Random Fact Sheet #309 – Fact Feast: 35 Intriguing Facts to Satisfy Your Curiosity

In the 1900s, the Austerlitz family in Omaha, Lutheran German emigrants, moved to New York City in hopes of finding fortune through their children's vaudeville talents. The son wore a top hat and studied tango, waltz, and other ballroom dances. He would become Fred Astaire.

27. Baseball great Dizzy Dean boasted he could strike out Vince DiMaggio four times in a game. After three strikeouts, DiMaggio hit a pop foul ball. Dizzy yelled to his catcher to drop it so he could win his boast. He then got the fourth strikeout.

28. Though Finland was allied with Germany during World War 2, they refused to expel their native (and immigrant) Jewish population, with those serving in the army taking particular delight in speaking Hebrew around the SS and Wehrmacht in Finland.

29. The oldest documented club dedicated to football in the world was the Foot-Ball Club of Edinburgh (1824- 1841), and surviving records describe a match involving 39 players and “such kicking of shins.”

30. Steak Tartare gets its name from a 13th-century myth that Mongols (called Tartars at the time) would ride with meat under their saddles to tenderize it and then eat it raw. The story was false and the chronicler who popularized it had never even encountered Mongols himself.

In times of desperation, Mongol armies would slit a minor vein in their horse's neck and drain some blood into a cup. This they would drink either “plain” or mixed with milk or water. This habit of blood-drinking (which applied to camels as well as horses) shocked the Mongols’ enemies.

32. Authors J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) and CS Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia) were close friends and in their early writing days were often each other’s first readers.

33. WWII British Cromwell tank was so overpowered performance-wise that later models had to be governed to a maximum speed of 32 mph in order to prevent damage. This was still fast enough for one group of Cromwells to reportedly jump over a 20-foot canal when surprised by enemy forces.

34. The banana plant is a herb, distantly related to ginger. There are more than 1,000 types of bananas in the world.

35. A tanner named John J. Loud desired a pen that could write on leather. He ended up inventing the first ballpoint pen and patented it in 1888. This pen had a small steel ball which was placed such that it would not fall out nor fall in but still could rotate freely. Loud’s invention was not commercially viable then.