Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 702, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. In 2005, Sony shipped 22,000,000 CDs which, when inserted into a Windows computer, installed unn-removable and highly invasive malware. The software hid from the user, prevented all CDs from being copied, and sent listening history to Sony. – Source
2. Guy Fieri invites Make-A-Wish families to every taping of ‘Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives’. – Source
3. The movie Gremlins was so intense that it was responsible for the movie rating of PG-13. – Source
4. Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein, was named Chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee in 1984. Athletes who disappointed him were subject to torture and imprisonment. – Source
5. In 1940, a 14-year-old Fidel Castro wrote a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking “If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green American, in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green American and I would like to have one of them.” – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Facts
6. Nike’s Cortez shoes were going to be called Aztec, but Adidas threatened legal action because of their Azteca Gold shoes. In response, Nike decided to name the new model after Hernán Cortés, whose expedition led to the Aztec Empire’s fall. – Source
7. There’s a frozen dead guy in a Tuff Shed in Colorado that has been “preserved” for 27 years with a twice-a-month dry ice run. – Source
8. The Mongols had a superstition that said that spilling royal blood would lead to great disaster. So instead they had other creative ways of executing such people. Including sewing up your orifices, drowning you in molten metal, or having horses trample you. – Source
9. George Patton led a sabers-drawn charge against U.S. WWI veterans and their families who were seeking promised bonuses, known as the “Bonus Army”. – Source
10. Outraged Egyptians had once lynched a Roman for killing a cat. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. The half-life of an isotope of Tellurium is 160 Trillion times greater than the Universe’s Age (Aprox. 13.8 billion). The very-long-lived radioisotope Tellurium-128 thus has the longest known half-life among all the Radionuclides of around 2,200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years! – Source
12. In Italian occupied Ethiopia, two men tried to kill the Viceroy. In response, the Italian army and Italian civilians went on a killing spree, burning down houses, and killing an estimated 20% of the population of Addis Ababa including sympathetic Ethiopians. Italy still downplays the massacre. – Source
13. Archaeologist Alexander Peev was executed by firing squad in 1943 on suspicion of sending a coded message to the Soviet Union. It was actually an ancient inscription he wanted Russian archaeologists to help him interpret. The text remains undeciphered. – Source
14. Middle-aged men with resting heart rates of 80 beats or higher per minute are likely to die four to five years earlier than men with resting heart rates of 65 beats per minute or less. – https://www.advisory.com/en/daily-briefing/2013/04/22/study-your-heart-rate-may-predict-your-lifespan
15. Jim Henson was a big fan of ALF and wanted to do an ALF/Muppet crossover. ALF creator Paul Fusco refused, as he did not want people to think that ALF is a Muppet. – Source
