Current Events > Random Interesting Facts ITT

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Three of these guys are '90s movie villains and one of them is Chet Holmgren's dad lol

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During WWII the United States printed US dollars in Hawaii with the word "Hawaii" on them. This was done to make them useless in the event of a Japanese takeover of the islands.

Tanks, like military tanks, are called "Tanks" because they had to ship them to the frontline by sea in WWI, and in a successful attempt to disguise this new vehicle-weapon while in transit aboard a ship, they boxed them up and stenciled in big, bold letters "TANK" on the boxes, making the enemy believe the shipments were innocuous.

The windows OS holds 99.93% of the entire computer market.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcafzHL8iBQ

(I have not watched the full video yet)

Actor Bill Murray uses a 1-800 number instead of an agent or manager:

Bill Murray is famous for starring in movies like the original Ghostbusters (1984) and Groundhog Day (1993). But anyone in Hollywood who's interested in working with him must first navigate a somewhat strange situation in order to get his attention. That's because the star uses a mysterious 1-800 number instead of an agent or manager.
"You just call the 1-800 number," filmmaker Theodore Melfi, who directed Murray in St. Vincent (2014), told USA Today. "You have to record the message and send the message. I started calling once a week He never called back. I finally called his lawyer and said, 'I'm trying [to] reach Bill.' And he goes, 'What number do you got?' And I go, 'I've got the 800 number.' And he goes, 'Well, that's what I got.'"

180mTa is the only known stable nuclear isomer to exist.
Tantalum-180 has a half-life of about eight hours. Tantalum-180m has an estimated half life of "mostly never"

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Questionmarktarius posted...

see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis

Don't know. True either way though.

This was the originally intended album cover for The Coup's album Party Music. It was created in June 2001.

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The reason, or one reason that humans don't hatch from eggs is that retroviruses altered host DNA to allow mothers to carry their children in them.

IHeartRadiation posted...

The reason, or one reason that humans don't hatch from eggs is that retroviruses altered host DNA to allow mothers to carry their children in them.

That's quite interesting. I think we also have a tailbone because we used to have tails.

30 percent of all protein adaptations since humans' divergence with chimpanzees have been driven by viruses.

The human liver can regrow itself.

You dan tell time by looking at the tip of the Big Dipper and lining it up to the North Star. It acts like an hour hand, but it goes in reverse and you have to adjust it am hour for each month. It's true midnight in March and needs no adjustments.

It's possible to survive with a metal pole shoved through your eye and out the back of your head.

Cookie Monster's real name is Sid. Chuck E. Cheese's full name is Charles Entertainment Cheese. Cap'n Crunch's full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch :3

Cats once delivered mail in Belgium:

In the 1870s, the city of Lige, Belgium, attempted to employ 37 felines as mail carriers, according to the BBC. Messages were tucked into waterproof bags that the kitties would carry around their necks. However, while one cat apparently made it to its destination in under five hours, the other felines took up to a day to complete their journeys. Due to the fact that the cats weren't particularly reliable and definitely weren't speedy, the service didn't last very long.

Why cats instead of, lets say, dogs?

In WWII, the allied worked on a pigeon-controlled guided bomb, which would steer itself into enemy targets. The tests were great, but they decided to stop it.

During the cold war, the west planned to develop a nuclear mine that they would dig down if Soviet started to move west.
The problem was that the components would freeze and stop working during winter.
The Solution: Build in a chicken with food for a week, and its bodyheat would keep the components warm enough to work.
This one also got cancelled.

They tried bats with incendiary bombs in WW2 to attack Japan, but they were scrapped after the war ended with nukes.

Charlie Sheen, who played ace pitcher Rick Vaughn in the Major League movies, was in fact a pitcher/shortstop in high school. Quite a good one too, as he had a 40-15 pitching record.

Mike the Headless Chicken (April 20, 1945 March 17, 1947) was a male Wyandotte chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off. After the loss of his head, Mike achieved national fame until his death in March 1947. In Fruita, Colorado, an annual "Mike the Headless Chicken Day" is held every May.

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It's a myth that people are either "left-brained" or "right-brained."

You may have been told at some point in your life that you're either left-brained or right-brained. The story goes that "people who are left brain dominant are more quantitative, logical, and analytical, while right-brained individuals are more emotional, intuitive, and creative free spirits," writes Psychology Today.
However, this theory isn't true. "On the contrary, most behaviors and abilities require the right and left sides of the brain to work together to achieve a common objective," the website explains. So while you may have certain qualities and characteristics that define you who are, they have nothing to do with which side of your brain you use more. You can thank both sides of your noggin for contributing to your unique personality.

That smell of rain on the ground is called petrichor.

MI4 REAL posted...

That smell of rain on the ground is called petrichor.

Similarly, the unique smell of a used bookstore is called vellichor.

A turkey is called a hindi in Turkey:

It seems that English is not the only language with fascinating names referring to the North American bird.
Assuming the Turkish roots of the bird, one might guess it would be called a turkey in Turkey. Not really. In Turkey, the icon American bird is called hindi, which literally means a [bird] from India.
Almost the same meaning also refers to several other languages, including Ukrainian, Polish and Russian, while the French call it dinde, a short form of coq dinde -- a name that references India.
In the Catalan language, people use gall dindi meaning an Indian rooster.
It is said the misnaming of turkey as a bird from India was based on a common old misconception that India and the New World were the same place.
Interestingly, in India, where millions refer to as the origin of turkey, the bird is referred as turki.
The geography-oriented name continues in Arabic, whereas turkey is called deek rom-e, which means Roman chicken, referring to Italy. At the same time, some local dialects of Arabic call it habashi, what means Ethiopian bird.

In Sweden, the turkey is called Kalkon.
They think that the name originates from the India cities Calcutta or Calicut, where they thought the bird originated from.

funny how this bird ended up with so many country/place related names

The French Scrabble champion in France is an American Scrabble champ who doesn't speak French at all.

The word "abstemiously" has all five vowels plus the quasi-vowel y, all in alphabetical order, and it even starts with a and ends with y.

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A man in Florida woke up with a severe headache, so he asked his wife to drive him to the hospital. The doctors found a bullet lodged behind his right ear. The wife fled the ER when the bullet was discovered, but later told deputies that she accidentally shot him lol

People eat about a credit card worth of plastic every week:

A recent study has found that people eat five grams of micro and nanoplastics every week.
From the most remote depths of the ocean, to the deepest section of the lung, microplastics appear to have invaded every bit of our lives, including the human gastrointestinal tract. The Medical University of Vienna has recently published a study in the journal Exposure & Health which suggests that on average, five grams of plastic particles enter the human gastrointestinal tract per person, per week.

Haim Saban fired 3 of the OG Power Rangers over psy disputes.

MI4 REAL posted...

Haim Saban fired 3 of the OG Power Rangers over psy disputes.

Haim Saban was an absolute god of 80s cartoon music, until he got lost in Sentai.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH71SNMcPK8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x66bJuu4Q18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjA4rDXhDCM

That was Haim Sabans stain on the American Sentai series. Only Jason David Frank (OG Green Ranger) lasted longer, 28 years, announced his retirement in May this year.

Every poo poo time is pee pee time but not every pee pee time is poo poo time.

5 pints of beer is equivalent to 6.66 12 oz beers.

The CEO of Gearbox, Randy Pitchford, once tweeted and promoted a porn subreddit dedicated to Gearbox's Battleborn.

Not even rule-34 fanart could salvage Battleborn.

American Gladiators has an official channel now and are uploading the old AGs videos to YouTube.

Also, back in the day I was a member of the AG fan club :)

Women are attracted to the scent of Good & Plenty licorice candy and cucumber:

Perfumes and colognes offer alluring aromas, but it turns out that there is another smell combination that is likely to turn a lady on. One 2005 study by the Smell and Taste Treatment Research Foundation found that the most "attractive" scent for women was Good & Plenty licorice candy combined with cucumbers. The smells of cherries and barbecue were turn-offs, but "banana nut bread also had positive effects."

Street Fighter 2 got details on some maps that you normally wont see.
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There's a device that creates energy from snowfall:

It's pretty darn impressive that scientists have been able to harness energy from the sun, wind, and water, providing us with all kinds of alternative sources of power. And now they've managed to create energy from snowfall. According to a 2019 study in the journal Nano Energy, engineers and chemists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have developed a device made of silicone that can harness a charge from static electricity.
"Snow is positively charged and gives up electrons, while silicone is negatively charged and accepts the electrons," IFL Science explains. "So, as the snow lands on the silicone, a charge is produced and then captured." Think of it like the spark of energy you create when you rub a balloon against your hair.

The "problem" with snow-teng is that it only generates 0, 2 mW per square meter.

When you're on fire, people will get out of your way.

Roman emperor Silbannacus was forgotten from history entirely for several centuries.

There were no known surviving texts, inscriptions or statues that mention him. Until the 1930s when a coin of his was found in France, and then another in the 1980s.

He reigned during the Crisis of the Third Century, when the Roman Empire had constant civil wars and generals were proclaiming themselves the new emperor left and right. However, Silbannacus' second coin looks like it was minted in the city of Rome itself. Indicating that he was likely truly in the seat of power (though probably only for a few days/weeks) and not just a random usurper in the provinces.

United States has a civilian firearms ownership rate of 120%
Double the next one down (Faulkland Islands)

Tin has ten stable isotopes. The most of any element.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_tin

A mermaid "documentary" once fooled so many people that the U.S. government had to issue a statement:

In 2013, Animal Planet aired Mermaids: The New Evidence, a documentaryor rather, a mockumentarythat "proved" the half-human-half-fish beings exist. And while the program was fake, plenty of the 3.6 million viewers that watched believed that the fictional claims were real. In fact, so many people were fooled that the U.S. government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a statement on its website addressing the confusion, saying: "Mermaids: The New Evidence is just entertainment. No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found."