42 Facts You Likely Didn't Know

1. In Japan you can donate your taxes to small rural towns and get tons of gifts in return.

2. Brian Boitano once ice-skated to South Park's 'What Would Brian Boitano Do?' song.

3. A Spanish language, shot for shot remake of Breaking Bad was produced in Colombia.

4. There is a village in Kazakhstan where people started suddenly falling asleep for 5 days or longer, since 2010. BONUS FACT: Kazakh people are Asian, unlike portrayed in Borat; the people portraying Kazakhstan in the movie Borat were Romanian.

5. Iron Maiden wrote a song based on Dune, the classic sic-fi novel. The band initially wanted to name the song "Dune", but were met with the following message upon requesting permission: "Frank Herbert doesn't like rock bands, particularly heavy rock bands, and especially bands like Iron Maiden".

6. Japanese porn industry is extremely short on male actors, as many as 10,000 women against only 70 men.

7. A study found that grunting in tennis increases ball velocity by 3.8%.

8. After discovering his hotel alias, Michael Jackson used to prank call Russell Crowe and say things like "'Is Mr. Wall there? Is Mrs. Wall there? Are there any Walls there? Then what's holding the roof up?"

9. There is a phenomenon where twin siblings develop their secret language, known as cryptophasia.

10. Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't short. Making fun of Napoleon's supposed short height was a famous misinformation by British propaganda, which somehow became accepted as fact by some history books.

11. Pornohub is working on a wristband to charge electronic devices using the motion of masturbation.

12. In 1987, a guy bought a lifetime unlimited first class American Airlines ticket for $250,000. He flew over 10,000 flights costing the company $21,000,000. They terminated his ticket in 2008.

13. Vin Diesel has played tabletop roleplaying games for over twenty years. He even penned the introduction to the D&D retrospective 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons.

14. The act of "giving the key to the city" is a continuation of a medieval practice where the cities would be locked at night but someone given the key could come and go as they please as an honor for something great done for the city.

15. The duffel bag gets its name from the town of Duffel, Belgium, where the thick cloth used to make the bag originated.

16. Women's football/soccer in the UK was banned from 1921 to 1969 by the Football Association because it was deemed "damaging to women's bodies" and because women's games attracted more crowds than men's.

17. Frances Bean Cobain turned down the lead role of Bella in Twilight because she thought it was a 'sexist, Mormon Piece of S**t', according to her mother, Courtney Love.

18. Between 1825 to 1925 about 1/3rd of Norway's population moved to North America.

19. A lifeguard in South Florida was fired for saving someone who was drowning because the guy wasn't technically in the lifeguard's assigned area.

20. There are Target stores in Australia with the exact same logo, name, and branding that have no affiliation with the actual Minneapolis-based retailer all because Target didn't trademark their name in Australia.

21. For the Romans, a big penis wasn’t a sign of manliness or sexual skill. All of the Roman heroes ? mythological, political, or athletic ? were portrayed as having small, compact genitalia, almost like pubescent boys. What we consider “well-endowed” was considered a sign of a barbarian or a fool.

22. The song "Mary Had a Little Lamb" was based on a real person who's brother convinced her to bring her lamb to school when she was a young girl.

23. An alcoholic can actually die from withdrawal, known as Delirium Tremens where death occurs in 1% to 4% of cases, making alcoholism more dangerous to kick than cocaine addiction.

24. If you lose your pinky, you lose about 50 percent of your hand strength.

25. The word "honeymoon" originated from the tradition of giving newly weds a month's supply of mead on their wedding night.

26. That the highest-paid athlete in history was a Roman charioteer by the name of Gaius Appuleius Diocles - who has won 1,462 four-horse races. The fortune he has accumulated from won races, if it was converted to Today's money, was equivalent to about 15 billion USD.

27. The Malcolm in the Middle family's name is never revealed in the show.

28. In the Japanese voicing of the Dragonball series, Goku is voiced by a 78 year old woman named Masako Nozawa.

29. The city of Cincinnati has a subway system that was built and never used.

30. Wilson the Volleyball has his own IMDB actor page, complete with bio, filmography, & personal details.

31. Running a mile burns 25% more calories than walking.

32. The cheapest Quarts watch is 10x more accurate than the most expensive mechanical watches.

33. A few hundred years ago, women in Turkey could legally divorce their husbands if he didn't provide them with enough coffee.

34. Mahatma Gandhi spoke English with an Irish accent, for one of his first teachers was an Irishman.

35. There's over 30 million slaves, globally, in 2015.

36. US astronauts are required to learn Russian as part of their extensive training, and have to be able to run the ISS using Russian-language training manuals if necessary.

37. Helen Mirren used to do porn when she was young.

38. In 2005, Michael Jordan woke up Bow Wow in the middle of the night who was sleeping over with Jordan's sons to ask who wore Allen Iverson shoes in his house. Bow Wow never saw those shoes again.

39. Women became the majority of college students starting in 1979. In the past decade women have accounted for about 57% of enrollment at degree-granting institutions.

40. In Greece’s fight for independence, a Turkish garrison in Acropolis was besieged by Greek fighters. When the Turks ran low on bullets, they began to cut the marble columns to use the lead within as bullets. The Greeks sent them ammunition saying: “Here are bullets, don’t touch the columns.”

41. Walter Keane was sued by his wife Margaret for claiming to be the painter of the "big eye waif" children, she personally created a painting in 53 minutes in the court room to prove her accusation.

42. King Tutankhamun was a product of incest; his parents were brother and sister. He had a club foot, a severe overbite, womanly hips and enlarged breasts.