Random Fact Sheet #293 – 35 Surprising and Eclectic Bits of Information

A black nurse named Elina Powell who served during World War 2 was assigned to work at a POW camp, like most African-American nurses at the time. She fell in love with a German Prisoner Of War named Frederick Albert there. They married and had children despite it being illegal in both the U.S and Germany during this time period.

27. A garbage collector and punk archaeologist partnered to find the fabled pit where a struggling Atari dumped tons of unsold inventory after the video game crash of 1983. They knew the Atari trove was close when they began unearthing artifacts of the 80s, including a Donny and Marie Osmond poster.

28. Researchers discovered that applying a sonogram to a person's skull and stimulating specific brain regions can alter their mood. One researcher described applying it to his own head and later feeling like he had a martini. They hope to develop a sonogram-based device to treat mood disorders.

29. Bears at Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in Montana have jobs, i.e., trying to open coolers/dumpsters/containers of treats. If bears can't make more than a tiny hole, the item is certified bear-proof. The GWDC is the only place where products can earn a certificate from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.

30. During the Battle of the Wabash or St. Clair’s defeat, an American army of 1000 men was slaughtered by a Native American force of near equal strength in 1791. Only 28 men escaped unscathed with a casualty rate of 97%. It remains the largest defeat in American history.

During a chess tournament a grandmaster named Jan-Krzysztof Duda lost every single game he played against his opponents until the very last one. He won against world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, ending Magnus’ 2-year, 125-game winning streak.

32. In 2014, New York City had $16 million in unpaid parking tickets from foreign diplomats. The largest offender was Egypt, with about $1.9 million. Diplomatic immunity is the main reason that those tickets remained outstanding.

33. Not only do bats make high-pitched sounds for echolocation, but many bat species also sing. A team of scientists that analyzed one species’ song translated it as a sequence that opens with a hello, then a gender identification, then some geographic information, and then a "let's talk" section.

34. There is a 1,700 year old Ethiopian counterpart of the Rosetta Stone called the Ezana Stone. The inscription commemorates Ethiopian military victories and their conversion to Christianity in their native language Ge’ez, as well as ancient Greek and South Arabian Sabaen.

35. On February 18, 1982, while wearing his future wife Sharon's dress for a photoshoot near the Alamo, Ozzy Osbourne drunkenly urinated on a cenotaph erected in honor of those who died at the famous battle in Texas. He was subsequently banned from the city of San Antonio for a decade.