16-20 Kickass Random Facts
16. Catherine De Medici maintained 80 ladies-in-waiting, whom she allegedly used as tools to seduce courtiers for political ends. They were known as her “flying squadron”. She also used them as a court attraction. In 1577, she threw a banquet at which the food was served by topless women. – Source
17. Prince Edward, youngest son of Elizabeth II, was made Earl of Wessex on his wedding in 1999. He wanted that title, which hadn’t existed for centuries because he liked Colin Firth’s character Lord Wessex in “Shakespeare in Love”. – Source
18. 10.4% of the world’s population is either in a marriage/relationship with their second cousin or closer relative or is the result of such a union. – Source
19. President Jefferson partly organized the Lewis & Clark expedition because he believed that there were still mastodons wandering wild in the Western US. – Source
20. Whales have inverted nipples and produce milk so fatty it has the same texture as toothpaste. – Source
21-25 Kickass Random Facts
21. After the Library of Congress was burned by the British in 1814, Thomas Jefferson offered his immense personal library as a replacement but some opposed its contents. Jefferson wished all subjects available and his scholarly collection soon helped transform a niche library into a national library. – Source
22. Fido is a common name for a dog because of Abraham Lincoln’s dog Fido. Fido was “assassinated” by a drunk with a knife a few months after Lincoln’s assassination. – Source
23. In 1845, Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar ordered 50,000 of her subjects to go on a buffalo hunt. The hunt required building roads across jungles and lasted for 4 months, with around 10,000 people died from exhaustion, starvation, and malarial disease – but not a single buffalo was killed. – Source
24. In 1971, astronaut Alan Shepard hit 2 golf balls on the moon – he hit the first one into a crater, and claimed to have smashed the second one “miles and miles and miles”. However, recent research has shown that the first ball traveled 24 yards (22 m), and the second ball only 40 yards (37 m). – Source
25. Only two people worked on the first prototypes of 1991’s hit grand strategy videogame “Sid Meier’s Civilization”. – Source
