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These facts will give you a mixture of emotions, from WTF to that’s amazing! So continue reading where you will question the normality of humanity.

  • Walmart (2.6%) has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard (4.5%)
  • Hunting unicorns is legal in Michigan (you can get a license)

Lisence to hunt unicorns

  • There is a technical name for the “fear of long words”: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
  • Someone actually paid $10,000 for invisible artwork. (An art collector once paid $10,000 for a “non-visible” sculpture created by actor James Franco. The artwork was billed as an “endless tank of oxygen.” Um, yeah… it’s called air 

Oxygen tanks, that actually cost less than the artwork itself 

  • A U.S. town had a 3-year-old mayor (In Dorset, Minnesota, where a new mayor is picked every two years by drawing names out of a hat, a 3 year old named Robert Tufts was elected mayor in 2015)

Robert Tufts, the 3 year old mayor

  • China censored the word for “censorship.”

Definition of censorship 

  • According to a 2014 study conducted by VoucherCloud and published by the Los Angeles Times, one in nine Americans—exactly 11 percent of the population think HTML is actually a disease

HTML code

  • You can hire a clown in Switzerland to stalk someone and creepily smash a cake into their face on their birthday

Dominic Deville, the clown for hire 

The man behind the clown mask

  • Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service once hacked an Al-Qaeda website and replaced the bomb instructions with a cupcake recipe
  • The 30th U.S. president (President Coolidge) thought it was hilarious to push the emergency buzzer on his desk and then hide when the Secret Service came running

President Coolidge

  • Maneesh Sethi, a computer programmer, hired a woman (at $8 an hour) to slap him in the face every time he tried checking Facebook during working hours

Maneesh Sethi & the woman he hired

  • There’s a village in southern Norway actually named “Hell.” And every winter it freezes over

Hell, Norway

  • There’s a highway in Lancaster, California, that plays the “William Tell Overture” or the theme from “The Lone Ranger” whenever cars drive over it at 55 mph

The singing road

  • Dolly Parton once entered a celebrity look-alike contest, without revealing her true identity, at a club in San Francisco and lost to a drag queen
  • It would take 76 workdays (if you work an eight-hour day) to read every online privacy policy you agree to in an average year

Example of online privacy policy

 

  • It’s Impossible to hum while you hold your nose
  • The current American flag was designed by a high school student (It started as a school project for Bob Heft’s junior-year history class, and it only earned a B- in 1958. His design had 50 stars even though Alaska and Hawaii weren’t states yet. Heft figured the two would earn statehood soon and showed the government his design. After President Dwight D. Eisenhower called to say his design was approved, Heft’s teacher changed his grade to an A)

Bob Heft & his original flag design

  • No number before 1,000 contains the letter A
  • The inventor of the microwave appliance only received $2 for his discovery (Percy Spencer was working as a researcher for American Appliance Company (now Raytheon) when he noticed a radar set using electromagnetic waves melted the candy bar in his pocket. He had the idea to make a metal box using microwaves to heat food, but the company was the one to file the patent. He received a $2 bonus but never any royalties)

Percy Spencer, the microwave inventor

  • A woman called the police when her ice cream didn’t have enough sprinkles (The West Midlands police in England released a recording of a woman who called 999 (the U.K. version of 911) because there were “bits on one side and none on the other,” she says in the recording. She was even more upset when the ice cream truck man did not want to give her money back)
  • In Switzerland, it is illegal to own just one guinea pig
  • Crows often hold grudges against specific people
  • Cherophobia is the irrational fear of fun or happiness
  • If Pinocchio said “My Nose Will Grow Now,” it would create a paradox
  • Tennis players can be fined up to $20,000 for swearing while playing at Wimbledon
  • The national animal of Scotland is a unicorn

Unicorn with a saltire on top of Edinburgh’s Mercat Cross

  • In the 16th Century, Turkish women could initiate divorce if their husbands didn’t provide enough coffee
  • Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift away from each other
  • The names of the Pokémon Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are based on Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan
  • The Twitter bird actually has a name (Larry)
  • Octopuses actually have six arms and two legs
  • Queen Elizabeth II can’t sit on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones

Queen Elizabeth II & the Iron Throne

  • Tears contain a natural painkiller, which reduces pain and improves your mood
  • Each year there are more than 40,000 toilet-related injuries in the United States

Check out some other moments

if you enjoyed “Random Facts” check out my previous episode “The Two Letters” where we talk about the story of Galileo and his long lost letter.