Random Fact Sheet #278 – 35 Surprising Facts to Expand Your Knowledge

The Placebo effect is stronger in the US than in other countries, causing a problem for medicinal trials.

27. Cher and Meryl Streep once saved a woman from being attacked when they were walking in Manhattan together. They ran screaming towards the person who was attacking the woman and was able to get them away from her.

28. In August 1864, a sniper tried to shoot Abraham Lincoln as he left the White House. They had missed by inches and shot through Lincoln’s hat, knocking it off his head. Lincoln had left without guards. He was just riding out to an evening retreat.

29. Napoleon did not like to eat set meals, instead choosing to eat when he was hungry. Napoleon’s preference forced his palace chefs to constantly have chickens roasting on spits to suit his erratic hunger. Additionally, Napoleon preferred eating with hands rather than use utensils.

30. A 19-year-old wrestler died after losing 9 pounds in 8.5 hours by exercising vigorously in a hot environment wearing a vapor-impermeable suit under a cotton warm-up suit. He resumed exercising 2 hours after the weight loss and died from cardiac arrest an hour later.

The Mayo Clinic was started due to a tornado. In 1883, a tornado ripped through Rochester, Minnesota killing 37 people. Some injured residents were taken to a convent prompting a nun to suggest that a hospital be opened in the city.

32. The Canadian government will pay you to plant trees for summer. This program has become so popular that work visas are available for foreign workers simply to plant trees.

33. Beekeepers avoid eating bananas or even using lotions or products with that smell before tending to their bees. The smell of bananas triggers bees to attack, while the smell of almonds repels them.

34. Will Ferrell once signed on to play Ronald Reagan in a film that focused on Reagan succumbing to Alzheimer’s-induced dementia while in office. He dropped out after an outcry from Reagan's family and the Alzheimer's Associaton, and the project died.

35. The sharpest object ever created is a tungsten needle that tapers down to the thickness of a single atom.