16-20 Kickass Random Facts
16. A 50-year-old woman, Violet Gibson, attempted to assassinate Mussolini in 1927. She fired a gun once, but Mussolini moved his head and the shot hit his nose; she tried again, but the gun misfired. She was almost lynched by the crowd but was rescued by police and taken away for questioning. – Source
17. The Oneida silverware company was started by a religious millennial group (1850) who practiced free love and would have menopausal women train the young males how to not ejaculate during sex as a method of abstinence. – Source
18. Robert Leonard the original bassist for the band “Sha Na Na”, after proofreading the band’s contracts, realized he had a knack for critically examining language. He returned to school, received his M.A., MPhil, and Ph.D. from Columbia University and now works as a forensic linguist. – Source
19. Lyndon Johnson’s closest aide, Walter Jenkins, was forced to resign when he was arrested for gay sex. Johnson’s wife publically supported Jenkins in a time when homosexuality was heavily scorned. – Source
20. Chiropractic was founded by a traveling religious miracle healer who believed that magnets could cure diseases. He was sent to jail in Iowa in 1906 for practicing medicine without a license. The American Medical Association later labeled chiropractors an “unscientific cult.” – Source
21-25 Kickass Random Facts
21. Princess Diana was a descendant of Charles II via two of his illegitimate children; since Charles II never had any legitimate children, Prince William will if crowned, be the first descendant of Charles II to be King. – Source
22. In 2007, the Russian company Rossiya broadcasted television footage showcasing the Russians planting a flag at the bottom of the ocean in the North Pole. A 13-year-old boy from Finland noticed some of the footage the station used was from the film Titanic. – Source
23. Wolfgang Doeblin was a Jewish-German mathematician fighting for the French during WWII. He committed suicide at 25 after his company was surrounded. A sealed letter he sent to the French Academy of Sciences was opened in 2000, revealing he had already proven a famous result in stochastic calculus. – Source
24. During the 1904 summer Olympics marathon, one runner hitched a ride, another was given rat poison and brandy as a stimulus, fourth place winner took a nap during the run, and two other runners were chased a mile by angry dogs. – Source
25. Vancouver, Canada has the least affordable housing in North America, more expensive than Manhattan and San Francisco. – Source
