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

In 1968, a group of Star Trek fans cornered William Shatner as he left 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and attempted to rip his clothes off. It is likely that this event stopped Shatner from attending Star Trek conventions for over a decade.

27. One of the reasons why Northern Cheyenne reservation traditionalists oppose coal mining on the reservation is that the 1700s Cheyenne mystic Sweet Medicine prophecized that mining the "black rock" would change the tribe forever. 

28. The Slow Movement which started in 1986 advocates a cultural shift toward slowing down life’s pace. It sought to “do everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible.” It began with a protest against the opening of a McDonald’s in Rome.

29. The Parliament of New Zealand keeps an official list of "unparliamentary language", which lists insults/obscenities its members have used through the years that were not considered appropriate, such as “His brains could revolve inside a peanut shell for a thousand years without touching the sides.”

30. Raw milk is responsible for nearly three times more hospitalizations than any other food-borne disease source, making it one of the world's most dangerous food products.

Ho Chi Minh, the former prime minister of Vietnam could speak conversational Esperanto, a language which was constructed by a Polish ophthalmologist with the intent to create a universal language that is easy for anyone to learn.

32. Egyptian Arabic is the first language of 92 million Egyptians and the most widely spoken Arabic dialect. It is understood by almost all of the 300 million Arabic speakers in the world, thanks to the Egyptian cinema and media industry.

33. Super Saiyans in Dragonball Z has blonde hair because the author didn't want his assistant to waste so much time coloring their hair black.

34. A man named Brandt Kuykendal created his own ISP after discovering that he could not get reliable and fast internet in his town. He mainly built the ISP because his daughter needed fast internet to excel in school.

35. Cities used to have 'ugly laws.' People were fined $1 to $50 per day if they were deemed 'too ugly' to go out in public. The last Ugly Law wasn't rescinded in Chicago until 1974.

"The Mandalorian" is shot primarily inside 'The Volume', a large array of LED screens that allow the CGI backgrounds to be filmed live, creating realistic settings and shadows.

37. In 2005, Mikhail Saakashvili, the president of Georgia, fired the country's entire traffic police force of around 30,000 officers due to widespread corruption.

38. The Wanggongchang explosion in 17th-century China killed 20,000 people, released roughly the same amount of energy as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and contributed to the eventual fall of the Ming dynasty. Survivors reported broken rocks, timber, body parts of men and animals raining down from the sky for hours, with the bodies of victims all naked with their clothes mysteriously stripped off. The cause of the explosion has never been conclusively determined.

39. An estimated 8 million war horses were killed in the conflict during World War 1. They were used to help carry food, water, ammunition, and medical supplies. More than a million dogs were also killed. They were used as messengers, sentries, rescuers, and small beasts of burden.

40. Koreans eat about 600 million chickens per year and Korean fried chicken (or KFC) and beer are so popular that its fascination has spread to China via Korean soap operas. A Chinese company once flew all 4500 of its employees to Korea so they all can have KFC and beer.