Random Fact Sheet #243 – 40 Facts That Will Ignite Your Wonder

Peanut butter manufacturers fought a 12-year legal battle with the FDA over the minimum peanut content required to be legally labeled as "peanut butter". Anything under 90% of peanuts must be labeled "peanut spread."

2. Shoveling snow is a known cause for heart attacks. Increased blood pressure combined with cold air constricting arteries creates the right environment for it to happen.

3. Moviegoers seeing "13 Ghosts" in 1960 could choose if they wanted to see the ghosts or not. The ghosts were added with a red filter on scenes with a blue filter. People were given glasses with red and blue cellophane, and depending on which one they looked through could “remove” the ghosts.

4. Despite publishing vast quantities of literature, only three Mayan books exist today due to the Spanish ordering all Mayan books and libraries to be destroyed for being, “lies of the devil.”

5. When Japanese actor Mako Iwamatsu, the voice actor of Aku from Samurai Jack, and Iroh from Avatar, died in 2006, many of his voice roles were taken on by soundalike voice actor Greg Baldwin, whose voice was almost indistinguishable.

During the response to a major bridge collapse (I-40 bridge) in Oklahoma in 2002, an ex-con took command of the disaster site by impersonating a US Army Captain. He directed FBI agents, appropriated vehicles and equipment, and led the rescue/recovery effort for two days before fleeing the scene.

7. On the set of Kill Bill, Uma Thurman had been on a serious car crash because director Quentin Tarantino insisted she perform her own driving stunts. Thurman knew the car wasn't safe but Tarantino insisted and she caved. Thurman permanently damaged her neck and her knee.

8. When Steven Spielberg re-enrolled at California State, Long Beach to earn his BA more than 30 years after dropping out, he was given three-course credits in paleontology for making Jurassic Park.

9. There is an Antarctic dialect of English, which has developed among researchers in Antarctica who have their own slang and speech patterns. Since this is one of the few linguistically isolated areas in the world, it is being used to understand how dialects originate.

10. The ‘Memorial in memory of the burning of books’ in Berlin, Germany is a library that is built underground. It is not accessible to the public, and can only be viewed through a glass plate that shows enough empty bookcases to hold 20,000 books, the amount burned in a book-burning event on May 10, 1933.

In 2019, a corporate whistleblower revealed that Apple contractors ‘regularly hear confidential details’ on Siri recordings and have even heard drug deals, medical details, and people having sex.

12. In 2004, a black bear was found passed out in a Washington State campground after drinking 36 beer cans. When rangers tried to scare it away, it climbed up a tree to take a nap. It was caught the next day after returning for more beer.

13. Christopher Nolan waited to make Dunkirk until he had earned the trust of a major studio to let him make it as a pure British film, but with an American budget. He said, "Hollywood studios are interested in films about Americans, and there were no Americans involved."

14. Computers are incapable of producing true randomness. Therefore when performing tasks like procedural generation they use outside sources like the mouse position or the fan noise as a starting point and sometimes even use “pseudorandom” generation algorithms using pre-made numbers.

15. Horses have blind spots on the front and back of their body. Keeping a hand on their body while walking around them, decreases the chances of them kicking out of shock or fear.

Minesweeper's theme was so controversial in some countries that Microsoft was forced to replace the mines with flowers in some locations and rebrand it as "Flower Garden."

17. In Russia, the first day of school is called “Knowledge Day.” It falls on September 1st and is a national holiday. Kids and parents celebrate by bringing their kids to school carrying balloons and presents for their teachers. It’s special for first graders.

18. The Pentagon has no marble within it. This is because the Pentagon was built during World War 2 and the source of marble for the government which was Italy was considered an enemy nation.

19. Sergei Krikalev is a Russian astronaut who was stranded aboard the Soviet “Mir” Space Station during the collapse of Soviet Union. The mission ended up being twice as long as planned, and he is referred to as “The Last Soviet Citizen.”

20. The commonly cultivated strawberry does not occur in nature. It is a hybrid of the Virginia wild strawberry and the Chilean beach strawberry, invented in France in the 18th century.

The underwater wreckage of Titanic will disappear by 2030. It's being 'eaten away' by a microorganism "Halomonas titanicae". Also known as the "steel-munching bacteria', they have a special liking towards metals.

22. In 2002, in Georgia, the scandal involving "Tri-State Crematory" revealed that the owner would just dump the corpses all over his ranch instead of cremating them. Investigators found over 300 decomposing bodies on his property.

23. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of the Game of Thrones TV series had no prior experience in television and had only limited experience writing movie scripts. Their original pilot episode was so poorly received at test screenings that HBO demanded that they re-shoot 90% of it.

24. Vladimir Lenin spoke English with an Irish accent. According to a Russian diplomat, "Lenin said that his tutor in English was an Irishman and that was why he was speaking with an Irish accent."

25. Whiskey was originally a medical drink distilled by monks. When King Henry VIII started closing monasteries in 1536, those monks began distilling and selling to anyone, starting the consumption of spirits as a pastime.