Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 655, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. Because of decreasing global fertility rates, “researchers expect the number of people on the planet to peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling down to 8.8 billion by the end of the century.” – Source
2. In 1999, Tom Green hung his own unauthorized piece of art in the National Gallery of Canada (which remained untouched for days) with the added twist of later coming back and vandalizing it to the horror of onlooking patrons. – Source
3. Eric Moussambani had never seen an Olympic-sized swimming pool before the 2000 Olympics. He recorded the slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72, however, won his heat as all other competitors falsely started. He is now a national hero – the head swimming coach of Equatorial Guinea. – Source
4. After ZZ Top’s exhausting first major tour, the band went on a long hiatus to recover. When the band finally reconvened after two years of relaxing and decompressing, the two guitarists discovered they had both separately let themselves go and grown long thick beards. – Source
5. The idea for the McDonald’s Happy Meal originated in Guatemala. Created by manager Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño to simplify the menu for busy parents, it was later brought to the attention of the Chicago office who developed it further and deployed it in the U.S. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire killed 11% of the world’s population in the 13th century. – Source
7. There was an elevator driver strike in NYC in 1945. Up until then, people were afraid to use automatic elevators but the strike drove their mass adoption. The elevator driver job driver demand started to decline which ultimately meant their job is lost forever. – Source
8. Research during 1950s all-male combat aircraft assignments revealed that a woman’s voice was more likely to gain the attention of young men in distracting situations. Joan Elms’s voice was used for the automated voice warnings for Convair B-58 and was named “Sexy Sally” by the pilots. – Source
9. Leonardo da Vinci wrote, “all the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk”. In 2011, Christophe Eloy investigated and found that trees which followed Leonardo’s rule would be the best at resisting wind-induced fracture. – Source
10. Russian fishermen learned to farm caviar as early as the 12th century and for centuries it was considered nothing more than cheap peasant food, served with porridge and eaten by the bowlful. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. Whitewall Tires were not originally an aesthetic choice, but a result of the chemicals used to treat the natural rubber. Natural rubber tires were all-white until carbon black was added to the treads to improve tread wear, resulting in the classic black tread and whitewall look. – Source
12. The US provided Laos with funds and concrete to expand an airport that could serve as a base for US fighter jets during the Vietnam War. But as the funds and concrete arrived before any contract was signed, Laos decided instead to build a memorial to soldiers who died in World War II. – Source
13. Doctors carried out an emergency C-Section on a dying car crash victim only to discover she was not pregnant. Her “protruding stomach” was due to previous surgery to treat spinal Bifida. – Source
14. Sugar molecules have “handedness” (like left hand vs right hand), and that all of them are right-handed. There are artificial sweeteners that are left-handed, but still the same molecule, and so cannot be absorbed by the human body. They’re still sweet! – Source
15. Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist kept a vast collection of handwritten notes on top-secret files. When he defected to British Intelligence in 1992, he brought six trunks of notes with him that exposed most KGB activities in the West during the Cold War. – Source
