Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 687, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. Dr. Charles R. Drew, an African American, developed improved techniques for blood storage, which saved thousands of Allied forces’ lives during WWII. In 1942, however, he resigned as director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank because of their exclusion of African-Americans’ blood. – Source
2. The practice of playing music to the callers on hold was created by a factory owner who discovered that a loose wire in his factory’s phone lines made the building a giant receiver. The broadcast from a close radio station was transmitted through the wire and played when calls were put on hold. – Source
3. In 1924, a tunnel network was discovered underneath Washington D.C. The speculation behind the network’s origins included a Confederate hideout or a liquor depot for bootleggers; they were actually dug by the Smithsonian Institute’s entomologist Harrison G. Dyar, who ‘did it for exercise’. – Source
4. A hurricane hit Hawaii when Jurrasic Park was filming. The sets were destroyed and the cast and crew were stranded in a leaking hotel ballroom. Steven Spielberg played cards with the kids for hours and told them stories to distract them. Real footage of the hurricane was added to the film. – Source
5. Chili peppers, whose spiciness is now so prominent in Indian, Chinese, Thai, and other Asian cuisines, originated in South America and were unknown in Asia until the worldwide sea trade first brought them there in the mid-1500s. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. Crater of Diamond State Park in Pike County, Arkansas has a 37.5-acre plowed field, the world’s only diamond-bearing site accessible to the public. Diamonds have continuously been discovered in the field since 1906, including one of the world’s only colorless, flawless diamonds. – Source
7. Author Lee Child was inspired to name his character Jack Reacher after a shopping trip. An old lady asked for his help in reaching for a can of pears; Child’s wife, when seeing this, commented that if his writing career didn’t work out, he could ‘always get a job as a reacher’. – Source
8. Women committing seppuku would often tie their knees together so that their bodies would be found in a dignified pose. – Source
9. When the Romanov’s were executed, the Tsar’s daughters were the last to die as their clothes had diamonds sewn into them giving them some protection from the firing. – Source
10. Tchaikovsky and his patron shared over 1,200 letters, but only met once by accident. When he wrote her to apologize, she responded that there was nothing to apologize for, and invited him to visit her home to see her new paintings, but at a time when she would be away. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. Oldest known customer complaint was written in 1750 BC. The customer complains that copper which he purchased from the merchant Ea-Nasir was of the incorrect grade. – Source
12. Herman Francis Mark, an Austrian scientist, and son of a Jew chose to flee Austria in 1938. He clandestinely bought platinum wire, worth roughly $50,000, which he bent into coat hangers while his wife knitted covers so that the hangers were able to be taken out of the country. – Source
13. Some of the boulevard medians in Milwaukee, Wisconsin have 8-10 ft deep bunkers with toilets in them, originally installed in the 1930s as a convenience for city workers who were out and about all day without access to a toilet. – Source
14. In 1993, the Barbie Liberation Organization switched the voice boxes on talking G.I. Joes and Barbie dolls causing the barbies to say phrases like “vengeance is mine” and G.I. Joes to say “The beach is the place for summer.” 300 to 500 dolls were modified. – Source
15. The first airship to be lifted by helium used most of the helium available in the world at the time to fill its 59,000 cubic meter volume. – Source
