Random Fact Sheet #57 – 40 Facts to Satisfy Your Curiosity

The 7-11 franchise in Japan was eventually able to buy out the entire brand due to its huge success in the country.

27. Prince wrote The Bangles 1986 hit single, ‘Manic Monday’ using a pseudonym.

28. Most Walmart shops allow anyone to use their parking lots at night for free.

29. In 1991, Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey Mouse, married Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie.

30. American Comedian Johnny Carson once joked on The Tonight Show about a nonexistent toilet paper shortage which led to eventual panic buying leaving store shelves empty causing a real shortage that lasted weeks.

The iPhone (and smartphones in general) have negatively impacted the sale of gum because people are more consumed with their phones and are less inclined to impulse buy when waiting to check out at a store.

32. The Vatican broadcasted its public approval of Pokémon in April 2001 after Christian groups argued that it promoted Satanic themes.

33. Despicable Me is the highest-grossing animated franchise ever, even beating Shrek.

34. In the 1800s, Paraguay’s first dictator, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, forbade colonial citizens from marrying one another and allowed them to marry only blacks, mulattoes or natives, in order to break the power of colonial-era elites and to create a mixed-race or mestizo society.

35. 39% of film industry professionals illegally download movies.

Ian McKellen was offered the role of Dumbledore after the death of Richard Harris. He turned it down because Harris once described McKellen as "technically brilliant, but passionless".

37. Keira Knightley was meant to be named "Kira", after the Russian ice skater, Kira Ivanova, but her mother misspelled the name when she went to register her.

38. After Emperor Valerian and his army surrendered to Persia, the Persians had them do engineering and architecture as work while prisoners. As a result, The City of Shushtar is the most eastern Roman city, despite never being part of the Roman Empire.

39. Darko Milicic, who was drafted 2nd overall in the 2003 NBA draft (before Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh) is currently an apple farmer in Serbia.

40. In 1976, the Soviet Union developed keyloggers for IBM Selectric typewriters tracking the ball motion and transmitting content from American Embassy typewriters for years.