30 Interesting Facts to Scratch Your Brain Itch

1.

A wanted fugitive performed plastic surgeries on his face using scissors, a box cutter and a needle with thread in order to avoid capture. Some of the surgeries were done in public restrooms. He evaded arrest for over 2 years

2.

In 1997, a Russian poacher, Vladimir Markov, shot and wounded a tiger, and stole part of a boar it had been eating. 12 hours later, the tiger tracked down the poacher at his cabin and ate him.

3.

After being scolded by a woman who felt that his shoes were too expensive for kids, Shaq forwent a $40 million deal with Reebok & signed one with Walmart. He then brought in designers from Reebok so that his Walmart shoes would look costlier than the $20 price. Over 400 million pairs were sold

4.

In 2017, a woman named Chau Smith ran seven marathons in seven consecutive days on seven continents in celebration of her 70th birthday.

5.

Nine women, called "The 9 Nanas," kept a decades-long secret that even their husbands knew nothing about. For 30 years, they gathered at 4 a.m. to bake cakes, send care packages to people, anonymously pay bills and buy clothes for those in need.

6.

Mr. Snuffleupagus from 'Sesame Street' was originally a friend of Big Bird's that everyone else thought was imaginary, and it was decided that he should be seen by other people to encourage children to talk about any abuse they might have suffered.

7.

Taking photos instead of actually viewing the scene causes your brain to outsource the memory; this causes you to not retain the information as detailed as you normally would. This is called the photo-taking impairment effect.

8.

Vitalis of Gaza, a monk who paid prostitutes his daily wages to dissuade them from the profession. The women he served later carried him to his grave, processing him with candles and lanterns. The Catholic Church venerates him as the Patron Saint of Prostitutes and Day Laborers.

9.

Brussels sprouts used to have a bitter taste until breeders in the 90s started to cross-pollinate different varieties in order to remove the chemicals that caused the bitterness. The result of their work has lead to brussels sprouts' recent culinary popularity

10.

About Tommy Manville, the heir to the Johns-Manville fortune. The terms of his family trust granted him $250,000 "when he married." As a result he got married 13 times, giving the women a cut of the proceeds before quickly divorcing them.

11.

Pac-Man grossed $1 billion in quarters in its first year of release. In the following year, 1982, it earned $6 billion in quarters, which was more than the combined amount of money spent in Vegas casinos and US movie theaters that year.

12.

A mannequin in a California funhouse was revealed to be a real body when the arm fell off in 1976. It was the corpse of a man named Elmer McCurdy, an outlaw shot dead by sheriffs 65 years earlier.

13.

That the US post office turns children’s letters to Santa into a giant gift registry that allows citizens to fulfill children’s Christmas wishes

14.

About the Asoh defense, a term for just taking the blame when you're at fault. It’s named after a Japanese pilot named Kohei Asoh, who crash-landed a full-passenger jet in the San Francisco Bay. When asked what happened, he said: “As you Americans say, I f**ked up.”

15.

There are only between 150-300 kidnappings of children by strangers each year in the US. The other 200,000 kidnappings each year are by relatives.

16.

In 2010, Washington D.C. held a mock election and invited hackers to test its online voting system. They managed to elect Master Control Program from "Tron" as mayor, Skynet from "Terminator" to Congress, and Bender from "Futurama" to the school board. It took D.C. officials two days to notice.

17.

On the morning of July 26, 1184, Henry VI held court at the Petersberg Citadel. The weight of the assembled nobles caused the second story floor of the building to collapse. Most of the nobles fell into the latrine cesspit below the ground floor, where about 60 of them drowned in liquid s**t.

18.

For a scene in his movie Tenet, where a Boeing 747 plane crashes into (a fictional) Oslo Airport, they crashed an ACTUAL, REAL 747, because Christopher Nolan determined it would actually be cheaper than models or CGI.

19.

That Charles Dickens was a great lover of cats, so much so that when one of his beloved cats, Bob, passed away, Dickens was so upset that his sister-in-law fashioned one of Bob's paws into a letter opener. Dickens kept this at his side as he wrote and he used it every morning to open his mail.

20.

About Ted's bottle. Ted d’Auvergne, a New Zealand WW2 soldier was at the pub and late for his embarkation train. He asked the publican to set aside his 2nd bottle of beer to drink when he came home. Ted was killed but the promise was kept and that bottle of beer is still there.

21.

About Henry Cotton, an asylum director who believed that all insanity was caused by sepsis in other parts poisoning the brain, leading to widespread amputation of his patients' colons, teeth, reproductive organs, and even stomachs in order to "cure" them, with as many as 45% dying as a result

22.

That somewhere between 3% and 21% of the population have a genetic variation in an olfactory receptor gene (OR6A2) that makes cilantro taste very unpleasant. Those with the variant describe the taste of cilantro as "a combination of soap and vomit" or similar to the odor emitted by stinkbugs.

23.

In a 2005 Empire article, Henry Cavill was dubbed “the unluckiest man in Hollywood” after losing roles in Bond and Harry Potter franchises.

24.

Astronauts had to leave unnecessary items behind on the moon so the Apollo lander could lift off safely. These items included golf balls, cameras, boots, a telescope and 96 bags of poop, urine and vomit.

25.

Longyearbyen, Norway is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000. There is a ban on cats, a monthly alcohol purchase limit, and a requirement to carry a rifle while outside for protection from polar bears.

26.

69 is the only number whose square (4761) and cube (328509) use every decimal digit from 0–9 exactly once.

27.

In 1996 a couple named their son "Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116" claiming it was pronounced "Albin." This was in protest to a $740 fine they'd received for failing to register a name by his fifth birthday.

28.

That the song Smooth by Santana-Rob Thomas is both the last #1 hit of the 90s and the first of the 2000s

29.

That Wayne Gretzky is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th for most points in an NHL season.