Random Fact Sheet #325 – Dive into the Unknown: 40 Wonderful Facts That Will Expand Your Horizons

Frito-Lay ran a market research study in the 90s to rebrand Doritos, which resulted in making the corners of the chips rounded so they broke less and produced fewer scraps at the bottom of the bag.

2. The worst disaster in the New York area before 9/11 was the 1904 burning and sinking of a steamboat named PS General Slocum that killed 955 people. Life jackets aboard the steamboats were useless as some of them had iron weights in them instead of corks which were supposed to help with floatation.

3. In 1947, FBI issued a memo on the film “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The memo stated that the film represented rather obvious attempts to malign bankers and the upper class with the character of Mr. Potter, and accused the film of promoting communism.

4. Stan Lee came up with Spider-Man when he was experiencing writer's block for new superpowers and saw a fly crawling on a wall. Lee then started thinking of names like Insect Man, Fly Man, Stick-to-Wall Man, and Mosquito Man before settling on Spider-Man, because it sounded scary and dramatic.

5. Japan's execution system is done only by hanging, with prisoners in "detention centers" being taken to an execution chamber and dropped to their death using a trapdoor.

The recommended depth for CPR (approximately 2 inches) will result in broken ribs or sternum for 30% of patients.

7. Prince Charles is a descendant of the real-life Dracula (Vlad the Impaler).

8. Queen Elizabeth II ordered the guest rooms of her palace to be stripped of valuables before the President of Romania visited in 1978 because she feared he and his wife would steal from her.

9. History Channel had a show called "Hunting Hitler" that posited the idea that Hitler escaped his bunker, and the cast of the show thought a picture of Moe Howard (one of the Three Stooges) was literally Hitler.

10. Crowds who watched the first execution by guillotine were unsatisfied with how quick and effective it was and stated that it didn't provide them with "proper entertainment."

In 1939, a Maine State Representative named Cleveland Sleeper drafted a bill to outlaw the use of tomatoes in clam chowder. The punishment for breaking this law was to have the individual dig up a barrel of clams at high tide, which is impossible.

12. The US-made Schoolhouse Rock-like cartoons called The Metric Marvels in 1978 to prepare the country to switch to the metric system.

13. Henri Paul, Princess Diana's driver, was 3 times over the legal drink-drive limit on the night of her death and was using both anti-depressants and anti-psychotics.

14. In 2017, a 10-minute song of silence entitled "A a a a a Very Good Song" became one of the top-selling songs on iTunes because it helped solve the problem of car stereos playing the first song from an iPhone playlist in alphabetical order, giving people enough time to pick a song.

15. It is basically impossible to get a hamster drunk due to how efficiently their livers process alcohol.

Raw red kidney beans are toxic. Three to four raw red kidney beans are sufficient to cause food poisoning-like symptoms.

17. The movie Jaws (1975) is considered the first "summer blockbuster" ever. Up until then, summer was traditionally when the worst movies were dumped into theatres.

18. Unscripted programs AKA "reality shows" became much more prominent as a result of the 2007-08 Writer's Guild strike which affected much of the industry and halted many tv productions. Because it was profitable under desperate circumstances, reality television was allowed to expand as a genre.

19. Pinball was banned beginning in the early 1940s until 1976 in New York City. New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia was responsible for the ban, believing that it robbed school children of their hard-earned nickels and dimes.

20. Xiao Yuan, Curator/Forger , a curator at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in southern China replaced more than 140 paintings in the museum with his own forgeries and sold 125 of them for $6 million. He later found out his own fakes were being stolen and replaced with yet more copies.

The Artificial Virginity Hymen kit was developed in Japan and sold by a Chinese manufacturer in many countries. It contained a red dye that mimicked blood when the product was broken. It was banned in 2009 by lawmakers in Egypt over fears that newlywed women would use the product to fake their virginity.

22. Diesel train locomotives use their diesel engines only to power generators that, in turn, power electric motors that drive the wheels.

23. In 1869, George Hull hired people to make a stone statue of a man, bury it, then later pretend to discover an ancient giant. The hoax was so lucrative that P.T. Barnum offered $50,000. When George Hull declined, Barnum had a replica made and said that he had the real giant and George had the fake.

24. Unlike adult cataracts, which can be removed after years and normal eyesight is restored, severe pediatric cataracts must be treated within weeks or the brain will learn to permanently ignore the defective eye.

25. The reason behind Titanic not having sufficient lifeboats was not because it was “unsinkable.” Regulations at the time only required a small amount of lifeboats because they thought there would be enough time to ferry passengers back and forth to waiting rescue ships.