25 Kickass Random Facts List #86

Here is 25 Kickass Random Facts List #86.

1-5 Kickass Random Facts

1. The German Parliament building has a glass dome above it and people can walk over it. This is to remind the politicians that government should be transparent, and the people are always above them. – Source

2. In 1999, Google employees brought in 16 students to test out their search engine. Upon reaching the site, they sat still for 45 seconds…just staring. Worried, employees finally asked what was wrong. All 16 responded the same: they were waiting for the rest of the page to load. – Source

3. To acquire their first users, Pinterest Co-Founder Ben Silbermann would run around Apple shops changing all browsers to Pinterest, before they caught him and kicked him out. – Source

4. Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in NYC is the oldest subway tunnel (closed in 1861) in the world. It has had its only entrance welded shut in 2013. It contains a 100+ year old steam engine. – Source

5. Dolly Parton’s husband of 48 years runs an asphalt business in Tennessee and has only seen her perform live once. – Source

6-10 Kickass Random Facts

6. Each combination lock also has a counterclockwise combination that can open the lock. – Source

7. In 1999, chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov played The World in a game of chess that lasted over four months. Over 50,000 people from more than 75 countries participated in the game with moves being decided by majority vote. Garry ended up winning on turn 62 when 51% of The World decided to resign. – Source

8. Scott Adams began writing “Dilbert” based on experiences he was having at his employment. Rather than fire him, they gave him meaningless work in an effort to get him to quit, which just gave him more time and material for “Dilbert.” – Source

9. The Shawshank Redemption won zero Academy Awards, Golden Globes and SAG Awards. It did win ‘Best Foreign Film’ from the Awards of the Japanese Academy. – Source

10. Rapper T.I. has not once, but twice talked suicidal people off the ledge. – Source

11-15 Kickass Random Facts

11. Grand Theft Auto was originally a racing game called Race’n’Chase; however, a glitch made the police cars go crazy, ramming the player. This glitch was so popular with testers that they rebuilt the game around it, creating GTA. – Source

12. The GPS coordinates that lead to Walter White’s buried money in Breaking Bad actually, in real life leads to ABQ Studios in Albuquerque, New Mexico where Breaking Bad was filmed. They wanted to be sure that the coordinates didn’t lead to somewhere people might go thinking there could be buried treasure. – Source

13. The Scotts Company used to include clover in their lawn mix as a natural fertilizer. When their new herbicide killed the clover, they reclassified it as a weed. – Source

14. A Las Vegas mental hospital used commercial buses to “dump” more than 1500 psychiatric patients in 48 states over five years. – Source

15. If you win the million dollar prize on the McDonald’s monopoly game, they actually pay you $50,000 per year for 20 years. – Source

16-20 Kickass Random Facts

16. Andrew Kehoe committed the deadliest mass murder at an U.S. elementary school on May 18, 1927. His victims included his wife, 6 adults and 37 children. In the aftermath, investigators found a wooden sign Kehoe had apparently wired to a fence on his farm that read, “Criminals are made, not born.” – Source

17. In 2013, A pig in Australia stole 18 beers from a campsite, got drunk, and then tried to fight a cow. – Source

18. The Luna moth does not have a mouth and cannot eat. It will live only for about one week, with the singular purpose of mating. – Source

19. Pro Football Hall of Fame Mike Webster bought himself a Taser gun and used that on himself to treat his back pain. He would zap himself unconscious just to get some sleep. – Source

20. The Unabomber was so smart that for his PHD thesis he solved a math problem that even his own math professor couldn’t solve. Another math professor said of his thesis, “I’d guess that only 10 or 12 people in the country could understand or appreciate it.” – Source

21-25 Kickass Random Facts

21. For over 18 years a Japanese composer Mamoru Samuragochi pretended to be deaf and paid a ghostwriter to compose his music. Time magazine called him a “digital-age Beethoven.” – Source

22. In 1991, a fake Russian television program on Leningrad TV convinced many citizens that Lenin consumed a lot of psychedelic mushrooms, eventually even becoming a mushroom himself. The Leningrad communist party had to declare that “Lenin could not have been a mushroom” because “a mammal cannot become a plant.” – Source

23. Freddie Mercury was seated behind billionaire record producer David Geffen on a flight when Geffen turned around with his checkbook and said “I want you to sing on my label, just fill in the amount yourself!” Freddie refused. – Source

24. When Emperor Justinian II was dethroned, his nose was cut off and he was sent to live in Crimea. Ten years later, he returned to Constantinople with a Bulgar army of 15,000 men to retake the throne. He beheaded the two emperors that ruled while he was absent, now wearing a golden nose. – Source

25. In 2004, a man in Taiwan was mauled by a lion after he jumped into their enclosure with a Bible in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. – Source