Random Useless Facts Thread

@Myoozik  
Keyword:ONE

More people are killed by hippos than crocodiles every year

In December 1911, Milton S. Hershey, the founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company, avoided his own possible death by putting down a $300 deposit (about $7,281 today) for a state room aboard the Titanic.

Blockbuster was once offered to buy the little known company at the time Netflix back in the early 2000’s, but declined even after the price tag was lowered. Nowadays, Netflix is a multi-billion dollar company while Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010.

Everyone reading this has a skull.
 
That’s pretty fuckin’ metal.

In 1989, the US Military blared AC/DC music at General Noriega’s compound in Panama for 2 continuous days. This eventually forced the dictator to surrender.
 
 
Imagine bringing a scum to it’s knees hands up to a metal music. Now THAT’S some real metal shit.

Peanut butter taste good.

@phoenixacezero  
It was also invented by George Washington Carver, a black man in the 1800s.
 
@Count Adramélekh Sear  
That also happened in The Drew Carey Show.

@Goku Black  
Not to be confused with George Washington who freed his slaves. Both were cool.

In 1672, the people of the Dutch Republic ate their prime minister Johan De Witt due to a rival political group wanting him killed because of his poor handling of a war with France and the implementation of some unfair laws towards them.

In 1996, two F/A-18 Hornets collided while conducting air combat maneuvers over the Atlantic near North Carolina. One plane lost it’s nose cone, canopy and an engine. The other plane lost 5 feet of it’s wing and 3 feet of it’s tail. Incredibly, both pilots managed to land the damaged planes safely.

Most torpedoes in WW2 were propelled by either steam, electrical or burner cycle engined (Basically a Diesel engine) with some experiments on hydrogen peroxide. Alone among all, the Japanese used compressed oxygen, particularly the Type 93 Long Lance. The compressed oxygen gave them greater range and speed than their foreign counterparts, and were also wakeless.
 
The downside was the compressed oxygen itself, as elemental oxygen is hideously reactive, meaning any combustion would set them off. To make things worse the torpedoes were placed next to the engine compartments. To put an example of how dangerous was this: Chokai has the indignity of being the only cruiser ever to be lost at the hands of an aircraft carrier’s guns, a 5’’ anti aircraft gun detonating their torpedo rack with a single shell.

You can change the color of flames by introducing certain chemicals.

@phoenixacezero
 
Agreed, and while you can change it to most colours (Including white; using magnesium) you can’t have a purely black flame _{(The heat would make it glow some colour anyways)}
 
That’s also a trope popularly used on TV.

When the telephone was first invented, the inventor Alexander Graham Bell would attempt to sell his patent to Western Union, the biggest communications company in the world but refused, with the CEO even dismissing it as a toy. Soon afterwards, the telephone would become a household item, not only making Western Union miss out on the opportunity to earn millions of dollars, but in causing the telegram to phase out of existence.

In 2002, PepsiCola offered the Estonian government $25,000,000 for renaming the country’s largest lake from Peipsi (“Pie-psee”) to Pepsi. It would also mean a heavy blow against the Coca-Cola Plaza in the capital Tallinn, opened just a year before. The government declined.

@Goku Black  

The Bavarian Prince-Elector Maximilian II owned a greatsword made from a sawfish snout.
 

On Father’s Day 1991, an unidentified man broke into the United Bank skyscraper in Denver, Colorado. Impersonating as a bank officer, the man would steal $20,000 from the vault and completely remove any traces of him from stealing CCTV camera tapes to wiping down fingerprints to murdering all the guards and removing the shell casings. Because of a lack of evidence, the crook was never found and the crime currently remains a cold case.

It’s surprisingly easy to create a “Laser blaster” or “Laser gun” that it’s able to burn eyes and potentially start fires.

@kleptomage  
That’s metal!

People with high IQs tend to appreciate dark humor more.
 
 
I’m smart. Uhhhhh huh huh huh

@Count Adramélekh Sear  

At any point in time, 0.7% of the world’s population is drunk