Random Fact Sheet #298 – Jewels of Trivia: 40 Alluring Facts

There is an Australian fungus called "The Stonemaker Fungus" that only shows up right after a forest fire. They live underground in a stone-like mycelium and pop up through the ashes 2-10 days after the fire, sometimes as infrequent as every 100 years.

27. The Beatles filed preliminary legal papers against the Beastie Boys for their numerous Beatles samples on 1989's Paul's Boutique. Mike D of the group's response was "What's cooler than getting sued by the Beatles?" Over 105 tracks were sampled on the album, including 24 on the last song alone.

28. In 1942, some scientists theorized that detonating a nuclear bomb could produce such intense heat that it would cause a chain reaction that would set the atmosphere itself on fire, killing all life on Earth.

29. The animals commonly referred to as "Buffalo" in North America are actually not Buffalo at all, they are Bison. True Buffalo look much more similar to long-horned cattle.

30. In addition to ending World War 1, the Treaty of Versailles also made it clear so that Bayer could no longer trademark “heroin.”

Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' wasn't originally intended to be presented as a work of fiction. His editor rejected the manuscript believing it would cause widespread panic, given that Jack the ripper was active in London at the time. The version we read starts on page 102 of the original script.

32. Chris McCandless's "Into the Wild" bus in Alaska was removed from Denali after tourists kept getting severely injured or dying while trying to visit it.

33. Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel died of tuberculosis at the age of 26 and did most of his major work in a span of about 7 years while living in poverty. The equivalent of the Nobel prize in the field of mathematics; the Abel Prize, is named after him.

34. There is another kind of Panda that is brown and super rare. Qinling panda is a subspecies of the giant panda and only inhabits in Qinling Mountains of China.

35. During World War 2 soldiers would keep photos of their loved ones under clear grips on their pistols. These were known as 'sweetheart grips' and soldiers made these grips themselves using plexiglass salvaged from downed aircraft.

Gladiators in Ancient Rome formed trade unions called "collegia" that would often pay for the funerals of fallen gladiators and take care of their families.

37. When relocating adult koalas to populate new areas of bush, the incoming koalas are fed a poo smoothie of local koala poo so that they would be able to digest local leaves.

38. Poe's Masque of the Red Death was inspired by a masquerade ball held in Paris during the height of a global cholera epidemic. Over 2000 attended, including a man dressed as the Personification of Cholera.

39. In 2000, a NASA plane accidentally flew over Mount Hekla, a.k.a., the Gateway to Hell in Iceland, resulting in the first-ever directly recorded plume measurements of sulfur dioxide and temperature readings taken from an actively erupting volcano.

40. Edward St. John was an Australian politician who threw away his political career in his maiden speech in 1967 when he took the opportunity to criticize his own party in order to restore the honor of a Naval Officer wrongly censured after a collision at sea.