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

Camels can be larger than moose, run up to 40mph, live close to 40 years in the wild, and are more intelligent/emotional than horses.

27. Raccoons have extremely sensitive front paws, and often moisten objects to “see” them better with their paws (largely to determine if they are food).

28. Dmitry Glukhovsky wrote the novel “Metro 2033” when he was 18. He published the novel on his website available for free. This eventually led to a video game deal with 4A Games and a comic deal with Dark Horse comics.

29. Some of the slaves freed from Charleston, South Carolina during the civil war organized a March at a race track where union soldiers had died in what is known as the first memorial day observance (a year before other states, and 3 years prior to the first national observance).

30. Thomas Selfridge was the first person to be killed in an airplane crash in 1908. The propeller shattered mid-flight and the plane nose-dived into the ground. Selfridge hit his head on the framework and died from a skull fracture. The pilot of the plane was Orville Wright.

Leading up to Normandy, MI-5 conducted one of the largest military deception efforts to convince the Germans that a landing would instead take place at Calais; going so far as to fake a whole army, with radio messages of “coded” gibberish, fake vehicles, and ersatz camps to fool recon planes.

32. In 1984, British new wave pop group Thompson Twins released a video game on a vinyl record. Players had to copy the game from the vinyl disc to a cassette tape, which could then be played on a ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 computer.

33. William Shatner filmed Leonard Nimoy secretly during a convention appearance to include as footage in his film without Nimoy’s permission, prompting Nimoy's refusal to ever speak to him again. Shatner never understood why.

34. Chimps have a closely related counterpart called bonobos. While chimps are violent and cannibalistic, bonobos are very passive and often appease each other with sex.

35. Allergan is a company in Ireland that produces about 90% of the world's commercial Botox. Allergan only produces the finished product (a thin almost invisible film on the inside of the vials) and the toxin itself is produced in Irvine, California. Once a year it is shipped, and only a few people on either side know when it's coming. The amount shipped that satisfies 90% of the global commercial market is just 1 gram. 5 grams are made in Irvine a year, with the other four going to DoD.