Collection of Insane and Fun Facts
In 2001, Kenny Waters, a man who was wrongly imprisoned 18 years for murder, was finally freed after his high-school dropout sister went to law school to prove his innocence. Tragically, Kenny Waters died in an accident 6 months after his release from prison.
Conviction is a 2010 biographical legal drama film based on this story.
North Koreans are especially proud of Kim Jong Il for his “inventions”. One of them is the Gogigyeopbbang or double breaded meat, which is essentially a hamburger.
In 1921, the 15-year-old former emperor of China, Puyi, decided he wanted to have a telephone. His advisors were afraid it would give him too much independence since Puyi usually had no contact with the outside world. But when he finally got his phone, he just used it to make prank calls.
The word “Cliché” originates from the clicking sound made when printing plates are used to create the same text over and over. The plates used in this process are also known as “stereotypes.”
Lake Tahoe at one time was named Lake Bigler in honor of the popular third governor of California. However, once it was revealed that Bigler was a Confederate sympathizer during the US Civil War, his name was removed from the lake and renamed Tahoe.
A mathematician named Nicolas Bourbaki who has made many strides in mathematics, never even was a real person, but was a collective pseudonym for a group of mathematicians who wrote their own textbooks.
Lincoln loved cats so much that he once fed them from the table during a formal White House dinner. When his wife told him that it was “shameful in front of their guests,” he replied “If the gold fork was good enough for former President James Buchanan, I think it is good enough for Tabby.”
Astronaut Jim Lovell was asked if he would go on another spaceflight after an explosion almost killed the crew of Apollo 13 on its way to the Moon. Lovell was about to say yes. Then he saw a hand shoot up from the audience and slowly give the thumbs-down sign. It was his wife, Marilyn.
In 1857, a woman named Hannah Crafts escaped her owner by dressing up as a man and pretending to be white. She later wrote a book called The Bondwoman’s Narrative, but didn’t publish it. It was found years later in a New Jersey attic and was finally authenticated and published in 2002.
J.R.R. Tolkien was inspired to write LOTR by the discovery of a cursed 4th century Roman gold ring that was discovered when he was a professor at Oxford.