Random Fact Sheet #308 – Factopia: 35 Extraordinary Random Facts

Jamie Farr, Alan Alda, and Mike Farrell, who starred in the TV show M*A*S*H all actually were in the military and served in Korea (after the war). Farr wore his actual dog tags on the show.

2. The Jewish religion does not allow cooking/eating meat and dairy together because it is considered cruel to cook an animal in the very milk that was meant to nourish it.

3. L Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, believed that tomatoes felt pain and said that if it is quiet enough, you can hear them scream when they are sliced.

4. Rats left unaided in water will drown in a just few minutes if they feel hopeless, but if they know there is hope of being rescued they will swim for days.

5. Rats can be trained to detect a chemical compound within explosives, meaning they ignore scrap metal and can search for mines more quickly. An African giant pouched rat named Magawa has been awarded a prestigious gold medal for his work detecting land mines.

The body of Alexander the Great has been lost over time. It was well-known to be in Alexandria, Egypt for centuries and was even worshipped for a while, but its exact location has apparently been forgotten.

7. After their characters unsuccessfully flirted in Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern actually dated and got engaged.

8. USDA requires Salisbury Steaks to be a minimum of 65% meat, of which up to 25% can be pork.

9. The Eiffel Tower was originally intended to stand from 1889 to 1909 but was saved due to its use as an army radio transmitter. Its concession was extended for the next 70 years, to 1980, lasting beyond as a tourist attraction and receiving regular modifications such as television broadcasting.

10. Chinese Mythology also has a Great Flood Myth. Unlike the Biblical story, humans fought the flood, led by the mythical heroes Prince Gun and his son, Yu the Engineer, who battled evil demons & solicited the aid of gods and dragons to build massive drainage basins and mighty dams to end the flooding.

Pom-Pom Crabs are small crabs that hold anemones in their small pinchers and will replace lost anemones by splitting the one left into two. This is the first known case of one animal stimulating another animal to reproduce asexually.

12. Actor Hugh Laurie was one of the highest-paid actors in television drama, earning $409,000 (£250,000) for each episode of the television series ‘House.’

13. The ‘Bermuda Triangle’ isn’t statistically more dangerous than almost any other place on the world’s oceans per capita, though the traffic there is just much higher.

14. Just before lethal hypothermia, a person will undress themselves because they perceive themselves to be burning up when indeed they’re freezing (paradoxical undressing). Consequently, people frozen to death are often found naked and misidentified as a victim of a violent crime.

15. Back in Roman times, people used to celebrate the New Year in the month of the first harvest after winter, which was March. That makes March the first month of the year, and Sept, Oct, Nov, and Dec indeed the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months.

The US dollar bill has remained unchanged since 1929. US government believes no one would take the trouble of counterfeiting such a low denomination currency and hence it does not need the fancy updates or security features seen in the higher value currencies.

17. Natalee Holloway, who disappeared in 2005 while on a senior trip with her high school to Aruba, has never been found, and her disappearance/murder has never been solved, even though the lead suspect, Joran van der Sloot, was convicted of murdering another girl 5 years later in Peru.

18. In 2019, Pope Francis approved changing the lord’s prayer. The phrase “lead us not into temptation” changed to “do not let us fall into temptation”. He said the original was a bad translation because it suggested God caused the temptation.

19. The Goodyear Tire company was not founded by Charles Goodyear, the inventor of vulcanized rubber. Charles died penniless trying in vain to protect his patents. Brothers Frank and Charles Seiberling started the rubber company in 1898 and named it in honor of Goodyear.

20. Sarah Forbes Bonetta was an admitted genius and royal of the Yoruba tribe's Oyo Empire. She was given to Queen Victoria in 1850 as a present after her parents were decapitated and her siblings sold in the Atlantic slave trade. She would be raised as the Queen’s Goddaughter.

In 1888, an Egyptian farmer discovered a cavern packed with tens of thousands of mummified cats dating back to ancient Egyptian times. They were sold to British merchants by the ton and were mainly used in Liverpool as fertilizer.

22. Juno Beach was originally going to be named Jelly Beach, but Churchill disapproved of the name, finding it to be undignified “for a beach on which so many men might die.”

23. Tondrakians were members of an anti-feudal, heretical Christian sect that flourished in Armenia who advocated the abolition of the Church, denied the immortality of the soul, afterlife, the church, and its feudal rights. They supported property rights for peasants, and equality between men and women.

24. Men also have a hormonal cycle in which varying levels of testosterone affects mood, sex drive, and behaviors whilst simultaneously being responsive to cues in a woman's hormonal cycle; however, the outward signs displayed are not as evident as a woman’s monthly cycle.

25. Australians developed Vegemite because they couldn't wait for Marmite supplies to resume after World War I.