Random Fact Sheet #208 – 35 Fascinating Facts That Will Leave You Wanting More

Cheryl Crane, the daughter of actress Lana Turner, stabbed one of her mother’s boyfriends to death during a domestic struggle at the age of 14 in 1958. It was considered a justifiable homicide and she was deemed to have been protecting her mother. The boyfriend was a known abuser.

27. The Incas did not have a written language, instead, they used colorful knotted cords called Quipu to record numbers and archives such as census data and storehouse records. They had up to a thousand unique strands.

28. Brazilian prisons offer to reduce the sentences of their prisoners by 4 days (up to 48 days/year) for every book they read and write a report on.

29. In order to prevent tourists from stealing their beer glasses, some bars in Belgium require people to hand over one of their shoes as a deposit which is then put in a basket and hung from the ceiling.

30. Because of the shorter commercial breaks in the United Kingdom, every episode of The Muppet Show had two minutes of additional footage, usually consisting of a skit or a short song.

When the show of comedian Benny Hill was canceled, it devastated him and his health started to decline. However, fans of his show continued pushing for a new series. A company saw this and sent him an offer for some specials. It arrived in the mail on the same day he died.

32. The Go-Go's are the only all-female band to both write their own songs and play their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts.

33. The government used to take raisins from farmers to keep prices artificially high until the supreme court struck down the practice in 2015 as unconstitutional.

34. No one in China expected that Chairman Mao Zedong would die, so there were no preparations at all for his death. Mao's body was drained of fluids, injected with formaldehyde, and it was said his head swelled up “like a football.”

35. On the set of Star Trek: Voyager, the costume for Seven of Nine required the actress to wear an extremely tight corset underneath the visible uniform. The corset made it impossible for the actress to sit, was difficult to remove, restricted breathing, and using the restroom took up to 20 minutes.