Interesting Facts - Page 173

The Cainites were a Gnostic sect that existed in the Roman Empire during the 3rd century. They venerated Cain and Judas not as traitors to righteousness, but rather victims of a spirit who demanded order within the universe. They seemed to have died out in the 4th century, though the exact cause of this remains unknown.

There is a polar bear jail or as the owners call a "holding facility", in Churchill, Manitoba, where polar bears considered dangerous are held before they are relocated.

The protoverse is a theoretical particle with an infinitely small size. At the present, all theories of it remain pure speculation.

Abraham Lincoln's second cousin enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army.

1. A well-known British medical journal, The Lancet, is named after the tool used in blood-letting.

2. Sauerkrout was renamed Liberty Cabbage during WW1 in the United States due to Anti-German sentiment.

4. The Anglo-Zanzibar War lasted 38-45 minutes.

5. The American National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, has 3 extra stanzas that aren't sung. The German National Anthem is somewhat similar.

7. 24 Elements are man-made (out of 118). More could be possible.

9. Taiwan has border disputes with many countries that it doesn't border (being an island), since it claims the entirety of the Qing Dynasty.

11. Wilmer McLean fled his home which was near the Battle of Bull Run, to escape the fighting as the American Civil War started. However, the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, considered the end of the war, happened in his parlor.

12. 117,000,000,000 humans have ever lived. That's 117 billion.

13. Edgar Allen Poe married his causin.

14. He died of TB, but so did his entire family.

From 1830 to 1840, the number of slaves in Virginia actually decreased.

Somatoparaphrenia is a kind of delusion where one denies ownership of a limb they have.

Tomatoes was once considered to be a poisonous fruit.

Nicolia aegyptiaca was once thought to be a dinosaur but was actually a plant.

In 2010 (on April Fools), the city of Topeka changed its name to Google. Google then jokingly changed their name to Topeka.

"Cocaine Bear" is the name of a bear that died from an overdose of cocaine.

Fun fact, there are more Minecraft Accounts than books on the planet.

Fang is a special type of water found only in the swamps of southern Vietnam. It is over 95% higher in thickness than water, allowing things to easily stand on and cross it. Additionally, it is unique for its high explosive property—it is estimated that 0.3% of bombs produced during the Vietnamese War employed fang.

Barack Obama is directly descended from John Punch, the first slave in America.

In 1785, residents of eastern Tennessee attempted to create their own state, Franklin, named after Benjamin Franklin (who himself refused to endorse the idea). Not only did its state constitution ban doctors and attorneys from becoming lawmakers, but it also tried to join Spain after Congress refused to recognize its statehood.

A bill to divide Idaho—giving the south to Nevada and the north to Washington—once passed Congress, but president Grover Cleveland vetoed it.

By some estimates, the Oklahoma City metro area has a higher GDP than the entire country of Tanzania.

The handshake was thought to be invented during prehistory (a period of history roughly around the first use of stone tools by hominins to the invention of writing systems).

The high-five, in comparison, was thought to be invented in 1977 (but variations existed in African-American culture during the 1920's)

ASASSN-V J213939.3-702817.4 was (is?) a star that began to randomly dim for no discernible reason. To this day, the cause remains unknown.

A garden path sentence is one that, though grammatically sound, is intentionally written to confuse the reader.

Examples include “The old man the boat,” and “The horse raced passed the barn fell.”

In all five instances in U.S. history where the winner lost the popular vote, a Democrat won the popular vote.

Interesting fact: The French-born and minor Vaudeville celebrity "Ben Dova" survived the Hindenburg crash by leaping out of the blimp while it was still about a dozen feet off the ground. He claims he only suffered an ankle injury because he did a safety tumble upon landing. He eventually became an actor and had a small role in the 1976 film "Marathon Man".

There are no Constitutional requirements to be nominated as a federal judge.

Until 2001, the Oregon constiution contained racist language, such as "free negroes".

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Oregon#Anti-Black_Exclusion_Laws_and_Chinese_immigration_1844%E2%80%931859

Armadillos always have four babies at a time, all of which are identical and of the same sex.

You can fit more Vatican City’s in Luxembourg than you can fit Luxembourg’s in Canada (by a significant amount too)

Lithuania and Georgia had a "name exchange" in 2018. Georgia had petitioned for the Russian borrowing Gruzija to be replaced with the native name Sakartvelo, to reduce Russian influence. The name Sakartvelas was approved as an alternative name in Lithuanian in 2018.

Georgian also used the Russian-derived Liṭva for Lithuania, so the Georgian name was changed to Lieṭuva, derived from the native name, in the same year.

Source 1

Source 2

You can also see this on the Wikipedia pages of the countries in either language.

The capital of Idaho is Boise while the capital (county seat) of Boise County, Idaho is Idaho City

In 1987, Nevada created Bullfrog County - an uninhabited county in Nye County in order to discourage the US Government from building a nuclear waste site there. Nye County then sued Nevada claiming that the creation of Bullfrog County was unconstitutional. (If the site had been built, it would have granted Nye County economic benefits). Nye County won and in 1989, Bullfrog County was abolished. As of 2022 however, the site has still not been built as Nevada is still opposing it. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullfrog_County,_Nevada

According to Wikipedia (Source) Gillis Grafström also won gold medals in Summer and Winter Olympic Games, albeit both for figure skating.