Random Fact Sheet #207 – Mysterious and Intriguing World of Random Trivia – 30 Facts

The Algerian national anthem was first written in blood on a prison cell wall by an Algerian revolutionary named Moufdi Zakaria who was imprisoned by the French colonial regime.

2. In 2013, a Huffington Post poll was run where only 20% of respondents identified as Feminists, but 82% of respondents claimed that "men and women should be social, political, and economic equals."

3. In 1940, the Germans conquered Denmark so quickly, the Danes didn't have time to formally declare war against them. They surrendered after 2 hours.

4. Sperm whales are so-called because their heads are filled with large amounts of oily fluid, which whalers thought was sperm. Scientists still aren't sure what it's there for.

5. In 2009, Amtrak police arrested a guy named Duane P. Kerzic for taking pictures of trains as they pulled into New York City's Penn Station. He was trespassing and acting suspicious, people claimed. Why he was there for actually came to light later. The reason was he wanted to take photos for his entry into Amtrak's "Picture Our Train" contest.

Bottlenose dolphins have the longest memory among non-humans. They can recognize the whistles of their mates after being separated for more than 20 years.

7. Noah Webster, the founder of Merriam-Webster, learned 26 languages in order to evaluate the etymology of words.

8. Guillermo Del Toro lost his notebook in the back of a London cab, which contained most of the ideas for Pans Labyrinth. Cab driver returns the book as him Del Toro discussed comic books and had told the driver what hotel he was staying in. He received a $900 reward for its return.

9. A sly foodie named George Rector convinced upper-class Americans not to ever wash their salad bowls in the 1930s. The idea was that the dressing would cure the wooden bowl over time and make better and better salads. The real result was a rancid, smelly bowl. The practice continued for 30 years.

10. A professional wrestler named Sputnik Monroe, refused to wrestle unless blacks were allowed to sit in the Whites-only sections.

Helen Keller was a radical socialist. She observed that cases of blindness were more prevalent in lower classes, citing blindness from industrial accidents and contraction of syphilis via prostitution, and thus felt that blindness was a result of social injustice.

12. Peter Tatchell, a British gay rights activist, attempted a citizen's arrest on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in 1999. Tatchell walked up to Mugabe's motorcade, grabbed the stunned dictator by the arm, and stated calmly, "President Mugabe, you are under arrest for torture."

13. The Russian chemist behind the periodic table of elements, Dimity Mendeleev is also credited as the creator of the Russian standard for vodka and was a prolific economist.

14. The Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Kary Mullis stated that his LSD use greatly helped him develop the polymerase chain reaction, a commonly used technique in molecular biology.

15. Peachtree City in Georgia has a golf cart path infrastructure over the whole town, where the large majority of the population own golf carts and the kids grow up driving them instead of cars.

In 2004, a black bear was found passed out on the lawn at a resort after consuming 36 cans of Rainier Beer, sampling but not drinking any of the Busch. A Fish and Wildlife agent was quoted as saying, "it definitely had a preference."

17. A filmmaker, in order to expose "the general absurdity of what we all believe," became a fake spiritual guru and ended up with a real group of followers who called him "the living embodiment of the divine."

18. From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people.

19. During the excavation of a third-century Viking settlement in Sweden, archaeologists discovered a Buddha statue from India, an Egyptian ladle, a Byzantine bowl, and an Irish crozier.

20. Raiders of the Lost Ark grossed $384 million in worldwide ticket sales, but it only had a budget of $18 million, giving it a profit ratio of over 2000%.

Steven Spielberg committed to directing Raiders while building a sandcastle with George Lucas in Hawaii.

22. After winning the 1994 World Cup, Brazil's goalie Claudio Taffarel left his medal and $60,000 in cash in a cab. Juan Blanco, the cab driver returned all of it and received $1000 in reward.

23. Scotland Yard, one of the world's best-known police agencies, is built on top of an unsolved crime scene.

24. A man was once so displeased with the treatment he received from his bank that he legally changed his name by deed to "Mr. Yorkshire Bank PLC are Fascist Bastards" so that every check he made out would have that message on it.

25. Twin popsicles were created during the Great Depression so that two children could share a treat for just a nickel.