Random Fact Sheet #260 – 40 Facts You Can’t Ignore

The fourth-place through eighth-place finishers in an Olympic final event do not receive medals, but they do get paper “Olympic diplomas.”

27. Li Bai was Chinese Poet who was considered the greatest poet in Chinese literature. A good chunk of his poems is dedicated to alcohol and drunkenness due to his rampant alcoholism. Legend has it that he drowned after drunkenly trying to embrace the moon's reflection during a ferry-ride.

28. When Roman soldiers stopped the late senator Cicero, his last words were “There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly”. He then bowed to the soldiers and was decapitated.

29. Henry Ford once tried to start a colony in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest called "Fordlandia", in which the locals were forced to live a midwestern American lifestyle until they rebelled and chased their managers into the forest.

30. Swallowing pills without water can make it take longer for them to work, increase the chances of the pill to get stuck in your esophagus, and in worse scenarios make an ulcer in your esophagus mucosa.

Sten Gustaf Thulindid, the inventor of plastic bags didn't believe in single-use plastics. He carried a plastic bag in his pocket and used it over and over again.

32. A British General named Cuthbert Lucas was too nice to be executed after being captured by the Irish Republican Army. He drank and played cards with his captors and even helped in the fields. It is believed, he was allowed to escape.

33. Lenses implanted in the eye following cataract surgery, are the result of a surgeon realizing shrapnel from a World War 2 windshield lodging in a pilot's eye did not cause an infection or show signs of tissue rejection.

34. Dogs are as intelligent as the average two-year-old child. Researchers have found that dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures, can count up to five, and can perform simple mathematical calculations.

35. When American singer-songwriter Bill Withers debuted with “Ain’t no Sunshine” in 1971, he refused to leave his job as an assembler in a factory, believing that the music business was a fickle industry.

Salvador Dali was born 9 months after his older brother had died, who was also named Salvador. His parents believed that he was a reincarnation of the said older brother. He spent most of his life trying to live outside the shadow of his older brother.

37. The Ideal Maternity Home was a maternity home that opened in 1928 in Nova Scotia. They scammed young women, forcing them to pay $500 each for their stay, then either killing their newborns through medical negligence or selling them for up to $10,000 per baby. It was closed down in 1947.

38. Studies on the subject indicate Morning People are generally happier and less inclined to develop bad habits, while Night Owls are generally a bit more intelligent and sexually promiscuous.

39. Saddam Hussein once pranked his guests by adding Tabasco to koftas he cooked for them. Some of the panicked guests initially feared that the paranoid dictator had poisoned them.

40. Had Woodrow Wilson lost the 1916 presidential election (which he nearly did), he planned to appoint his opponent as secretary of state and then resign along with his vice president, sparing the country a lengthy lame-duck period during a time of international conflict.