Random Facts Generator

Sri Lanka and India were connected by a faint 50-kilometer long sandbar that existed until 1480 when a storm broke it. People used to walk the wispy sandbar from the mainland to the large island in the Indian Ocean, losing sight of the land masses. Scientists still argue as to how it was formed.

During the American Revolution, a young Andrew Jackson was ordered by a British officer to clean his boots. When he refused, the officer slashed his sword at him, resulting in cuts on his hand and cheek. This left him with resentment towards all things British until his conversion in 1842.

Humans are the only primates without a penis bone, leaving us dependent on hydraulic pressure alone. The penis bone in other primates “aids sexual reproduction by maintaining sufficient stiffness during sexual penetration.”

Florida investigators recreated a home fire to prove that a man had committed arson. Instead, they found that accidental fires could produce burn patterns that looked exactly like gasoline fires and that signs of arson that investigators had been relying on for years were unfounded.

While filming Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Benicio Del Toro got so into the character of Dr. Gonzo that he would burn himself with cigarettes because that's what the real Oscar Zeta Acosta did. 

The idea that lightning never strikes the same place twice is one of the oldest and best known superstitions about lightning. There is no reason that lightning would not be able to strike the same place twice; if there is a thunderstorm in a given area, then objects and places which are more prominent or conductive (and therefore minimize distance) are more likely to be struck. For instance, lightning strikes the Empire State Building in New York City about 100 times per year.

The difference between white and dark meat is due to the difference in fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles, respectively. This is why ground-based birds like chickens and turkeys have white meat for breasts and wings while flying birds like duck and geese have dark meat.

A 17-foot statue of Vladimir Lenin has been removed from a rooftop in NYC's East Village, where it stood for 20 years. The statue had been positioned to face Wall Street, the emblem of capitalism.

Out of the total 1750 species of cacti that exist, 1749 are native to only the Americas.

It isn't "base jumping", but rather B.A.S.E. jumping. It refers to the four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: building, antenna, span, and Earth (cliff).