Random Fact Sheet #84 – 35 Mind-Blowing Facts to Knock Your Socks Off

Pill bugs (also known as Roly polies, Potato bugs, etc.) are not insects but are closely related to shrimp and other crustaceans. They also have gills.

2. A tiger is heavily favored in a fight with a lion and a tiger once killed a lion with a single paw swipe at a zoo in Turkey.

3. Hummingbirds are continuously hours away from starving to death and consume the human equivalent of 140,000 calories per day to compensate. They enter a mini-hibernation mode (torpor) each night just to survive the suspension of calories.

4. In 1971, a crazed fan shot a flare-gun towards Frank Zappa and his band during a concert in Switzerland. The resulting fire injured several audience members, melted the band's equipment, and destroyed the venue. This incident was the inspiration for Deep Purples, 'Smoke On The Water.'

5. The least-visited national park in the U.S. is the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in Alaska, which lies entirely north of the Arctic Circle and has "no established roads, trails, visitor facilities, or campgrounds."

A woman named Lee Wachtsetter pays $164,000 per year to live on a luxury cruise ship.

7. A man named Robert Evans has discovered over 40 supernovas (exploding stars) mostly using a 16-inch telescope in his backyard in New South Wales.

8. In 1901, the Wright brothers built their own wind tunnel out of wood, old hacksaw blades and bicycle spokes; using it to test more than 200 wing shapes which were handmade from pieces of sheet steel and wax. The data it generated was critical to their first powered flight two years later.

9. The 'Frisbee' was named so after a local pie company 'Frisbie Pies' sold many to students at the local college who used to finish the pie and throw the empty tray around for fun, yelling 'Frisbee' in case anyone nearby was in danger of being hit.

10. There is a sport named Archery Tag that is basically like dodgeball but with foam-tipped arrows.

Upon reading all of the 18 volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica he had received as gift for his enthronement, Shah Fat'h Ali of Persia decided to change his official title to include "Most Formidable Lord and Master of the Encyclopaedia Britannica."

12. The last words of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was “I’m bored with it all." It was spoken after suffering a stroke at the age of 90.

13. The first episode of ‘The Crocodile Hunter’ featured Steve Irwin and his wife, Terry, trapping and handling crocodiles on their honeymoon.

14. George Lucas originally approached Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Robert Zemeckis to direct the Prequel Trilogy, but all of them refused, each saying almost the exact same thing; "George, you should do it!"

15. There is a 60-mile conveyer belt in Morocco that carries phosphorus from mines in Western Sahara to the Atlantic Ocean. It can be seen from space.

Orangutans have been known to wash themselves with soap because they have seen us doing it. It has no benefit to them, they just do it anyway.

17. The "Wa" in Wario and Waluigi isn't an upturned M, it's actually a portmanteau of Mario and Luigi's name and the Japanese adjective warui which means "bad", literally translating to "bad Mario" or "bad Luigi".

18. The cost of an oil change for a Bugatti Veyron is $20,000.

19. The Ayam cemani chiken aka the Lamborghini of chickens is a breed of chicken that is completely black, including the organs and the bones. The price of this chickens is above $2,500.

20. More than 30 countries sell citizenship or residence permits for cash. In Thailand, the cost is $10,000, while fast-track residence in the UK requires $10 million.

There is a liquid you can breathe safely when submerged in. It is used for lung injury.

22. The world is facing a global sand crisis because sand and gravel mining greatly exceeds natural renewal rate.

23. Killer Whale is a mistranslation of Whale Killer. Orcas are part of the dolphin family and hunt whales.

24. The founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, was dyslexic. Most of his products were identifiable by a set of numbers, but Kamprad had trouble remembering the codes for each product due to his disease. The unique Swedish names of IKEA’s furniture were his way of identifying his products.

25. The Bootstrap Paradox is a time travel paradox in which an object or information can exist without ever being created. The object or piece of information is sent back in time where it is retrieved to become the very object or piece of information that was brought back in the beginning.