The best random facts are the ones that make you stop scrolling and immediately tell someone else. Random Facts Mixtape Vol. 012 – 25 Facts You Will Quote is packed with fascinating stories, strange historical moments, surprising scientific discoveries, and unbelievable true events. From a missing teenager who vanished in London, to a king paid in whistles and farts, to robots building other robots in Japan, these are the kinds of facts that stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.
Pies From Hard Times
1. Desperation pies are defined by using inexpensive pantry staples as the filling. These pies were especially common during economic depressions, the World Wars, and the era before refrigeration. Examples include green tomato pie, shoofly pie, chess pie, and vinegar pie.
2. In 2007, 14-year-old Andrew Gosden seemed like a content, reserved, studious boy expected to achieve strong academic success. He was described as absent-minded, shy, and comfortable on his own while keeping a small circle of friends. On September 14, a week after term began, he went missing. Although he had a perfect attendance record, he missed school that day to go to a train station and buy a one-way ticket to King’s Cross in London by himself. Immediately after leaving the station he apparently vanished in an area filled with CCTV cameras. No London CCTV recordings of him were retained; the police waited two weeks before asking local businesses if any footage had been saved, and there is no evidence he ever left the city. He had a PSP with him when he disappeared, but Sony confirmed no PSN account was ever created on the device, he had no internet access at home, and he did not have a mobile phone. Strangely, he left the PSP charger at home, suggesting he may have intended to return.
3. In 2005 Kate Winslet joked that appearing in a Holocaust film was a sure route to an Oscar. Four years later she won her first and only Oscar for her performance in The Reader.
4. During the American Civil War the pope nearly granted the Confederacy diplomatic recognition. The US government was so upset by this that it did not send an ambassador to the Vatican until 1984.
5. In 1957 actor Cary Grant was diagnosed with “prolonged emotional detachment” and began medical LSD therapy. Over a two-year span he underwent more than 100 acid trips and believed they helped him cope with the pain from his childhood.
6. At a college football game in San Francisco in 1900, hundreds of people climbed onto the roof of a glass factory to watch the contest. When the roof collapsed, they fell into a hot glass furnace; 22 people died and hundreds were injured.
7. Feudal contracts varied widely in their terms, with some imposing odd obligations; one required a man to visit the king every Christmas to whistle, jump, and fart for the monarch.
8. During the Greek War of Independence, 115 Greek revolutionaries surrounded by 10,000 Ottoman troops managed to kill 300 and wound 800 while suffering just six casualties. When the Ottomans paused their attack to prepare cannons, the Greeks slipped out through the enemy lines undetected.
9. When the University of Wisconsin band plays ‘Jump Around’ at football games, the fans jumping register on the Geology Department’s seismograph two miles away.
10. In 1850, Missouri slaveholder Robert Newsom purchased a 14-year-old enslaved girl named Celia after his wife had died the previous year and forced her to serve as his concubine. For years Newsom repeatedly assaulted her. In 1855, while trying to stop another assault, Celia killed Newsom in self-defense. She was later convicted of murder by a Missouri court and executed by hanging.
How a cereal idea started
11. In 1964 a General Mills employee cut up Circus Peanuts candy to add to his Cheerios, which led to the creation of Lucky Charms.
12. In Finland, urban planners often inspect parks immediately after the first snowfall when existing walking routes are hidden; people’s footprints reveal natural desire paths that can then be used to guide the layout of new paved walkways.
13. The Shar-Pei’s loose skin was likely bred as an adaptation for fighting. If a loose wrinkle is grabbed, the dog can still turn and bite back.
14. During World War 1, to get around British blockades the German Lloyd company built a merchant submarine to trade with then-neutral America. It made two trips before America entered the war; afterwards it was converted into a warship and on three patrols sank 42 ships.
15. After the Vietnam War, Vietnamese farmers recycled thousands of external fuel tanks from U.S. aircraft to create riverboats and canoes.
16. China’s most intricate character requires 57 strokes to form, and it refers to a noodle dish.
17. On April 16, 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel, but she received almost no press coverage because the Titanic disaster the day before dominated public attention.
18. Most pizza sold in Italy is specifically made to match tourists’ expectations of what authentic pizza should be rather than traditional Italian recipes; tourists then return home and open pizza shops to recreate this ‘authentic’ experience, a phenomenon called the Pizza effect.
19. Frequent marijuana use between ages 13 and 20 is associated with an average loss of 8 IQ points by mid-adulthood.
20. In 1994 Apple Computer engineers code-named the Power Macintosh 7100 ‘Carl Sagan,’ hoping Apple would make ‘billions and billions’ from its sales; when Sagan complained in writing, Apple renamed the project ‘BHA’ (for Butt-Head Astronomer).
Book Examining Batman Realistically
21. E. Paul Zehr, a neuroscience professor, wrote the book “Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero”, which explains in detail how much training and physiological adaptation an ordinary person would need to become Batman.
22. In 2000, a petition totaling 792,985 signatures, Australia’s largest ever, was presented to parliament to protest rising beer prices.
23. In 1950, a U.S. Air Force B-50 bomber returning to the United States accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb over the small city of Rivière-du-Loup in Quebec after suffering engine troubles; the weapon was destroyed in a non-nuclear explosion before it hit the ground and scattered nearly 100 pounds of uranium.
24. A FANUC-operated plant in Japan can run unattended for 30 days at a time, with robots manufacturing other robots at a rate of 50 per 24-hour shift. These operations are known as “lights out” factories because no human presence is required, and FANUC has been running this autonomous facility since 2001.
25. Washoe, the chimpanzee who was the first non-human taught sign language, appeared to show self-awareness when looking at her reflection in a mirror, and she seemed to suffer an identity crisis when first introduced to other chimpanzees, appearing shocked to discover she was not human.
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