Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 641, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. The London 2012 Olympics was the first time where every sport had female competitors. It was also the first Olympic Games where every country that entered sent at least one female athlete. – Source
2. “Formaldehyde hunger” is a well-known phenomenon in anatomy labs where med students get hungry while dissecting cadavers, allegedly due to formaldehyde being an appetite stimulant. – Source
3. P.T. Barnum’s famous elephant Jumbo got his name from the Swahili word for chief. It was the elephant who caused the word “jumbo” to mean something large – not the other way around. – Source
4. Thomas Jefferson said that his Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom was “meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew, the Gentile, the Christian, and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.” It’s on his grave as 1 of 3 great accomplishments. – Source
5. The first reported successful blood transfusions were performed by the Incas as early as the 1500s. Spanish conquistadors witnessed blood transfusions when they arrived in the sixteenth century. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. The record for largest single Walmart transaction in history was performed by Shaquille O’Neal, only after his credit card was declined on the first attempt. – Source
7. There was a mysterious culture in Eastern Europe between 5,500 to 2,700 BC that constructed sophisticated, organized, densely populated settlements – only to burn them to the ground every 60-80 years to rebuild the same settlement as before. – Source
8. After Peter the Great mandated that all officers in his army must have started their career as privates, noble families began to register newborn boys as privates. First reporting for service at the age of 15, the boys were then promoted through seniority to junior lieutenant or equivalent rank. – Source
9. In 2002, an amateur astronomer thought he had discovered an asteroid but the object turned out to be a segment of apollo 12’s rocket which had failed to burn up in earth’s atmosphere. – Source
10. California’s newspapers received word of Abraham Lincoln’s election victory only 7 days and 17 hours after the East Coast papers, an “unrivaled feat at the time”. In the prior election, it took months to get news of James Buchanan’s win. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. The name for nightingales has been in use for over 1,000 years. It’s recognizable even in its Old English form, “nihtegale”, which translates to “night songstress”. – Source
12. The invasion of Normandy had 26 staggered waves of soldiers and not just one giant assault at all once. – Source
13. The UK did not finish paying off the Lend-lease debt to the US until 2006. – Source
14. It is believed that writing was invented independently in at least 4 different civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Southern Mexico, and Guatemala) in the span of 3000 years. – Source
15. The first short film Ben Affleck directed was called “I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three-Picture Deal at Disney”. It received negative reviews and was disowned by the director in 2010. – Source
