Random Revelations: Article #76- 30 Mind-Expanding Random Facts

Children develop stronger bonds and derive more satisfaction from relationships with their pets than with their siblings, more so if the pets are dogs.

2. After World War 2, despite signing an agreement to share nuclear information with the UK in exchange for their scientist's help, the US lost the physical copy of the agreement, questioned its authenticity when a copy was sent and denied British scientists access to their own papers.

3. Serial killer Randy Kraft was known as the "Scorecard Killer" because he kept a scorecard with cryptic references to his victims. (For example, a victim found impaled on a tree branch was listed on the card as "TWIGGIE"). Several entries on the card have never been deciphered.

4. Napoleon Bonaparte was so obsessed with winning that he would cheat at cards but felt morally obligated to return any money he won as a result of said cheating.

5. In 1997, 3 boys in war-torn Sierre Leone were on the brink of starvation, when they spotted a single yam (Sweet potato) under a tree. They desperately went to dig it up, but when they did they discovered a 100-carat diamond underneath.

An EPA employee told his bosses that he worked for the CIA and didn't go to work for almost of 10 years.

7. The earliest known recording of a human voice was made in 1860 by dragging a stylus over the soot-colored paper. The recording was made for visual purposes only and was not played back until 2008.

8. Gerald Blanchard, a sophisticated criminal mastermind, was facing a sentence of 164 years but reduced it to 8 by revealing where he kept the Star of Empress Sisi, a priceless ornament worn by Elisabeth of Bavaria which he stole a decade before from Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria.

9. Registered pets on the Blizzard Entertainment (Video game company) campus have to sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) by placing their pawprint to refrain them from passing any secret games Blizzard is working on.

10. While chewing gum, you can make it disappear by eating some chocolate. The oils in chocolate reacts with the gum and dissolves it.

A royal footman was once fired from Buckingham Palace for performing a "party trick" that involved pouring alcohol into the royal corgis' food and watching them stagger about.

12. Men who receive blood from women that have been pregnant are more likely to have a shorter lifespan.

13. In 1972, Nolan Bushnell founded Atari with an investment of $250. Within five years, the company was worth $28 million.

14. When Newfoundland agreed to be annexed by Canada in 1949, one of the conditions was that the islanders continued to be allowed to produce and sell margarine.

15. The New York City owns an abandoned 22-acre island (North Border Island) less than one mile from Manhattan. It has been abandoned since 1963 with no current plans for development.

Alex Lifeson, the guitarist of Rush, was featured in a documentary when he was 17. It even has a part where he argues with his parents about playing music instead of going to school.

17. Until the 1980s all freight trains in the USA and Canada were required to have a caboose with a crew. They were replaced by the "end-of-train device" which detects and reports any problems to the engineer, ending an era in railway history.

18. In 2005, someone stole Judy Garland's ruby red slippers from the Wizard of Oz film, while they were on display in Minnesota. They have never been found and there is currently a $1 million reward for their return.

19. Dogs appear to prefer reggae and soft rock over other genres of music, according to researchers.

20. All vanilla beans in the world originated in Mexico, though very few vanilla beans are grown there today.

When Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., some people hid in Herculaneum's boathouses for shelter. When pyroclastic flows reached them, they were hit with a heatwave so intense that it instantly boiled and vaporized their brains, making their skulls explode.

22. Edward Eagan from Denver, Colorado is the only Olympian to receive gold in both the winter and summer Olympics, for bobsled and boxing.

23. There is a mushroom (Candy cap mushrooms) that tastes exactly like maple syrup.

24. Sneha Anne Philip is officially considered to be one of the victims of 9/11. Being a doctor who lived nearby, it's believed that she died trying to help the injured at Ground Zero. There's just one problem: no one saw her there or indeed, anywhere at all. She went missing on 9/10.

25. Randy Bachman (of Bachman Turner Overdrive) wrote the stammering parts in their hit ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ to tease his brother Garry, who had a speech impediment when he was younger.