Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 372, click here.
1-5 Kickass Random Facts
1. English is “the universal language of the skies”. All pilots must learn and use English, regardless of their country of origin. – Source
2. After a Black female postmaster was wrongly pressured out of her post in Mississippi in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt continued to pay her federal salary and punished the town by rerouting their mail to Greenville, 30 miles away. – Source
3. Quebec banned ads for toys and fast food aimed at children under 13, resulting in lowered childhood obesity rates. – Source
4. In 1998, Marvel offered the cinematic rights of almost all of it’s characters to Sony for a mere $25 million. Sony rejected the offer, and only purchased the rights to Spiderman for $10 million believing that movie audiences would only care about him. – Source
5. Although Nazi Germany sterilized or murdered 73-100% of all schizophrenics in Germany (about 220K-269K people), there were no long-term effects on subsequent rates of schizophrenia in Germany. In fact, post-WWII rates were unexpectedly high. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. Manoj Bhargava the creator of 5 Hour energy created the formula in 30 days, has a net worth of 4 billion and plans donate 99 percent of his wealth by creating a series of inventions to help 3rd world countries receive basic functions like water, electricity, and health. – Source
7. The Japanese word “arigata-meiwaku” is the feeling you have when someone does you a favor you didn’t want them to do, and which might have caused you trouble, but you have to act grateful anyway. – Source
8. Pearl Jam’s song Jeremy is based on the real-life classroom suicide of Jeremy Wade Delle of Texas, who was released from a mental hospital and sent back to school reportedly, once his insurance money ran out he was deemed “cured”. – Source
9. Mill workers in Manchester, England refused to touch slave-picked cotton during the U.S. Civil War. Lincoln wrote a letter of thanks, and relief shipments were sent to the workers. Today, a statue of Lincoln stands in Manchester’s Lincoln Square. – Source
10. Trees near rivers with salmon grow three times faster than trees without them because bears leave their carcasses to decompose on the banks. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. The Dalai Lama is almost a vegetarian. He alternates. While he advocates vegetarianism, if he is in the company of meat-eaters, he is happy to eat meat. The White House once offered him a vegetarian menu and he declined. – Source
12. 95% of all Thoroughbred racehorses can be traced back to a single 18th-century stallion. – Source
13. The restaurant chain TGI Fridays stopped its waiters from wearing “flair” a few years after the movie Office Space came out because people wouldn’t stop making Office Space references about it. – Source
14. Personality has a larger effect on success than IQ. – Source
15. In the lead up to Midway, the U.S. suspected that a Japanese target called “AF” is Midway. To test this, U.S. Pacific Command instructed Midway to give a signal indicating that they’re out of the water. The Japanese, immediately signaled that “AF is out of water”. – Source
