Random Facts Sheet #355 – 45 Random Facts for Every Day

The largest urban old-growth forest in the United States is Wesselman Woods. It is located in the middle of Evansville, Indiana. It is 190 acres of virgin forest, with some of the tree cores dating back to the 1650s and 1990s.

27. Minced oaths are a type of euphemism based on a profanity or blasphemy that has been altered to remove the objectionable characteristics of the original expression. One example of this would be the use of the phrase "Yippie-ki-yay Martha Falcon" in the censored television showing of Die Hard.

28. Shirley Temple actually disliked the drink named after her. She quiped, "People think it's funny; I hate them." "It's too sweet."

29. A work of fiction between 20,000 and 49,999 words is considered a novella. Once a book hits the 50,000-word mark, it is generally considered a novel.

30. While in the uterus, foals have soft capsules called eponychium covering their hooves. Also known as "golden slippers," or "fairy fingers," these capsules protect the mother from injury during pregnancy and birth. They are shed within hours after the foal is born.

Ohio was technically not admitted to the United States until 1953; before that, it was still part of the Northwest Territory. The state petitioned to join the union in 1803 but the constitution was never ratified. In 1953, a bill was passed admitting Ohio, but it was backdated to March 1, 1803.

32. During World War 1, an 8-year-old Serbian boy named Mom?ilo Gavri? lost his entire family to a heinous war crime committed by the Croatian soldiers. He then enlisted in a nearby artillery unit and identified the location of the enemy soldiers that killed his family, then participated in the bombardment that wiped out that entire enemy unit.

33. Tacit collusion is collusion in which competing groups work together without an explicit agreement. One example is "price leadership," in which one company changes its prices and competitors follow. In one case, automated price setting led to the book, "The Making of a Fly" having a price of $23,698,655.93 on Amazon.

34. The Dip is a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and hydrogen peroxide that is often used to clean lead off of suppressors and other firearm parts. The resulting chemical reaction dissolves the lead into lead acetate, which can cause lead poisoning from simple contact with the skin.

35. Karoly Takacs was a Hungarian Army shooter, who lost his winning "right" hand due to a grenade explosion months before the Olympic games. He decided to practice shooting with his left hand and won the Hungarian National Pistol Shooting Championship in 1939 and won gold in the 1948 and 1952 Olympics.

For the 2002 DVD release of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," some changes were made to the original film. Director Steven Spielberg replaced the agents' weapons with walkie-talkies, and the word "terrorist" was replaced with "hippie." This led to many saying that Spielberg "sanitized" the film.

37. Human infants as young as 14 hours from birth prefer to look at attractive faces rather than unattractive ones.

38. In 2020, the Royal Australian Mint released a "Donation Dollar" coin specifically designed to be donated. Six million of them have been issued so far, and research shows that over 60% of people who find them donate them, resulting in an estimated $1.9 million donated to charities and people in need.

39. Ubasute is a mythical Japanese practice of carrying your elderly parents to a mountain and leaving them there to die. The film "Ballad of Narayama" explores this practice.

40. The devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake caused King Joseph I to develop severe claustrophobia, and he refused to live inside a walled building. His court instead ruled from a series of tents.

The US Navy once picked up a Soviet supersonic missile from the sea floor that had been smashed into millions of pieces, none of which were bigger than 6 inches, and was able to reverse engineer it.

42. The word "tsunami" actually means "harbor wave," because the ancient Japanese fishermen did not notice the shock wave passing them while they were out at sea. They were right because these waves do not unleash their destructive energy until they reach shallow waters.

43. B. King named his guitars "Lucille" after rescuing one of his early Gibson guitars from a fire started by two men fighting over a woman named Lucille.

44. In 2019, it was found that belief in ghosts and UFOs had increased among Americans since 2007. Interestingly, men were more likely to believe in UFOs, and women were more likely to believe in ghosts and witchcraft than the other gender.

45. It is against federal law to deceptively fill a container with less than its capacity.