Welcome to Random Facts Mixtape Vol. 001, the first drop in a series built for readers who enjoy learning without a safety rail. This installment jumps effortlessly from baseball neuroscience and nuclear alchemy to Titanic dogs, rogue chickens, lost video games, and ancient Roman propaganda, proving that reality routinely outdoes fiction. There is no theme, no warning, and no predictable path, only sharply curated facts that collide history, science, pop culture, and human behavior in ways you did not see coming. Consider this your invitation to press play and let curiosity take the lead.
Baseball Pitch Outspeeds Human Sight
1. In Major League Baseball, the ball moves too quickly for the eye to follow; nevertheless, the brain uses specialized cells to compute its path, allowing the batter to make contact.
2. Elephants exhibit a preference for using one tusk over the other, similar to human hand dominance. Studies indicate most elephants favor their right tusk.
3. At the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1980, nuclear physicist Glenn Seaborg converted thousands of bismuth atoms into gold. Although his method was prohibitively costly for commercial gold production, it approached the legendary concept of the Philosopher’s Stone.
4. In 2000, Jonathan Lebed, a 15-year-old from New Jersey, influenced stock prices by creating multiple fake accounts to post on online forums. His approach generated earnings up to $74,000 each day. Legal proceedings followed, but he was permitted to retain half a million dollars of his profits.
5. When adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage in the U.S. fell by 20% between 1967 and 2010.
6. When the Titanic was going down, someone opened the kennels containing the passengers’ pet dogs, causing the unusual scene of a group of lively dogs running back and forth across the tilted deck as the ship submerged.
7. During the 1916 uprising in Dublin, British and Irish forces engaged at St. Stephen’s Green paused fighting daily to let the park-keeper feed the ducks residing there.
8. Tomochichi, the famous Native American Chief and ally of the English, was honored with a monument and burial place in the center of Savannah, GA’s Wright Square, which was later removed and replaced by a tribute to a railroad figure in 1883.
9. In season 2, episode 10 (“Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad”) of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Charlie attempts to tattoo himself with the words “Bad News.” Frank interrupts him before finishing, leaving the tattoo reading “Bad New,” which appears in every episode following.
10. In 2019, wild chickens started causing chaos on a British island. A small number of runaway chickens bred rapidly without predators, forming groups of around 100 that harassed runners, ruined gardens, disrupted traffic, and woke people at 4 am with their loud crowing.
Difference Between Blond and Blonde
11. Blond(e) remains one of the rare gender-specific words in English. The term blond refers to males, while blonde describes females.
12. Students chose Admiral Ackbar to represent the Ole Miss Rebels as their mascot. However, Lucasfilm refused permission to use the character, explaining that he would struggle to attend games since he was busy commanding the Rebel Alliance Fleet on an important mission, making his presence at games unlikely.
13. Until 2020, 20th Century Fox retained ownership of Star Wars episodes 1 through 6, with the exception of A New Hope (episode 4), which they will keep ownership of indefinitely.
14. Contrary to Hollywood and cartoon portrayals of nuclear waste as a glowing, gooey lime-green substance, it is typically a harmless-looking, clear contaminated liquid. Some radioactive materials, like the radium Marie Curie studied, do emit a glow, but it is blue rather than green.
15. If you detect the smell of a natural gas leak, avoid turning off light switches because doing so can create a spark.
16. Paris is home to eight different copies of the Statue of Liberty. The biggest replica was presented to the French people three years after the original statue was given to America. Additionally, there is an identical-size flame serving as an unofficial tribute to Princess Diana.
17. Early inhabitants of Yellowstone are said to have used the Old Faithful geyser to clean clothes. One story stated that items placed inside the crater during a quiet period would be expelled “completely cleaned” when the geyser erupted.
18. Although Fred Weasley invited Angelina Johnson to the Yule Ball, she eventually married his twin brother George following the Second Wizarding War, which tragically claimed Fred’s life. George and Angelina honored Fred by naming their son “Fred II.”
19. Shortly after Julius Caesar was murdered, a comet appeared in the sky for seven days in a row. This was taken as a sign of Caesar’s elevation to divine status and served as propaganda for his nephew. The comet was described with the words: “To make that soul a star that burns forever, Above the Forum and the gates of Rome.”
20. In 2015, Guns N’ Roses’ hit Sweet Child o’ Mine faced controversy after it was found to closely resemble a track released six years earlier by a relatively unknown Australian rock band. Upon listening to the track, Duff McKagan, the band’s bassist, described the likeness as “stunning.”
The Game Called Moirai
21. There existed a 10-minute game named “Moirai” where the actions of other players influenced the character you controlled. Unfortunately, a single hacker destroyed the game, resulting in its permanent loss.
22. The ‘one-electron universe’ theory suggests that only one electron exists in the entire universe, moving through space and time in a manner that makes it appear in multiple locations at once.
23. Before interviewing O.J. Simpson for ‘Who Is America?’, Sacha Baron Cohen practiced with an FBI interrogator, aiming to persuade OJ to admit guilt.
24. Norilsk, a Russian city, experiences such extreme pollution that extracting heavy metals from the topsoil has become economically viable.
25. The first oranges were not actually orange in color. These fruits, which originated in Southeast Asia, were a hybrid of tangerine and pomelo and were naturally green. Even today, in warmer countries like Vietnam and Thailand, oranges often remain green when fully ripe.
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