singing whilst weaving baskets for a living.

27. The Rolls-Royce Phantom has a layer of foam inside its specially-designed tires, which lowers cabin sound levels by reducing tire cavity noise.

28. Stephen King used the pseudonym "Richard Bachman" so that he could publish more than one novel a year without over-saturating the "King market". This evolved into a list of novels published under the pseudonym and was only revealed when a bookshop owner noticed a parallel in their writing.

29. Polo player Adolfo Cambiaso has cloned his best horse, Cuartetera, 14 times, and even swaps between the clones during a game. 

30. The French court dwarf Richebourg who was only 23 inches tall. During the French Revolution, he was used to pass secret messages in and out of Paris carried by nurses and disguised in an infant’s clothing.

The largest moth in the world, the Hercules Moth, has a wingspan of up to 36 cm (14 inches). It spends up to 2 years in its cocoon, but only lives two to eight days as it has no mouth and ultimately dies of starvation.

32. Oscar Romero, the Bishop of El Salvador, spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations, and torture in his country. He was murdered by unidentified gunmen while celebrating Mass. He was later declared a saint by Pope Francis.

33. After Hunter S. Thompson, the author best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, died, he was cremated and his ashes were fired out of a cannon. The cannon was placed on top of a 153-foot statue of a fist holding a peyote button, paid for by Johnny Depp.

34. CBS created a show called Kid Nation (2007), where 40 kids ages 8-15 spent 40 days without direct adult supervision in a ghost town where they had to create a sustainable community.

35. President George W. Bush was almost assassinated in 2005 after Vladimir Arutyunian threw a live RGD-5 hand grenade wrapped in a handkerchief at him. Miraculously it failed to detonate because the handkerchief remained around the grenade preventing the striker lever from releasing.

Central Park in New York is home to a 3500-year-old Egyptian obelisk named Cleopatra's Needle. Weighing 200 tons, it was gifted to the US in 1877 in gratitude for the US not interfering in Egyptian politics.

37. NFL tried to sue rapper M.I.A. for 100% of her earnings for life (if she ever earned over $2 million) because she flipped a middle finger at the 2012 super bowl halftime show.

38. In Deadpool, Stan Lee played a DJ at a Vancouver strip club. He later revealed that he actually filmed his part in a studio and was disappointed not to be in the vicinity of the topless dancers.

39. Rastafarians believed Haile Selassie, then king of Ethiopia to be the second coming of Jesus. Selassie refuted this and publicly denied his immorality. Rastafarians took this as proof he was in fact, Jesus. Selassie's subsequent death in 1975 resulted in a crisis of faith for many Rastafarians.

40. During the East Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, many Koreans willingly gave up their precious jewelry, heirlooms, and mementos in order to help their country pay off their debt to the IMF.