Random Revelations: Article #112- 32 Oddly Captivating Random Facts to Fascinate You

Latin abbreviations e.g doesn't stand for "example given", it stands for "exempli gratia" (for example) and i.e stands for "id est" (in other words), and they're not interchangeable.

2. In 2016, when a Baptist church in Texas put an anti-beer advertisement in the newspaper calling craft beer “the devil’s craft,” listing excerpts of 10 different bible verses as a warning to those who drink booze. According to the ad, you could die in a coma or lose your kingdom. Avoiding booze, on the other hand, could result in you becoming “great in the sight of the Lord.” A local brewery accepted it as a $1 off coupon.

3. The word “Good” replaced an old Germanic word “Bat,” which is why the comparative forms are better and best.

4. The Duracell Bunny promotes battery everywhere in the world, except in USA and Canada where Energizer holds the trademarks to a “battery bunny.”

5. Because the Space Shuttle was so hard to land (it was nicknamed "the flying brick"), shuttle crews trained in a modified Gulfstream with its main landing gears down, its engines in reverse, and its left hand side windows covered.

The fade-out at the end of Holst's Neptune was achieved by slowly closing the door on a female choir as they sang in another room.

7. Coins (originally made from precious metals) have ridges in them to prevent people from shaving down the edges to sell those shavings and use the devalued coins to their original value.

8. Spain brought back so much Aztec gold that it caused massive inflation and crashed the economy of Europe.

9. Friday the 13th is the most common day of the week for the 13th to fall on.

10. A set of triplets named Robert Shafran, Eddy Galland and David Kellman were intentionally separated at birth and given to three sets of parents with intentionally varied socioeconomic backgrounds as part of an experiment. It was uncovered when two of the triplets happened to attend the same college in 1980. The next day, after spotting a photo of Shafran and Gallan together in the news, Kellman contacted the pair to inform them that he believed he was their third brother, making them not twins, but triplets.

The ingredient in spicy peppers, Capsaicin, is sometimes strong enough to cure prostate cancer.

12. Mechanical prosthetics date back to the 16th century when wounded knights needed mechanical fingers to properly grip their swords or lance.

13. German Reformation leader Martin Luther was extremely antisemitic and advocated forced labor, expulsion, the burning of synagogues, of Jewish schools, and of Jewish books, and even their murder.

14. In 1930s, a Welsh Spiritualist medium named Colin Evans claimed to be able to levitate with the help of spirits. People demanded their money back after learning that he was simply jumping up in the air.

15. Mark Twain based the character Huckleberry Finn on a real person named Tom Blankenship. Tom was 4 years older than Twain, and they knew each other growing up in Hannibal, Missouri.

Gyros, döner and shawarma, which are similar types of food cooked on a vertical rotisserie, all mean “turning” in different languages.

17. Edna Mode, the superhero costume designer in 'The Incredibles', is voiced by Brad Bird, the film's director. Bird voiced Edna during story boarding sessions, after which the production team couldn't find an actress who could do the voice better than him.

18. There is a second Pope in Egypt. Pope Tawadros II was selected as the 118th pope for the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria on November 4, 2012.

19. The U.S. Air Force successfully deployed a reconnaissance drone (Lockheed D-21) capable of Mach 3.3 almost 50 years ago.

20. Most places in the Southern United States named Lincoln are named after the Revolutionary War general Benjamin Lincoln rather than Abraham Lincoln.

In order to open a Taco Bell franchise, Taco Bell requires you to have a minimum net worth of $1.5 million and at least $750,000 in liquid assets.

22. The pansy is quite a durable flower. It can survive with little water and freezing temperatures, despite the derogatory use of its name as an “unmanly” or spineless person.

23. An officer named David Blair was transferred off the Titanic shortly before she sailed. He packed his quarters quickly and accidentally left the ship with a key in his pocket, the key to the crow's nest cabinet where they kept the lookout's binoculars.

24. Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on February 12, 1809. Both lost their mother at a young age and, despite their differences in upbringing, both men saw themselves as autodidacts (education without the guidance of masters such as teachers and professors or institutions such as schools).

25. China sends seeds into space, then uses the resulting mutated seeds to produce abnormally large crops.