28 Fascinating Facts About Anything and Everything

1. Studies show the reason why we "click" with certain people is due to people's brain waves being sync in wavelengths called the alpha–mu band, or what scientists call brain-to-brain coupling, and mirror each other neurologically in terms of what they are focusing on.

2. The Andromeda galaxy has already started merging with our Milky Way

3. GM recalled 800k cars in 2014 for faulty ignitions. The cars would shut off while being driven which meant drivers lost power steering/brakes, and the airbags wouldn't deploy. They knew about the problem since 2005 but never fixed it because it would be 'too expensive. 124 people died.

4. When Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon, inside his pocket was a small piece of fabric from the 1903 Wright Flyer

5. Jurassic Park was meant to use stop motion instead of CGI, but two artists worked on a CGI T-Rex in secret, and once they finished it, they quietly put a video of it on screen when Kathleen Kennedy visited their office. The video convinced Kennedy, Spielberg, and the rest of the team to use CGI.

6. Nature has evolved different species into crabs at least five separate times - a phenomenon known as Carcinisation

7. Isaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books, 380 short stories, and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. He was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He had a triple bypass in 1983 during which got HIV from a blood transfusion which was kept secret until 10 years after his death

8. Javier Bardem's performance as Anton Chigurh in 'No Country for Old Men' was named the 'Most Realistic Depiction of a Psychopath' by an independent group of psychologists in the 'Journal of Forensic Sciences.

9. In 1997 a Danish woman visiting New York City was arrested and strip-searched for leaving her baby in a stroller outside a restaurant while she and the baby's father dined inside, a common practice in Denmark. She later sued the city and was awarded $66,000.

10. Boris Mikhailov, captain of the USSR hockey team, was offered a $1 million contract to leave Russia in 1980 after the Miracle on Ice. However, he declined as the KGB was standing next to him when the offer was made.

11. Environmental activist Julia “Butterfly” Hill lived in a 1500-year-old California redwood tree (known as Luna) 180 feet (55 mm) off the ground for 738 days in order to prevent it from being chopped down by Pacific Lumber Company. She successfully saved the tree.

12. The violin that was played as the Titanic sunk was rediscovered in an attic and auctioned off for $1.6 million in 2013.

13. Ian Fleming originally wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened. He chose James Bond because it was the dullest name he had ever heard.

14. Tim Wong successfully and singlehandedly repopulated the rare California Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly in San Francisco. In the past few years, he’s cultivated more than 200 pipevine plants (their only food source) and gives thousands of caterpillars to his local Botanical Garden.

15. When the Titanic rammed an iceberg, William Murdoch, the officer in charge, was portrayed in the film as shooting a passenger and then committing s**cide. In reality, he was last seen trying to fill as many lifeboats as possible and heroically went down with the ship.

16. The prototype of the Rolls Royce Ghost was so quiet inside that it made test drivers sick. The engineers had to remove some of the noise-isolating material and create seats that vibrated at specific frequencies to introduce some noise into the interior.

17. Four Spider-Man suits were stolen from Spider-Man back in 2002. The suits cost $50,000 USD to make and Sony offered $25,000 USD for their return. It lead to an 18-month investigation, and the suits were found in Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo. They were stolen by a security guard who worked on the set.

18. During WW2 Heinz invented a self-heating soup can that would frequently explode.

19. Former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt was a heavy smoker. He was well known for lighting up during TV interviews and talk shows. He was also charged with defying smoking bans. In 1981 he got a pacemaker. Despite these, he died as the longest living chancellor at the age of 96.

20. Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" is the 4th best-selling record in all of history, with only Michael Jackson's Thriller, ACDC's Back in Black, and Whitney Houston's Bodyguard soundtrack selling more.

21. The nurse, Caroline Hampton, helped popularize surgical gloves. She almost quit her job as a surgical nurse at John Hopkins due to severe hand eczema caused by surgical disinfectant until her boss bought her custom rubber gloves. Other staff members copied this and found they made work easier.

22. Andrzej Sapkowski sold the rights to CD Projekt Red to create the Witcher video games for a lump sum of $9500.

23. In 1986 a Russian commercial pilot made a bet with the first officer that he could land blind with curtains over the cockpit windows. He lost the bet, crashing and killing 70 people

24. When the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) denied permission to Marian Anderson for a concert at Constitution Hall under a "white performers-only", First Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR and arranged for Anderson to perform before an integrated crowd of more than 75,000 people.

25. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was written by composer Frank Loesser in 1944 for him and his wife to sing at the end of their housewarming party as a way to tell guests it was time to leave. Afterward, they were invited to tons of parties with the expectation of the song being the closing act.

26. That people with dementia think that stuff like a black doormat isn’t a doormat, but a deep hole in the floor. Due to these visual perception problems, people with dementia avoid stepping on the doormat, and this is sometimes used to keep them from leaving their care facilities.

27. It’s a tradition in Italy to watch the movie Trading Places on Christmas Eve, with millions tuning in every year.

28. Stephane Breitwieser was an art thief who stole 1.4 billion dollars worth of art. He never sold any of the art, he was an avid art fan and hung them in his house