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Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 9:50 pm
by Graham Kennedy
Kangaroos cannot fart.

On Good Friday in 1930, the BBC news report began with "There is no news." For the rest of the show they played piano music.

When the mummy of Ramses II was sent to France in the mid-1970s, it was issued a passport. His occupation was listed as "King (deceased)."

Jay used to be slang for a foolish person. Hence a person who ignores street signs when crossing is a "jaywalker".

Alaska is the only US state whose name can by typed on a single row of a standard keyboard.

The "unabomber" is so-called because he sent his first bombs to UNiversities and Airlines.

Forty is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order.

Dr. Ruth was trained as a sniper by the Israeli military.

About one in every 4 million Lobsters is born with a genetic defect that makes it blue.

Horses can't vomit.

Roger Ebert briefly dated Oprah Winfrey in the 1980s. He was the one who suggested she take her talk show into syndication, a move that made her one of the richest women in the world.

Your body both creates and destroys approximately 15 million red blood cells per second.

On a standard playing card deck, the King of hearts is the only king without a moustache.

When glass breaks, the cracks propogate at about 3,000 mph.

Alaska is the most northern US state. But it's also the most western, AND the most eastern!

The Himalayas contain 19 of the 25 tallest mountains in the world.

Nauru is the only country in the world that doesn't have a capital city.

Saudi Arabia doesn't have a single river.

Lesotho, Vatican City, and San Marino are the only countries in the world that are completely surrounded by one other country.

In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry claimed "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run!" He hit his first and only home run a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

Antarctica is the only continent that lacks snakes and spiders.

When George Lucas was mixing the American Graffiti soundtrack, he numbered the reels of film starting with an R and numbered the dialog starting with a D. When sound designer Walter Murch asked George to pass him Reel 2, Dialog 2 by asking for "R2D2", George liked how it sounded and decided to use it in another script he was working on.

It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.

If you spelled out all the numbers in worlds, you would reach One Thousand before you used an A.

Every part of Colorado is higher than any part of Pennsylvania.

Al Gore's room-mate at Harvard was Tommy Lee Jones.

Every time you sneeze, it kills some of your brain cells.

You are more likely to be killed by a donkey than a plane crash.

"I am." Is the shortest grammatical sentence in the English language.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time. It's 1/100th of a second.

After the last election, there are now more Giant Pandas in Scotland than there are Labour members of Parliament.

Worldwide, lightning strikes approximately 100 times a second.

In any given year, more Monopoly money is printed than real money.

The habit of sailors wearing gold earrings began as a way for them to carry the money for their funeral with them.

Albert Einstein's last words were in German. Since the only person with him was a nurse who didn't speak German, nobody knows what he said.

Until the British colonised India, it was not uncommon for a widow to be burned to death on her husband's funeral pyre. The British governor threatened to hang anybody who continued the tradition.

Gold is one of the most malleable metals. A lump the size of a matchbox can be beaten out to the size of a tennis court.

Bagpipes are not a Scottish invention - they were introduced to Britain by the Romans.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 10:26 pm
by Captain Seafort
Graham Kennedy wrote:Until the British colonised India, it was not uncommon for a widow to be burned to death on her husband's funeral pyre. The British governor threatened to hang anybody who continued the tradition.
"You say it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom; when men burn a woman alive we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build you funeral pyre. Beside it, my men will build a gallows. You may follow your custom, and then we will follow ours." - lovely quote courtesy of Major General Sir Charles Napier, who was C-in-C Bombay Army at the time, not the Governor.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2015 7:57 pm
by RK_Striker_JK_5
Wheeljack was the first character to speak in the Transformers G1 animated series.

Cheetor was the first one to speak in Transformers: Beast Wars and the last to speak in Transformers: Beast Machines, bookending the Beast Era of Transformers.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 10:00 am
by Teaos
I call bullshit on more Monopoly money being printed than real money.

My fact. Batman was trained by earth vader.

That being Adam west was trained by the actor who played Darth.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2015 1:38 pm
by Mikey
The goliath bird-eater, a giant spider of South America, has been described as having a flavor similar to shrimp.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 2:38 pm
by Mikey
Apparently, athletic legend Steve Prefontaine grew up with Klingon culture:

"The best pace is a suicide pace, and today is a good day to die." - Steve Prefontaine

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2015 10:29 pm
by JudgeKing
Canada's reason for choosing the F/A-18 Hornet as the winner of the New Fighter Aircraft Program was its ability to fire the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 12:47 pm
by Jim
JudgeKing wrote:Canada's reason for choosing the F/A-18 Hornet as the winner of the New Fighter Aircraft Program was its ability to fire the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile.
Fighters are simply weapons platforms now. Outside of that, the plane itself it relatively irrelevant. This switch happened around the Vietnam war.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 10:30 pm
by McAvoy
On February 22nd, 2022 it will be a Tuesday. Or 2s Day.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2015 11:05 pm
by JudgeKing
Except for the anthems of the Free Planets Alliance and Galactic Empire, the soundtrack for Legend of the Galactic Heroes is made up entirely of classical music.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2015 9:29 pm
by Reliant121
The eye of the Ostrich are larger than it's brain.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:05 am
by JudgeKing
Antanas Mockus, a mayor of Bogotà, used to dress up like a superhero and pick up trash. Also under his term, homicides went down 70% and traffic fatalities 50%, everyone had access to water, he got 63,000 people to voluntarily pay 10% extra in taxes. And he used mimes to stop people from jaywalking.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 8:08 am
by Teaos
Killing a mime is good luck.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 4:30 pm
by IanKennedy
JudgeKing wrote:Antanas Mockus, a mayor of Bogotà, used to dress up like a superhero and pick up trash. Also under his term, homicides went down 70% and traffic fatalities 50%, everyone had access to water, he got 63,000 people to voluntarily pay 10% extra in taxes. And he used mimes to stop people from jaywalking.
I read that as mines at first. Mines :takecover: would certainly reduce jaywalking but would play havoc with the fatalities.

Re: Post your weird obscure trivia

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:18 pm
by Captain Seafort
And the traffic.