Random Fact Sheet #254 – 30 Facts That Will Leave You Fascinated

For the film 'Ray' (2004), Jamie Foxx had to wear eye prosthetics that would make him go blind for up to 12 hours a day. It barely left him any time to sleep because he would practice piano after shooting with the blindfold on. He went on to win the Oscar for best actor for his performance.

2. All modern penicillin can be traced back to a single moldy cantaloupe from a small grocery store in Peoria, Illinois.

3. There is a town named High Wycombe in the UK that publicly weighs their Mayor before and after their term to ensure they haven't gained weight at the taxpayers’ expense. If they have gained weight they are publicly booed.

4. According to a Cambodian superstition, opposite-sex twins were lovers in a past life whose relationship was ill-fated, causing them to be born as twins and preventing them from marrying in this life.

5. The real name of the man who is popularly known as “Hide the Pain Harold” is Arató András. He is a retired Hungarian electrical engineer turned stock photography model and stumbled upon himself as a meme when he was looking up stock photos of himself to see how they turned out.

Lynyrd Skynyrd is named after a P.E. teacher called Leonard Skinner, who had the band members in his class and was known for being very strict about enforcing the school’s no long hair on boys policy so the band named themselves to mock Skinner and changed a few letters to avoid a lawsuit.

7. Betty Ong was a flight attendant aboard the American Airlines Flight 11 that was hijacked by five al-Qaeda members on September 11 in 2001. Ong notified the American Airlines ground crew of the hijacking, staying on the telephone for 25 minutes and relaying vital information that eventually led to the closing of airspace by the FAA for the first time in history.

8. Serial killer Randy Woodfield was actually drafted by the NFL to play for the Green Bay Packers but was cut due to a series of indecent exposure arrests. He would go on to become the I-5 Killer and is thought to have been responsible for over 40 murders along Interstate 5 from 1980-81.

9. Michelin stars only go to three, one being "Very good", two being "Worth a detour" and three "Worth a special trip."

10. Wearing sunglasses can improve your mood. Squinting your eyes in bright sunlight convinces your brain you are in a negative mood because people squint when they are angry. Wearing sunglasses can prevent you from squinting, and from involuntary frowning due to bright sunlight.

There were only two groups in Sparta that could have their names inscribed in their tombstones: mothers who died giving life and soldiers who fell in battle.

12. Queen Elizabeth is no longer Lord High Admiral of the Royal Navy because she gave the title to her husband as a 90th birthday present.

13. Many elements of Harry Potter are very similar to a book written 3 years before. The Secret of Platform 13 features a boy of magical lineage who lives in an abusive house with a spoilt other child, and you get to the magical world through a platform at King's Cross. 

14. Much of the filming for Malcolm in the Middle television sitcom was done on location in various parts of Los Angeles. A privately-owned home was rented for upwards of $3,000 a day to film as Malcolm's house.

15. One of the conditions Woody Harrelson had for taking his role in Zombieland was that the director, Ruben Fleischer, not eat dairy products for a week. Instead of sticking with just a week, he maintained a vegetarian diet for 11 months.

The Simpsons producer's contract allows them to write the show without interference from Fox. This allows them to make fun of the network.

17. Both a human and a dog's blood pressure decrease while the human pets the dog.

18. The USPS mistook a Las Vegas replica for the real Statue of Liberty when creating the Lady Liberty "forever" stamp in 2010, resulting in a $3.5 million payouts to the replica's sculptor for violating his copyright.

19. Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the two black athletes who gave Black Power salutes at the 1968 Olympics, were pallbearers and gave eulogies at the funeral of Peter Norman, the white athlete on the podium.

20. William Henry Sheppard, one of the first Black American missionaries to Africa, helped to expose King Leopold’s atrocities in the Belgian Congo to the world.

Charlize Theron has suffered many injuries such as dislocating her jaw due to a camel and laughing so hard at Borat that her neck locked up for 5 days.

22. Peter Hill was the first known African American clockmaker and the only Black clockmaker known to have worked in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He earned enough money to buy his freedom at the age of 27. The following year he married his wife Tina and purchased her freedom as well.

23. US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq is the world's largest (almost of the same size as Vatican City). It houses its own power station, water and sewage treatment, internet and phone network, gym, cinema, and sports facilities. It also has 6 apartment buildings to house its employees.

24. The American Bald Eagle sounds like a seagull. The mighty screech that is often dubbed over the image of a bald eagle is actually the cry of a Red-Tailed Hawk.

25. While only 2% of Europeans lack the genes for smelly armpits, most East Asians and almost all Koreans lack this gene.