Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 315, click here.
1-5 Kickass Random Facts
1. In 1987, Fisher-Price manufactured and sold a camcorder capable of recording video footage to standard audio cassettes. – Source
2. There used to be 4 billion American chestnut trees, but they all disappeared because of a fungus that kills them as saplings. – Source
3. A Russian MIG Pilot defected during the cold war along with his aircraft. When he arrived in the USA he was convinced the CIA had specially stocked the grocery stores he went to because he couldn’t believe the vast array of products for sale. – Source
4. Former US President Calvin Coolidge enjoyed “buzzing for his bodyguards and then hiding under his desk as they frantically searched for him”. – Source
5. Dry counties (counties where the sale of alcohol is banned) have a drunk driving fatality rate ~3.6 times higher than wet counties. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. The Guinness World Records stopped awarding records to the fattest animal to avoid forced overeating. – Source
7. A man once tried to sue Pepsi because he found a mouse in his can of Mountain Dew, Pepsi defended the case by proving that Mountain Dew can dissolve a mouse in a few months. – Source
8. Mr. Rogers sued the KKK for impersonating him. – Source
9. Mathematician Paul Erdös regularly took amphetamines, which worried his friends enough that one bet him $500 that he couldn’t quit for a month. Erdös won the bet but later claimed mathematics had been set back a month. – Source
10. The Weezer song “Mykel & Carli”, released in 1994, is about sisters Mykel and Carli Allan who established the band’s fan club and are considered the band’s biggest fans. Mykel and Carli and younger sister Trisha died in a car accident in 1997; members of Weezer attended their funeral. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. The Japanese considered raw salmon dangerous since Pacific salmon was prone to parasites. Norway had too much salmon and decided to focus on teaching Japanese consumers that Atlantic salmon was safe to eat raw. It took ten years for Salmon sushi/sashimi to finally become popular. – Source
12. Stephen King’s formula on writing is “Read and write four to six hours a day. If you cannot find the time for that, you can’t expect to become a good writer.” He sets out each day with a quota of 2000 words and will not stop writing until it is met. – Source
13. Per kilogram, asparagus has a larger carbon footprint than pork or veal. – Source
14. Jonathan Taylor Thomas, the ’90s child actor also known simply as JTT, walked away from fame at the height of his career to study philosophy at Harvard. – Source
15. There was a church of Euthanasia whose motto was “Save the planet, kill yourself”. – Source
