Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 781, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. Alan Turing, the mathematician renowned for his contributions to computer science and codebreaking, converted his savings into silver during WWII and buried it, fearing German invasion. However, he was unable to break his own code describing where it was hidden, and never recovered it. – Source
2. No child has been harmed or killed by poisoned or dangerous Halloween candy. – Source
3. The popular belief in the United States that Daylight Savings Time was enacted FOR the benefit of farmers is wrong; farmers were actually some of the strongest opponents of its implementation. – Source
4. 24 of the 50 US states have Native American-derived names (many through French), 1 is Hawaiian, 4 are directly from Spanish, 11 are named after people, several are of various origins (English, French, Latin), and at least 6 are of unknown origin. – Source
5. Japan is working on wooden satellites that can cleanly burn up without leaving debris when they re-enter the atmosphere. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Fact
6. William Sitgreaves Cox a junior officer aboard the USS Chesapeake was court-martialed for leaving his command when he assisted his wounded captain below decks. Since all other senior officers were wounded, he had become the commanding officer by default, unbeknownst to him. – Source
7. When a massive star goes supernova, it produces a flash of light so bright that can equal the combined light of every other star in the galaxy. One such event happened in 1054, it was so bright the light was visible during the day for a month and was still visible for 2 years afterward. – Source
8. The last recorded Black Widow death in the United States of America happened in 1983. – Source
9. A 14-year-old Caleb Rebh accidentally choked himself to death while working as a scare actor after he had tied a noose around his neck to appear scarier. While Caleb was struggling to untie the rope from his neck, no one helped him because they thought he was acting. – Source
10. Ancient Greece wasn’t full of pure white marble everything. The statues and ruins we see today were actually painted in all kinds of vivid colors that were just stripped bare back to their original white marble by time. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Facts
11. African elephants can exchange information by emitting low-frequency sounds that travel dozens of miles under the ground on the savanna. The sound waves come from the animals’ huge vocal cords, and distant elephants “hear” the signals with their highly sensitive feet. – Source
12. “Scared Straight” interventions are ineffective and may in fact increase delinquency relative to no treatment at all. – Source
13. Peter Weller, who played RoboCop, went on to get his Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance Art History and wrote his dissertation about Renaissance artist/philosopher Leon Battista Alberti. – Source
14. The tomb of St. Nicholas excretes a liquid called “manna”. For hundreds of years, this manna has been collected by the Church. – Source
15. Hank the Tank, a black bear was accused of breaking into over two dozen Lake Tahoe homes and threatened with euthanasia before later being exonerated by DNA evidence. – Source
