Here are 25 kickass random facts. For part 822, click here
1-5 Kickass Random Fact
1. The production for Mork and Mindy had to hire a censor that spoke 4 languages to keep track of Robin Williams secretly trying to slip in swear words in other languages during the filming of the show. – Source
2. A court in France stopped a girl from being named “Nutella” and forcibly renamed her Ella in the absence of her parents. The Judge said that the name Nutella would “only lead to teasing or disparaging thoughts,” a complaint not heard by her parents as they did not attend the hearing. – Source
3. When a man had a heart attack at a grocery store in rural Minnesota, 20 people lined up and performed CPR on him for over 90 minutes until paramedics arrived and he survived. – Source
4. The neurologist who invented lobotomy (António Egas Moniz) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for this highly invasive procedure, which is widely considered today to be one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine. – Source
5. A man was discovered to be unknowingly missing 90% of his brain and was living a normal life. – Source
6-10 Kickass Random Fact
6. Hawaii’s 6th largest island, Lanai, is 98% owned by the co-founder of Oracle. – Source
7. Brazil found incarcerated populations read 9x as much as the general population. They made a new program for prisoners so each written book review took 4 days off a prison sentence. – Source
8. Lewis and Clark used a rapid-fire .46 caliber air rifle to discourage native tribes from attacking them during their excursion. – Source
9. During the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, 50 of the plant’s 800 workers stayed behind during the evacuation. The workers, including older plan retirees, volunteered to be exposed to high levels of radiation while working to prevent a full meltdown of the facility. – Source
10. The Quaker Oats Company financed the original Willy Wonka movie in exchange for the right to make Wonka-brand candy bars. – Source
11-15 Kickass Random Fact
11. A baboon named Jack officially worked for South African railways (1881-1890) as a signalman and was paid twenty cents a day, and half a bottle of beer each week. Jack never made a single mistake in his entire Railway career. – Source
12. “Rudy”, of Notre Dame football fame, was involved in a pump-and-dump scheme and had a settlement with the SEC for >$380,000. – Source
13. Fossilization is so unlikely that scientists estimate that less than one-tenth of 1% of all the animal species that have ever lived have become fossils. – Source
14. Match fixing got so out of control in Canadian soccer that one pro match ended early after the home team’s attempts to score an own-goal were repeatedly thwarted by the away team. – Source
15. NASA engineers designed a makeup kit because they thought female astronauts would want makeup in space. – Source
