Random Fact Sheet #306 – Into the Extraordinary: 30 Unbelievable Facts

Chocolate was classified as “candy” under the Revenue Acts of 1918 and 1921, and so it was taxed as such. Hershey’s sued to recover about $8 million in taxes by arguing it was “food”, and so had been wrongly taxed. The Supreme Court ruled it was “candy.”

2. Despite not being involved with the company for decades, Steve Wozniak remains an employee at Apple and still gets a salary because nobody will fire him.

3. “Golden Girl” Bea Arthur enlisted in the Marines in 1943 where she was one of the first members of the Women’s Reserve and spent time as a typist and a truck driver.

4. The European Union offers free train passes to 18-year-olds so that they can explore Europe.

5. Walt Disney negotiated the rights to build a nuclear reactor in 1967, after hiring a German physicist, Heinz Haber, to lay the groundwork for research into nuclear energy, which would be used to power Disneyland.

The actors in 'Scott Pilgrim vs. The World' were taught to play and are actually the musicians featured in the soundtrack for their band.

7. In 1911, inmates on death row played baseball for their lives. If they won, execution was delayed. If they lost, their execution went ahead as scheduled.

8. There is a house in New Orleans that they call ‘the Rising Sun,’ but it’s not a brothel as singer Eric Burdon once described it. It's a bed and breakfast run by a Louisianan couple who love the legend and have collected over 40 versions of the Animals’ song.

9. Woodworkers or machinists who align all their screw heads call it "clocking."

10. Margot Robbie was nominated for an award called "Actress Most in Need of a New Agent" by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists in 2016 for her work on Tarzan and Suicide Squad.

The powder you see when you touch a moth is actually tiny scales, like on a fish or lizard. These scales give butterflies and moths their scientific name Lepidoptera (from the Greek Lepido = scale, and ptera = wing).

12. Cher is the only artist in history to have a Number One song on the Billboard Music Charts for six consecutive decades.

13. In 2015, as a prank, a science journalist and others set up a study which showed that eating chocolate could help you lose weight faster. The study was published in a scientific journal and widely reported in the media.

14. During the Second Opium War (1860), French and British troops reached the Imperial Palace in Peking, China. The troops proceed to loot everything in sight, including five Pekingese dogs. The dogs were taken back to England and one of the dogs was given to Queen Victoria. She named the dog “Looty"

15. The Olympics have only been postponed or canceled six times since 1896. Most of these postpones or cancellations were due to war, specifically World War 1, World War 2, and during Covid19.

After an All-Star professional sports career in both football and baseball, Bo Jackson completed his Bachelors degree in Family and Child Development to fulfill the promise he made to his mother.

17. Over 200 years after the HMS Bounty sank due to a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, a reconstruction of the same ship sank, taking the life of Claudene Christian, a descendant of Fletcher.

18. For many years prior to the Crusades, Muslims, Jews, and Christians worked together to translate and reproduce Ancient Greek texts, like Aristotle, to reintroduce lost literature to the world.

19. You aren't supposed to store potatoes beside onions. Onions give off gas to age potatoes faster.

20. In 1948, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game used surplus parachutes from World War 2 to drop threatened beavers into a nearby protected area. After some careful calibrations, 76 beavers made the skydive and all but one survived the drop.

Flowers are physically growing with darker colored petals nowadays due to their rapid adaptation to combat the sun's radiation from the thinning ozone layer.

22. The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in the UK has a £1 million award for the first person who creates a product that is 100% chemical-free.

23. The Johnson Treatment was a strategy used by Lyndon B. Johnson to get legislation passed. Johnson, who was 6'4", would invade the personal space of the target and issue a disorientating stream of flattery, threats and persuasion that would leave the target unable to counter.

24. Peter Molyneux was operating a baked bean export firm when a confused tech salesman mistakenly gave him 10 free computers. This event jumpstarted his career in video game design and he would go on to create many notable games such as Dungeon Keeper, Fable, and Black & White.

25. Your body will dissolve loose pieces of bone in your body after a fracture.