Random Facts

It's a new week, so let's get those brains humming with some interesting and completely random facts.

1. The word “Anarchy” stands for “Without Rulers” instead of “Without Rules.”
2. 15 of the 25 largest hotels in the world are on the Las Vegas Strip.
3. The fake snow in Wizard of Oz was made of pure asbestos.
4. The phrase “Proprietary Eponym” is used to describe when a brand name becomes the commonly used term. Some examples: Coke=Soda | Kleenex=Tissue | Xerox=Copy | Rollerblades=In-Line Skates | Frisbee=Flying Disc.
5. Rust in old buildings can result in lack of oxygen, which can be dangerous to urban explorers. There have been cases where people have died and rescuers who attempted to save them have died too.
6. Exposure to platinum can turn snails into their evolutionary decedents the slug.
7. In Japan, you are equally likely to die from being struck by lightning as you are from being shot by a gun.
8. ‘Embiggen’ and ‘cromulent’, two words invented on The Simpsons have since been used in academic journals and added to the dictionary.
9. One liter of Motor oil can contaminate one million liters of water. It’s important to understand that when you dispose oil in sink, it affects a million liters of recyclable water.
10. XXX on cartoon jugs of alcohol originally denoted three times distilled, resulting in almost pure alcohol content.
11. In order to prevent everything from being named after mathematician Leonhard Euler, discoveries are sometimes named after the first person after Euler to have discovered them.
12. Norilsk is a city in Russia where the pollution is so severe that mining the topsoil is now economically feasible because it contains so many heavy metals.
13. Operation Vegetarian was a 1942 plan by the British military to drop linseed cakes infected with anthrax on German fields where they would be eaten by cows and thus infect the civilian population that ate them. The test site in Scotland remained uninhabitable until the 1990’s.
14. During her 67-year reign, Queen Victoria survived at least 7 assassination attempts. One attempt was by an 18-year-old hunchbacked dwarf, who was later caught when police rounded up every hunchback and dwarf in London.
15. A deaf British prisoner of war named Edwin Rose missed the liberation of his camp because he fell asleep on the toilet and slept through the battle. He woke to find everyone else gone, so he shaved, put on his best clothes and walked out to freedom.
16. The U.S. military has a 26-page manual for baking brownies.
17. When the Norse Vikings sailed for America in the 11th century, they fully expected (and hoped) to find a race of monsters to fight. Instead, they found the indigenous peoples. Disappointed at finding no real monsters, the Norse (known for being tall) called them Skræling, or pygmies.
18. In the Victorian Era, doctors prescribed beards to help keep men healthy.
19. At its peak in 2008. U.S. incarcerated 1 in 100 adults, exceeding the average incarceration rate in the Soviet Union during the Gulag system.
20. In 2011, a woman in Sweden found her wedding ring on a carrot growing in her backyard, 16 years after misplacing it.

There you go, tewnty interesting facts to start off the week. All facts are taken from Kickassfacts.com, so like last time, if you disagree with a fact, take it up with them.

Until next time, have an interesting week!