Random Fact Sheet #75 – 35 Incredible Facts You Won’t Find Anywhere Else

An Artificial Intelligent computer engine named Cyc became confused by a story of a man shaving. The AI understood that people do not contain any electronic parts, but considered the man holding the electric razor as one entity, and asked if he was still a person while he was shaving.

2. There are 5 parasitologists who wrote and are giving away a free textbook on the human parasite to everyone because they want to increase awareness/ help cure many preventable diseases.

3. Alberto Fujimori who was the president of Peru between 1990 and 2000 was a full-blooded Japanese.

4. When you love getting attention and hate it at the same time is called Hedgehog's dilemma.

5. Cyanide pills were distributed to audience members of the last Berlin Philharmonic concert on 12 April 1945 as Allied forces approached Berlin and the surrender of Germany seemed imminent.

The Voyager space message contains greetings in 55 languages but is missing Swahili because the person did not show up to the studio.

7. When Rudolph Hess, righthand man to Adolf Hitler, flew on an apparently unsanctioned peace mission to Great Britain in 1941, the German public was quickly told that Hess suffered from mental disturbance and hallucinations.

8. Eating late at night won't cause you to gain weight. As long as you're not exceeding your calorie needs for the entire day, it won't affect the scale.

9. Jack Daniel, the famous whiskey distiller, died due to complications from gangrene after kicking his safe when he couldn’t remember its combination.

10. The movie Starsky & Hutch was based on two real-life NYC cops, Lou Telano and John Sepe, who went undercover as Hasidic Jews, gay lovers, and female nurses in the 1960s and 1970s.

American Comedian Dave Chappelle was offered the role of Bubba in Forrest Gump but turned it down because he thought the role would be demeaning and the movie would bomb.

12. Pope Francis and Pope John Paul the Second are honorary members of the Harlem Globetrotters.

13. The patent for the fire hydrant was lost in a patent office fire.

14. Staring into a mirror in a dim room for a long time can make you hallucinate.

15. Sea Otters have the densest hair in the world, with up to 140,000 hairs per square centimeter. Humans have about 300 per square centimeter on their head.

The original inventor of perforated toilet paper included a diagram in the patent (filed 1891), which clearly shows the correct orientation of the roll is over, not under.

17. Jerry Seinfeld contacted South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to express interest in voicing a character. They offered the comedian the nonspeaking part of “Turkey No. 2” in their Thanksgiving episode, but Seinfeld declined.

18. In 1977, members of the rock band KISS mixed their own blood with the red ink used to print the first KISS comic book.

19. The first can opener was patented 160 years ago, on January 5, 1858, fifty years after the can was invented. Prior to its invention, people used hammers and chisels to open cans.

20. A Norwegian 10-year-old once took his 18-month-old sister on a trip to his grandparents in his parent's car. 10km down the road he ended up in a ditch and when police turned up he claimed to be a dwarf.

Falcons are more closely related to parrots than hawks or eagles.

22. In 1984, a group of paleontologists ate a buffalo stew that had been frozen for 30,000 years. The flavor was reported as tough with an earthy mushroom smell.

23. There is a grave (Scotia's grave) in County Kerry in Ireland that is the supposed burial ground of an Ancient Egyptian princess called Scotia, who led settlers named ‘The Scots’ (After the princess) to Scotland after whom Scotland is now supposedly named.

24. We have two nostrils because different smells are detectable at different airspeeds, so one nostril is always more open than the other to give us a wider olfactory range.

25. When the parents of a nine-year-old named "Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii" went to court in a custody battle, the judge was so mortified by their daughter's unusual name that he ordered them to rename her.