Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 659, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. In his acceptance speech for the 1976 Best Album Grammy, Paul Simon jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album that year. Stevie Wonder had won Best Album in the previous two years and would go on to win again in 1977 for Songs in the Key of Life. – Source
2. In 1921, a submarine ran out of fuel some 190 Km from Hawaii during searching of a lost tug boat. The submarine had a week’s worth of ration on board and no radio communication. The crew makes a sail by rigging up blankets. The submarine successfully sailed to Hawaii in a couple of days. – Source
3. North America — and the USA in particular, has the world’s most extreme weather, averaging more than 10,000 severe thunderstorm events per year, with more than 1,000 tornadoes. – Source
4. Curtis Mayfield became paralyzed from the neck down after stage lighting equipment fell on him while he was being introduced at an outdoor concert. He discovered he could continue to sing by lying down and letting gravity pull down on his chest and lungs and went on to record an album in 1996. – Source
5. Medical students practice some of the more invasive exams (i.e. rectal, vaginal) on specially trained actors, who guide them through the procedure, as going through real patients from the get-go could damage the confidence of med students. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. In WWII, Germany carried out only one land operation in North America, the installation of a secret weather station in Newfoundland. They scattered American cigarette packets and planted a sign saying “Canadian Meteor Service” in case anyone found it, and the site wasn’t rediscovered until 1977. – Source
7. A 13-year-old kid won a contest to draw their own Robot Master for the game Mega Man 4, that kid went on to be the artist of the One Punch Man manga. – Source
8. Albert I of Belgium is called the “Knight King” because he personally led his army in combat for all of WWI; also his wife, Elizabeth of Bavaria, served as a nurse in front-line field hospitals. – Source
9. We use 100% of our brain. It is a myth we only use a small portion of our brain, and no scientific evidence supports such a hypothesis as a valid theory. – Source
10. In an analysis of repetitiveness of song lyrics using file compression, Daft Punk’s Around the World was found to be the most repetitive song, being able to be reduced 98% from 2,610 to 61 characters. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. Onions, traditionally known as fighting food, were fed to Greek athletes in training for the brutally competitive Olympics, and gladiators were massaged with onion juice before entering the arena. – Source
12. Panko is made from bread baked by an electrical current, which yields bread without a crust. It is the unique method developed during World War II out of a necessity to cook bread without access to an oven. – Source
13. The actor that played Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather killed a man in a Las Vegas bar in 1988. Gianni Russo intervened to stop a patron that was harassing a woman at a bar he owned. The patron then stabbed Russo with a broken bottle, and Russo responded by shooting the patron dead. – Source
14. Up to 6.2% of the US population has a narcissistic personality disorder, a mental condition where one of the criteria for diagnosis is a lack of empathy. – Source
15. Montpelier, Vermont is the only state capital in the US without a McDonald’s! – Source
