Post a random fact people probably don't know! (And even if they did, they wouldn't care.)

[Benice]

An elderly woman who wears a leopard sweater, The Obatarian, is canonically the strongest character in the Yakuza series.

[Benice]

Lamine Guèye was Senegal's first winter Olympic Athelete, making his initial appearance in Sarajevo's Olympics of 1984, then later appearing in Albertville and Lillehammer in 1992 and '94, respectively, though he did not land a podium spot in any of his three appearances. In competing in Sarajevo, he was also the first black individual to qualify for the winter olympics, and he has remained a stout advocate of inclusiveness within winter sport.

[Elina]

There’s a disease people can get from cats and other animals called Toxoplasma gondii that affects the way you think. 50% of all people likely have it and don’t know.

[Benice]

Horses are believed to have descended from animals that looked very similar to horses, but were much smaller and inhabited forests. (If I recall correctly, this prototype horse also had four toes on its hooves).

And, since cnidarians are cool:

-Box jellyfish are more advanced than standard jellyfish and have complex eyes.

-The part of the jellyfish that swims around is called the Medusa.

-Standard jellyfish spend a portion of their lives as a polyp, a plant-like animal that eventually blossoms and releases many medusa.

-Portuguese Man-'O-Wars are not jellyfish, despite appearances! They are of the class Hydrozoa, same as Air Ferns and Christmas Tree Hydroids.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Benice

[Benice]

John Scurlock invented the bouncy castle in 1959. He was also an employee of NASA.

Top-class violins are often as much collectors' items as instruments; the most expensive violin the world, the legendar luthier Stradivarius' Messiah, has been played twice since its creation in 1716.

Related to the above, many Stradivarius instruments are still around today; approximately 650 are estimated to still exist. Instruments from Stradivarius' golden age of 1700-1725 often go for more than a million dollars.

[Benice]

The most birthday-populous day of these forums is July 6th, with a staggering 50 birthdays; most days seem to have about 25-32 birthdays, and nothing else even comes close to 50.

[The Roger The Paladin]

13 hours ago, Benice said:

The most birthday-populous day of these forums is July 6th, with a staggering 50 birthdays; most days seem to have about 25-32 birthdays, and nothing else even comes close to 50.

I'm forced to ask. How is February 29th?

For a related fact, there was a long stretch of comic's history where Clark Kent's birthday was officially on February 29th. This was a joke on how comics never let characters age in real time.

[Benice]

13 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

'm forced to ask. How is February 29th?

It seems that Leap Days aren't listed, unfortunately.

 

Makers of violins and other similar string instruments are called Luthiers because it originates from the French "Lutier", or Lute-maker.

[AnonymousSpeed]

River Monsters was cancelled because they caught all the fish.

[ping]

In the late 18th century, there was a british racehorse named "Potoooooooo", pronounced "Po-tay-toes". Sometimes, its name was spelled Pot8Os (and minor variations thereof).

[indigoasis]

The full name of the city of Los Angeles is Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula, which translates to Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula.

Or you could just call it L.A. for short.

[Benice]

Squids are molluscs.

[Benice]

Speaking of Squids, the Colossal Squid has the claim to the largest eye in the world, often being around 27 cm in diameter.

[Benice]

Cougars can jump 18 feet high, the greatest of any terrestrial animal.

[ping]

There are three football players that were relegated from the German Bundesliga five times: Jürgen Rynio (with five different teams; 1968, 69, 72, 78, and 86), Andreas Keim (four different teams - twice with Stuttgarter Kickers; 85, 87, 88, 89, 92), and Stephan Paßlack (three different teams, thrice with KFC Uerdingen; 91, 93, 96, 99, 03).

Rynio played as goalkeeper (which most likely contributed to his long career), Keim and Paßlack as defenders. Out of the three, only Paßlack ever played for the German national team, although he only ended up with four appearances.

[Lightchao42]

Woolly mammoths went extinct 4,000 years ago, roughly concurrent with the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. While most of them died out about 10,000 years ago, a small population survived on Wrangel Island until humans arrived, though the lack of genetic diversity meant they would have gone extinct eventually regardless. Another population existed on Saint Paul Island, but that one died out 5,600 years ago when they ran out of freshwater.

[ping]

After his father King Mithridates V of Pontus was killed with poison, Mithridates the Great tried to immunise himself by taking sub-lethal doses of different poisons in order to avoid the same fate - a process that is still named after the man. Allegedly, this worked too well: After Mithridates was beaten in battle against Pompeius Magnus (who would become ally and then rival of Julius Caesar), he tried to actually poison himself to death to avoid capture (and subsequent humiliation and execution), but did not succeed. Instead, he had to ask his friend and bodyguard to stab him to death.
(Note: By another account, he was killed by deserters, but both sources mention the failed suicide attempt)

Speaking of Julius Caesar: There were persistent rumours abound that, when he was about 20 years old, he was in a sexual relationship with King Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, a kingdom neighboring Pontus. That in itself wouldn't have been seen as particular shameful -  it was well-known that Caesar really got around and homosexuality wasn't particularly frowned upon either... as long as you were the pitcher, so to speak. Caesar (who always denied these rumours) wasn't shamed for having sex with some anatolian kingie, he was specifically ridiculed for being at the receiving end in the act, spawning the little verse "Gallias Caesar subegit, Caesarem Nicomedes" (Caesar laid the Gauls low, Nicomedes laid Caesar low).

[Benice]

The largest pumpkin ever recorded clocked in at 2,703 pounds.

[ping]

One of the more dramatic manager sackings in football happened in Cologne 1999, more specifically in the then 2nd-league club Fortuna Köln. During the half-time break of a game against Mannheim, which Fortuna was trailing 0-2 in, president and patron Jean Löring told coach Toni Schumacher (*) that he should "Piss off to the Eifel. You're ruining my club. You're out of here, you wanker!" (**) Because the assistant coach immediately decided to leave the club, as well, Löring then took over as interim coach for the match, which ended in a 1-5 loss. In true Louis XIV. fashion, his reasoning after the match was, "I, being the club, had to act."

(*) The same Toni Schumacher who, as a goalie, knocked out and heavily injured the French defender Patrick Battiston with a brutal foul play, which the ref didn't even call out, and then ended up as the match winner by parrying two penalties in the tie-breaking shoot-out.

(**) That last sentence directly translates to "you don't have anything to say here anymore", but I don't think that has the same "you hold no more power here" connotation in English? "Wanker" is a direct translation, though.

Edited May 12, 2022 by ping

[Benice]

The Toronto Maple Leafs now have the unique distinction of being the only team in North American pro sports history to lose a winner-take-all games in round one five years in a row- Game 7 every year since 2018, most often finishing the regular season as one of the top contenders to win the cup.

[ping]

The ultimate decline of the (Western) Roman Empire is generally considered to have started in 180 AD, with the death of Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus taking power. This means that the entire history of the United States (1776-today, 246 years) hasn't lasted as long as even just the fall of Rome (180-476 or 480, 296/300 years), not to mention the Byzantines surviving for almost another millennium.

[Benice]

Seychelles has the highest per-capita GDP of any country in Africa.

Edited May 17, 2022 by Benice

[ping]

Marcus Licinius Crassus, said to be the richest Roman of all time and the Guy With The Cash of the first triumvirate (alongside Pompey Magnus the famed general and Julius Caesar the cunning politician), was the creator of the first fire brigade in Roman history. However, he most certainly did not do so out of the goodness of his heart - in the (rather frequent) event of a fire, Crassus's men would appear on the scene and do absolutely nothing while their boss would, ah, negotiate with the owner of the burning house: Either sell your property for a fraction of its value, or we can watch together as it burns to the ground.

It even seems that his greed was well-known past the borders of the Roman Just-Barely-A-Republic-At-This-Point. According to the later Roman historian Cassius Dio, when Crassus was captured and killed during a disastrous campaign against the Parthian Empire (based in modern Iran), the Parthians poured molten gold into the dead Crassus's mouth and later used his severed head as a prop for a theatre play.

[ping]

In Civilization IV, the technology required to unlock building Mt Rushmore is Fascism. Its main effect is to reduce unhappiness caused by being at war for a prolonged period of time.

Edited May 22, 2022 by ping

[Benice]

The least-grossing Disney movie is a rather unknown flick known as Teacher's Pet. It had a fairly modest budget at about $10 Million, but in spite of tepid-to-lukewarm reviews, it only grossed $6 Million back. However, it was not Disney's biggest loss- That honor belongs to Mars Needs Moms, which grossed $39 million on a budget of $150 million- A loss of $111 dollars. And y'know what, looking at it... Yeah, I see why.