Random Fact Sheet #34- 30 Quirky Facts to Keep You on Your Toes

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1Pitbull

Pitbull

In 2012, Walmart held a contest, in which the rapper Pitbull would perform in a Walmart with the most likes on its FB page. After the #ExilePitbull Twitter campaign, the shop in the remote island town of Kodiak, Alaska, ended up winning.


2. When the Nazis forced Jews to wear yellow stars during World War 2, it backfired. Doing so increased sympathy for the Jews, who were (contrary to Nazi propaganda) obviously not responsible for how badly the war was going. People began tipping hats to Jews as a symbol of anti-German resistance.


3. When 20th-century archaeologist Leonard Woolley excavated the temple at Ur (Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum), he found rows of neatly arranged artifacts of varying ages accompanied by inscriptions describing them: a 2500-year-old archaeological museum.


4. Forensic lip readers have analyzed silent footage from World War 1 and were able to reconstruct conversations that were previously thought to be lost in time.


5. After the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 13% of the US people were in favor of "killing off" all Japanese people. And after Japan surrendered, 22.7% of Americans wished more atomic bombs had been dropped.


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6Christopher Knight

Christopher Knight

A man named Christopher Knight probably holds the record for the most burglaries committed. He was a hermit who lived in the Maine woods and avoided human contact for almost 30 years.


7. A one pound onion has 191 calories, a blooming onion from Outback Steakhouse has 1954 calories.


8. Sesame Street has an Incarceration Tool Kit which assists parents and family with explaining prison to children.


9. In the early 20th Century, a surgical antiseptic was distilled and sold as a floor cleaner and a cure for gonorrhea. It was then re-marketed as what we now know as Listerine.


10. A group of women navigated canvas and plywood planes at night to drop 23,000 tons of bombs over invading German armies in World War 2. Their stealthy swooshing sounds led them to be known as the Night Witches.


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11Tanya Savicheva

Tanya Savicheva

Tanya Savicheva was a young girl trapped in the Seige of Leningrad. She kept a diary of the names of each family member that died, ending with a final entry for herself: "The Savichevas are dead Everyone is dead Only Tanya is left"


12. Starboard means "steer" board, which is the side of the steering oar on the right side since most people are right-handed. Naturally, in that case, the left-side will be where you dock with the "Port".


13. England used to have a "Window tax". People refused to disclose how much money they made, considering it an invasion of privacy - so you would be charged based on how many windows your house had. In retaliation, people bricked up their windows, which you can still see today.


14. When Robert Knievel was in jail, his cellmate's name was William "Awful" Knofel. When the jailer went to check on them he stated: "Well look who we have here, Awful Knofel and Evil Knievel." Thus the legend of Evel Knievel was born.


15. The only reason we know about Onfime, a boy from the 13th century is because his handwriting lessons were found on pieces of birch.


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16Adults

Adults

In the U.S. 42.6 million adults age 45 and older are chronically lonely.


17. Sportscaster Bob Costas jokingly promised Kirby Puckett he would name his first child Kirby if Puckett was batting over .350 when the child was born. Kirby hit over .350 but the child had already been named. He reminded Costas and the birth certificate was changed to "Keith Michael Kirby Costas"


18. An expedition to the Titanic accidentally recovered "a wedding band and part of a human finger", confirming that human remains still exist on the wreck.


19. Tara Strong, the voice actress on Powerpuff Girls, Rugrats, Teen Titans, Hello Kitty, Ultimate Spider Man, Princess Mononoke, and much more, was given a visa into the US as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability."


20. There's a huge illegal industry that salvages old shipwrecks that predate nuclear testing to get steel untainted by atmospheric radiation.


21Panspermia

Panspermia

Panspermia is a hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by meteoroids, asteroids, spacecraft etc. in form of extremophile types of bacteria. If met with ideal conditions on a new planet's surfaces, the organisms become active and the process of evolution begins.


22. The spikes at the end of Stegosaurus's tail are called "thagomizers" because of a far side comic, published in 1982, that featured a cave man pointing to a diagram of a Stegosaurus tail with the caption "Now this end is called the Thagomizer--after the late Thag Simmons."


23. Two Australians named Morgan Ruig and Evan Shay fooled officials into letting them play in an international golf tournament at North Korea's only golf course. For five days they were treated as honored guests and taken on official visits around Pyongyang before being exposed as frauds due to their poor golfing skills.


24. Yew trees can live for more than 1000 years, are often found in graveyards, and have a long association with death; they're deadly poisonous to humans, with no known antidote. However, the tree is used to make taxanes, which are used to fight cancer.


25. The "Broken Windows Theory" states that maintaining and monitoring urban areas to prevent small crimes, such as vandalism, helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness - thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.

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