Random Fact Sheet #36 – 35 Must-Know Facts for Trivia Buffs

The largest art heist in history was completed in 1990 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, totaling 13 paintings worth $500M. To this day, all of the empty frames are still hanging, acting as placeholders until the pieces are returned.

27. Steel was forged prior to the 1945 atom bomb explosions is highly sought-after because all steel forged after is 'contaminated' with Cobalt-60.

28. Allen Klein, Rolling Stones manager and owner of the song "Dead Flowers," which plays at the end of "The Big Lebowski," initially wanted $150,000 for it. He was then convinced to let them use it for free when he saw the scene in which The Dude says, "I hate the f*ckin' Eagles, man!"

29. In 1504, Christopher Columbus scared the natives of Jamaica to continue to provision him and his hungry men by successfully predicting a total lunar eclipse. When the moon turned red, showing his God was 'inflamed with wrath", the frightened community quickly agreed to his request.

30. The German Reichstag/parliament in 1933 voted to give Hitler absolute control. One person spoke against it: Social Democratic leader Otto Wels spoke the last free words in the Reichstag: "You can take our lives & our freedom, but you cannot take our honor. We are defenseless but not honorless."

Europeans feared eating tomatoes for 200 years because when wealthy Europeans used pewter plates which was high in lead content, ate tomatoes off the plates. The high acidity in tomatoes would cause the fruit to leach lead from the plate, resulting in many deaths from lead poisoning.

32. Pope Francis only has one lung. It was removed when he was a teenager due to an infection.

33. Older U.S.A. presidential limousines are at the Henry Ford Museum, but after Sept. 11, 2001, the Secret Service adopted a policy to destroy the limos after they are taken out of service in order to protect their security secrets.

34. According to top addiction experts, "Giving your child a smartphone is like giving them a gram of cocaine".

35. Canada and USA share the longest border and most mutually beneficial international relationship in the world.