Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 657, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. There is a spider called Darwin’s bark spider whose web is 10x stronger than kevlar. It is the toughest biological material ever studied. – Source
2. Beavers build their dams as an instinct to stop the sounds of water leaks. If a speaker is playing just the sound of running water, a beaver will build a dam over it. This is even if it’s over concrete with no visible water, or if an actual nearby leaky water source is quieter than the speaker. – Source
3. New Zealand has a very high rate of teen suicide and in 2017 had the highest rate of any wealthy country in the world. – Source
4. Dying coral reefs lack the sound to attract new fish. Speakers playing healthy reef noises at dying coral reefs increases species diversity and doubles fish abundance. – Source
5. The Red Bull energy drink was originally invented by a duck farmer from Thailand as a hangover cure (called Krathing Daeng in Thai) before being bought over by Austrian businessman Dietrich Mateschitz who discovered it on a business trip in 1987. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. The “Kapsalon” is a Dutch dish named after a hairdresser consisting of a layer of fries in a disposable metal tray, topped with gyro meat, covered with slices of Gouda cheese, a layer of lettuce, garlic sauce, and hot sauce. – Source
7. Anthony Rossi who founded Tropicana Products in 1945 was an Italian immigrant who arrived in the US with $25 and did not know English. He developed an orange juice pasteurization process to allow transport from the factory in Florida to as far away as New York starting in 1970. – Source
8. Generations of Cornish and American miners believe in the Tommyknockers, small gnome-like men who live inside mines. Sometimes they favor the miners, and other times knocking on timbers to make them collapse. It was considered very bad luck not to leave the cake for them at the end of the day. – Source
9. The reticular activating system is the part of the brain that sorts through all the billions of pieces of information our senses take in and then allows through the important stuff. It is why after you buy a red sedan, you now see red sedans everywhere when you didn’t notice them before. – Source
10. A retreating Austrian army of 3000 men accidentally encountered Napoleon leading a force of only 1200 French in the middle of the night. Napoleon tricked the Austrians into thinking his entire army was present and captured the larger force without a single shot being fired. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. Herodotus, also known as “The Father of History”, was accused by a fellow historian, Thucydides, of making up stories for entertainment. Today, modern Historians and Archaeologists have confirmed most of what he wrote in “Histories”, to be factual. – Source
12. Tom Dempsey was an NFL kicker for the New Orleans Saints, born with no toes on his kicking foot. He held an NFL record, standing for over 40 years, for kicking a 63-yard field goal. ESPN Sport Science found the modified shoe (that caused some controversy) actually increased his margin of error. – Source
13. Olympic Pole Vaulter Sergey Bubka was being paid $100,000 every time he set a world record, he subsequently set the world record 35 times. – Source
14. In 1665, the Derbyshire village of Eyam made the remarkable decision to quarantine itself in an attempt to halt the spread of the Great Plague. 260 from 76 different families died, but the plague didn’t reach the nearby towns of Sheffield and Bakewell. – Source
15. Tired of teaspoons being stolen from the breakroom, a medical institute conducted a study on the rate of disappearance of the spoons. They concluded that “an estimated 250 teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a practical institute-wide population of 70 teaspoons”. – Source
