Random Fact Sheet #37 – 35 Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop

The wild bison of Yellowstone National Park has adapted to utilize the local hot springs as bidets to clean the thick fur of their nether regions before mating.

27. Charles J. Guiteau who assassinated US President James A. Garfield intentionally used a gun that would look nice in a museum.

28. Katherine Johnson calculated rockets trajectories by hand. Buzz Aldrin trusted no one else. Not even their computers.

29. ChildLine has spent more than 25 years in making sure that an adult is at the end of a phone to help children tackle all kinds of serious issues, including bullying, neglect, and violence at home to alcohol and drug problems.

30. The Aeroflot Flight 6502 incident of 1986 in which a Soviet pilot made a bet with his co-pilot that he could land the airplane blind. He crashed the plane, killing 70 out of 94 passengers and crew.

Approximately once every 18 months (on average) a total solar eclipse is visible from some place on the Earth’s surface.

32. The lottery winner Jack Whittaker was once robbed of $545,000 in cash. When asked why he would carry around that much money, he responded with "because I can". He was later robbed for $200,000 cash.

33. Due to the limited number of different names on Norfolk Island, the island's telephone directory lists people with common names by their nickname. There are entries for Cane Toad, Lettuce Leaf, Goof, Diddles, Rubber Duck, Carrots, and Tarzan.

34. A study found that Charlie Sheen’s HIV-positive disclosure in 2014 led to 8225 more sales than expected of in-home HIV tests, surpassing World AIDS Day by a factor of about 7, concluding that a “Charlie Sheen effect” represents an important opportunity for a public health response.

35. Pythagoras studied mathematics in Egypt and Babylon. Particularly notable as the Babylonians had the 'Pythagorean theorem' at least 500 years before Greece.