Random Facts Generator

About 53% of the people who live in Fiji don’t have access to clean, safe water yet Fiji water is the nation’s largest export.

During WW2, a Russian pilot, Alexey Maresyev was shot down over Nazi Germany. He dragged himself 18 days to Soviet territory and had to have his legs amputated. Later, he mastered the use of prosthetic devices and returned to flying combat missions.

Oda Nobunaga was a powerful daimyō (feudal lord) who nearly unified Japan before his death in the 16th century during the late Sengoku period. He supposedly had a homosexual relationship with vassal Mori Ranmaru, an especially attractive man. At the time, their relationship wasn't seen as uncommon but was seen as strong and admirable.

In the 1990s, breeders began crossing Brussels sprouts of different types to eliminate the compounds that gave the sprouts their bitter taste. Their efforts have paid off, since Brussels sprouts have recently become a popular vegetable in many kitchens.

The CIA developed a gun that could shoot darts causing a heart attack. The dart left only a tiny red dot upon skin penetration, and the poison denatured quickly. Congressional testimony from 1975 revealed this weapon.

In 1999, NASA lost a $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter because of a calculation error. The mistake occurred because Lockheed Martin engineers used English (inch, ft) measurements in their calculations in contrast to NASA's metric (cm, m) calculations.

Magic mushrooms create a hyperconnected brain that induces trippy experiences. The active ingredient in the psychedelic drug, psilocybin, disrupts the normal communication networks in the brain by connecting "brain regions that don't normally talk together."

After he was fired from his job as an ambassador, tortured, and banished to his farm estate, N. Machiavelli would return home at night, change the dirty clothes he wore for fieldwork, and put on his ambassador outfit, just to study in his office, alone, due to how much he missed his job.

In the fall-out with Don King, Mike Tyson discovered a fan-club that had been hidden from him for years. Among the fan letters was one from a boy dying of cancer, asking for a phone call. Mike called immediately but was a year too late. He broke down and cried.

The USSR renamed its rocket base Baikonur in 1961 to keep the Soviet space program a secret. Residents of the original Baikonur, hundreds of km away, took advantage of the resulting confusion by ordering many valuable supplies for themselves before the scam was discovered.