Random Fact Sheet #203 – 30 Wacky and Wonderful Facts

In 2009, nine women were rescued from what they thought was a Big Brother reality show house but turned out to be a criminal organization.

2. The staff of the 9/11 memorial place white roses on the names of any victims who would have been celebrating a birthday.

3. The popular MMO EVE Online hired an economist to oversee the in-game money. Besides writing internal reports, he occasionally intervenes to prevent inflation and unintended market consequences. EVE has about 500,000 users who partake in the game's hyper-libertarian online economy.

4. "Hey Jude" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" were both recorded using the same piano.

5. There exists a bodyguard crew of rangers in Belize, known as the Scarlet Six Biomonitoring Team, who camp out in inclement weather, night and day for the 5-month long portion of the Scarlet Macaw breeding season when chicks are being cared for, dedicated to stopping insane poaching levels.

Former President of Turkey Kemal Atatürk gave his adopted daughter Sabiha, a surname that translated as 'belonging to the sky'. She soon developed a passion for flying and went on to become the world's first female combat pilot.

7. The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant was much closer to the epicenter of the 2011 Earthquake than the Fukushima Power Plant, yet it sustained only minor damage and even housed tsunami evacuees. Its safety is credited to engineer Hirai Yanosuke who insisted it have a 14 meter (46 feet) tall sea wall.

8. 700,000-year-old stone tools were found in the Philippines despite the fact that known humans didn't arrive until 600,000 years later. Researches aren't sure how humans got there or what early hominid could have even made them.

9. A 20th-century biologist discovered so many species of moths that he simply named them E. bobana, E. cocana, E. dodana, E. fofana, E. hohana, E. kokana, E. lolana and E. momana.

10. A library in Herculaneum was burned and buried in 79 AD when Mt. Vesuvius erupted. For more than 250 years, scholars have been unrolling/attempting to decipher recovered manuscripts from the only antiquarian library ever recovered. The site was never fully excavated; it is assumed more are still buried.

York, William Clark's slave, was one of the first Africans that the Native Americans West of the Mississippi River met. They tried to wash the blackness off of him, and when they discovered that he was, in fact, human they respected his strength.

12. Late Malaysian billionaire Lee Shin Cheng applied for a job at Dunlop Estates, an English plantation company, in the 60s but was rejected for his poor English. 20 years later, he bought the Dunlop Estates.

13. In 2011, a man named Kipp Rusty Walker killed himself in public while at an open mic night at an Oregon coffee shop. Shortly before he stabbed himself, he played a song called “Sorry for all the mess.”

14. Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is a large target of organized crime in Italy. From 2013 to 2015 an organized crime gang stole 2039 wheels of it from warehouses in northern and central Italy.

15. Olympus Mons, the tallest known volcano in the solar system, has such a gradual slope that someone standing at its base wouldn’t be able to see the summit as it would be beyond the horizon.

All Australian doctors who plan to stay in Antarctica during the winter must have their appendix removed in case of an unexpected rupture.

17. The world-famous mime Marcel Marceau appears in the 1976 Mel Books film "Silent Movie". He has the only speaking role.

18. There is a 12-foot-tall replica of the Washington Monument hidden under a manhole cover located on the grounds of the original Washington Monument. Its purpose is that of a surveying tool that's usually just a metal rod, but because of the location, this special version was installed.

19. Most species of bee are solitary and don't live in hives or colonies, instead nesting in the ground, aerially, or even in old snail shells.

20. In Tudor times, High-class women would close themselves off for a period of time before they gave birth. This was called “lying in”. No men were allowed in their private rooms, only women, and all light was closed off apart from a small amount, as it was feared it would harm the mother’s eyes.

Chernobyl has been safe to visit since 2011 and most of the danger for the visitors is not from radiation but from unmaintained structures.

22. Professionals who walk over hot coals and broken glass have confirmed that walking over Lego bricks is more painful.

23. The Toyota Land Cruiser originated after the Imperial Japanese Army captured an American Jeep during World War 2 and ordered Toyota to reverse-engineer it.

24. When attending Comic Con 2013, Bryan Cranston disguised himself by wearing a mask of Walter White over his own face. People told him he sounded like Bryan Cranston but didn’t realize it was him. The charade only ended when he removed the mask at the Breaking Bad panel.

25. In 2008, a couple who inherited a 378-acre farm in Costa Rica (Territorio De Zaguates) transformed it into a huge no-kill dog shelter. Over 1000 dogs, many recovering from illness, starvation, and abuse, live there together. Visitors are welcome to walk and play with them.