← FACTSlides → Random Facts Page #25

Barns are painted red because red paint is cheap. The paint is cheap because iron is plentiful. Iron is plentiful because it is the final element formed out of a star's death.

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The co-owner of Macy's died on the Titanic. He refused to get in a lifeboat before women and children, and his wife refused to leave without him. They were last seen standing on the deck, arm in arm.

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Jews are often associated as scheming merchants who love money because in the Middle Ages Christians were forbidden to lend out money with interest, while Jews were not.

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In 2009, Canada passed the "Apology Act", establishing that apologizing to someone after an incident cannot be used in court against the person who apologized to establish their guilt or liability.

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Instead of donating money, Toyota helped the NY Food Bank by increasing efficiency, cutting line wait times from 90 to 18 minutes.

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In 2008, a British 19-year-old officially changed his name to

"Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined."

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People recall more memories from young adulthood, compared to other periods of their life, a phenomenon called "reminiscence bump."

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46 people in the United States have a last name that's 16 characters or longer, with Aghubgharehptiannej being one of the most common.

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After the battle of Waterloo, the Marquis of Anglesey had his leg amputated. It was buried with full military honours in a nearby garden.

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Australia's National Soccer team is called "The Socceroos."

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The "Groom of the Stool" was the most intimate of an English monarch's courtiers, responsible for assisting the king in excretion and ablution.

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A secret room under the Medici Chapel is covered in charcoal sketches by Michelangelo, who lived there for three months while hiding from the Pope.

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Gangster John Dillinger reportedly once escaped from prison by carving a potato into the shape of a pistol.

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During the U.S. civil war, Union soldiers found a copy of the Confederates' plan for the Antietam campaign, yet still lost.

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Ten miles from the finish line, the winner of the men's marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics was given strychnine sulfate, a common rat poison which stimulates the nervous system in small doses, mixed with brandy.

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In 1325, rival city-states Bologna and Modena went to war after Modenese soldiers stole a bucket from a well.

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Texas, New York and California all have economies bigger than Russia.

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Allied forces hired a makeup artist to draw sketches of Hitler in various disguises.

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Most Converse sneakers have a very thin layer of felt applied to their soles, in order to legally classify them as slippers. This saves the company more than 33% in import tariffs.

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George W. Bush named The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as his favourite childhood book. It was published when he was 23 years old.

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French entertainer Michel Lotito ate a whole Cessna airplane and was awarded a bronze plaque by the Guinness Book of World Records. He was so honored that he ate the plaque.

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There's a monument to the laboratory mouse in Siberia, Russia.

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The "Eye Of The Tiger" song was created to be the theme for Rocky III because Queen wouldn't give Sylvester Stallone the rights to use "Another One Bites The Dust."

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There is a specific clause in The Simpsons' contract that the network can't give notes, make cuts or exert creative control over episodes, meaning the producers have free rein to poke fun of FOX itself.

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It takes ten times as much energy to

heat water as it does to heat iron.

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Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years, to the day, after Galileo died.

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Nobody won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1914-1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939-1943, 1948, 1955-1956, 1966-1967 and 1972.

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When the first McDonald's drive-through in Kuwait opened, the queue was seven miles long.

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95% of people don't wash their hands long enough to kill germs before leaving a public toilet.

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In 2014, the International Space Station had to move 3 times in order to avoid being hit by space junk moving at 17,000 mph.

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