Facts From Guppies To Genghis Khan. What More Could You Ask?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Another random selection of facts.

Guppies and Genghis Khan are here, but so are lots of others.

Hope you find something you like.

Enjoy.

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facts 03

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There are 12 imaginary languages

in the Lord of the Rings

 languages in the Lord of the Rings

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Under medieval law, animals could

be tried and sentenced for crimes,

as if they were people.

There are records of farm animals being

tried for injuring or killing people.

 Medieval animal trials

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Although John Mahoney played Kelsey Grammer’s

father in the great TV series ‘Frasier’,

he is only 15 years older than Kelsey.

 John Mahoney Martin Crane

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The Aztec capital city was called ‘Tenochtitlan’

and it was located in the middle of a lake.

At the time of its discovery by Europeans,

it was bigger than most European cities,

had its own garbage collection and

was said to be very clean.

Today the same place is known as Mexico City

and the lake is mostly drained.

 Tenochtitlan-Ruins

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Disney’s ‘Main Street’ and ‘Tomorrowland’

are set in two very special astronomical years.

Main Street is set in 1910 and

Tomorrowland is set in 1986,

these years coincide with

Haley’s Comet appearance.

 Disney's ‘Main Street’ and ‘Tomorrowland’ map

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Probably one of the world’s most widely

distributed and popular freshwater

aquarium fish species is the ‘guppy’,

sometimes also known as the

‘million fish’ or ‘rainbow fish’.

It was named in honor of

Robert John Lechmere Guppy,

a British naturalist who sent specimens

of the species from Trinidad to the

Natural History Museum in London.

 Guppy

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Some scholars believe that Genghis Khan

was responsible for up to 40 million deaths.

Some of his campaigns involved killing all

members of a society – men, women, and children,

 Genghis Khan army

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Up until the early 1930s,

if you were ‘cool’ you were feeling chilly.

However during the jazz era the word ‘cool’

became slang for fashionable in jazz circles,

tenor saxophonist Lester Young is largely

said to have popularized it.

How cool is that?

 tenor saxophonist Lester Young

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Those who suffer from type 2 diabetes

are often symptom-free,

meaning they don’t even know that they’ve got it.

This type of diabetes is normally picked up

during eye exams as it could be seen as small

haemorrhages from leaking blood vessels

at the back of the eye.

 

eye exam

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Edgar Allen Poe once wrote a book called

“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.”

It was about four shipwreck survivors

who were adrift on a raft for several days

before deciding to eat the cabin boy

whose name was Richard Parker.

Not long after, in 1884, a ship called the Mignonette

ended up sinking and leaving only four survivors.

They decided to eat the cabin boy. 

His name was Richard Parker.

 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym

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If you were a

Flatulence Smell Reduction Underwear Maker

your job would be engineering underwear

that reduces the typically unpleasant post-fart odor.

 Flatulence Smell Reduction Underwear Maker

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According to an interview with George Lucas,

R2-D2 and C-3PO were originally called A-2 and C-3.

R2-D2 was designed by Ralph McQuarrie

and co-developed by John Stears

but actually built by Tony Dyson,

who ran his own studio called

The White Horse Toy Company in the UK.

R2-D2 and C-3PO

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Fasab’s Fact Feast Day!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Hello and welcome to another fact feast day on the fasab blog.

The usual selection of random facts, but with a few extras thrown in as a tribute to the late, great, and apparently much troubled Robin Williams.

Enjoy.

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did you know2

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In spite of the larger-than-life legends,

the Pony Express only lasted 19 months

(April 1860 to October 1861)

Pony Express

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According to a published Star Wars encyclopedia,

the real name of the Star Wars robot known to us as ‘R2-D2’,

is actually ‘Second Generation Robotic Droid Series-2’.

Star Wars robots R2D2 and 3CP0

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Robin Williams was awarded a star

on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

in Hollywood, California

on December 12, 1990.

Robin Williams Hollywood Walk of Fame

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The first chocolate bar

suitable enough for widespread consumption

was produced by the Fry’s chocolate factory,

located in Bristol, England in 1847.

Fry's chocolate factory Bristol

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Of the ten deadliest wars every fought,

seven were fought in China

More people died in each of the two largest

than in WWI

war in China

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Up until the 1800s dentures were often

made from the teeth of dead soldiers.

dentures

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Robin Williams devoted much of his time and energy to charities.

For example,

he supported St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

and helped to rebuild the city of Christchurch

after the 2010 earthquake in New Zealand.

Robin Williams; Whoopi Goldberg; Billy Crystal

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In Archi,

a language spoken around the Caspian Sea,

each verb can have up to 1.5 million different conjugations

Archi_pic

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During medieval times animals were put on trial

and sometimes sentenced to death

Medieval animal trials

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Robin Williams co-owned the Rubicon restaurant in San Francisco

with his friend Robert De Niro and

fellow Bay area resident Francis Ford Coppola.

Rubicon restaurant in San Francisco

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You have roughly 70,000 thoughts

every day!

thoughts

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Dung beetles can use the Milky Way to navigate.

(My stars!)

Dung beetles can use the Milky Way to navigate

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The title, “World’s luckiest unluckiest man”

belongs to Frane Selak, a Croatian music teacher,

who has literally escaped the jaws of death seven times.

On January 1962, a train he was on flipped off the tracks

killing 17 passengers. He survived.

In 1963, he was sucked out of a malfunctioning plane door

and landed in a haystack; the plane crashed killing 19 people.

In 1966, a bus Selak was on skidded off the road and into a river

where four passengers drowned.

1970 and 1973 his car caught on fire;

1995 he was struck by a bus

and in 1996 he drove into a gorge.

Frane Selak

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In 1911, French tailor Franz Reichelt

decided to test his invention,

a combination overcoat and parachute,

by jumping off the Eiffel Tower.

It didn’t work.

Franz Reichelt Eiffel Tower

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Robin WIlliams is also the author of many

both humorous and serious quotes such as:

“Reality is just a crutch for people

who can’t cope with drugs.“

Or

“No matter what people tell you,

words and ideas can change the world.“

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Did You Know? – Another Random Fact Feast!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Random fact feast it is.

Another selection of hopefully interesting facts that you didn’t know you didn’t know.

Enjoy.

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did you know5

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In Raiders of the Lost Ark there is a

wall carving of R2-D2 and C-3P0 behind the ark

Raiders of the lost ark r2d2 3cpo

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Chinese Checkers is not Chinese.

It was created in America to circumvent the

patent for a popular boardgame called Halma,

invented by a Boston surgeon named George Howard Monks.

chinese-checkers-hexagonal

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In the 17th century,

the value of pi was known to 35 decimal places.

Today, to 1.2411 trillion.

pi

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Technically speaking, Alaska is the northernmost,

westernmost, and easternmost state of the United States.

Parts of the Aleutian Islands cross over the 180th meridian.

Aleutian_Islands_map

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The original story from “Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights” begins,

“Aladdin was a little Chinese boy.”

1001 Arabian Nights

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There is a hotel in Sweden built entirely out of ice;

it is rebuilt every year.

unique-ice-hotel-in-sweden-4

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In 1959, the USSR launched a craft called the Mechta towards the Moon.

It missed, and instead became (inadvertently) the first

man-made satellite to go into orbit around the Sun.

Mechta Lunar Orbiter that missed

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It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years,

there have only been 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.

war graves

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In the 1987 movie ‘Predator’, the character of the Predator

was originally set up for Jean-Claude Van Damme

to play a martial-arts fighting Predator.

However the producers realized much of the cast

were bodybuilders over 6 feet tall (and Van Damme was clearly smaller)

so they cast the enormous 7’ 21/2” Kevin Peter Hall

so that the Predator could realistically physically dominate

the film’s human characters.

Interestingly Hall also appears in the movie

as the helicopter pilot at the end.

kevin-peter-hall Predator

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Gatorade’s inventor later created an alcoholic variation,

Hop ’n Gator

— essentially, lemon lime Gatorade mixed with beer.

Hop ’n Gator

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At the Great Gettysburg Reunion of 1913,

two men purchased a hatchet,

walked to the site where their regiments had fought,

and buried it.

Great Gettysburg Reunion of 1913

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Though it’s rarely used,

the word referring to half a computer byte

is a “nibble.”

byte nibble

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Because of the angle at which its esophagus enters its stomach,

the horse is physically unable to vomit.

happy-cartoon-horse

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The reason why hair turns gray as we age

is because the pigment cells in the hair follicle start to die,

which is responsible for producing “melanin”

which gives the hair colour

George Clooney gray-hair

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Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world,

at 0.08988g/cc

hydrogen-gas

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The purpose of gasoline rationing during the Second World War

was not to conserve gas, but to conserve TIRES.

The primary source for natural rubber at the time was Southeast Asia,

much of which was under Japanese control.

WWII gasoline rationing book

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The concept of Boxing Day, which is on December 26th,

was to give boxes of food and clothing to the poor.

It is now viewed in some countries as a time

to get merchandise from stores at reduced prices

Boxing Day bargains

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Jewelers Tiffany & Co., based in New York, are responsible

for making the Super Bowl trophy

Tiffany super bowl trophy

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The world’s most expensive cigarettes.

In 2009, Josh Muszynski used his Visa to buy cigarettes.

Due to a Visa “glitch,” he was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars.

To be exact: $23,148,855,308,184,500

credit card statement

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The popular hip-shaking dance, the merengue,

got its name from the whisking motion required to make meringue.

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