13 Odd Yet Fascinating Now-You-Know Facts
![13 Odd Yet Fascinating Now-You-Know Facts](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/3/0/769530_320x180.jpg)
The world can be a fascinating place. It seems like during our day-to-day lives we can learn something new if we know where to look. We can learn some new factoid or truth about our history, about science, and just plain life in general if we stop and take a breath. Or if you just go to the right Cracked article.
But it’s not enough to learn something new every day. It’s best to learn something new and odd. That way you’ll get invited to parties, business conferences, and orgies to help break the ice and end the terrible, horrible, soul-swallowing silence within any awkward group interaction.
Like, did you know why tigers are better at camouflage than you think, in spite of their orange color? Or how criminally underpaid the Power Rangers were? Or that, yes, water can somehow be extra wet?
You can learn all these facts and others to be the most interesting guy in the orgy (yes, even more interesting than the dude with the split tongue) by reading the following Pictofacts:
![Tigers actually have amazing jungle camouflage. Other Regular mammals't vision human vision Most mammals, except humans, are red-green color-blind. To them, a tiger looks greenish and blends into foliage very easily. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/8/769578.jpg)
Source: Royal Society Publishing
![In 1961, a Russian surgeon in Antarctica cut out his oWn appendix. Leonid Rogozov was part of a Soviet expedition to build a new base on Antarctica, and during the mission he realized he had acute appendicitis. He was the only surgeon, so he meticulously prepped and then performed the](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/9/769579.jpg)
Source: BBC
![When Truman told Stalin about the nuclear bomb in 1945, Stalin was unfazed. He just said he hoped Truman would make good use of it against the Japanese. This was because Soviet spies had known about the U.S. nuclear program for almost 4 years by that point. NOW YOU KNOW](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/6/769576.jpg)
![The first choice for Hannibal Lecter was Sean Connery. He refused a role in Silence of the Lambs very quickly because he found it disgusting and said he'd never play something like that. NOW YOU KNOW](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/7/769577.jpg)
Source: Deadline
![Charlemagne used asbestos for party tricks. kapolits mhagmig impamt Ams.4 He'd serve dinner to his guests on an asbestos tablecloth, then throw it into the fireplace when dinner was over-- apparently, to make them think he had wizard powers. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/5/769575.jpg)
Source: Gizmodo
![The original Power Rangers actors were paid around $600 a week. 27% That was for filming two episodes a week, and they didn't get any residuals, either -- $600 was it. NOW YOU KNOW](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/4/769574.jpg)
Source: No Pink Spandex
![The first version of Anchorman was a survival movie. It was about news anchors surviving a crash landing in the mountains and trying to escape while being hunted by orangutans with throwing stars (a cargo plane that crashed nearby was carrying both, and the orangutans escaped and found the throwing](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/3/769573.jpg)
Source: Esquire
![The most expensive animated film, ever, is Tangled. Fi That was partly because it was rewritten a bunch of times, and partly because Rapunzel's hair was stupidly difficult to animate. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/1/769571.jpg)
Source: CBR
![The cemetery in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly was built by the Spanish army. They were shooting in Spain, and the dictator Franco (who ruled Spain at the time) was really friendly towards the movie production, so he sent thousands of young soldiers to build a fake cemetery](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/2/769572.jpg)
Source: El Pais
![Horses were a status symbol until the 19th century. Until then, rich people rode horses, and poor people usually walked. As railroads, factories and ports began springing up in the 19th century, horses started being used to move people and goods - So their population grew exponentially, and they became a](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/7/0/769570.jpg)
Source: The Tyee
![The town of Manitowoc WI, celebrates the day a piece of a spacecraft crashed there. T The celebration is called Sputnikfest, in honor of a chunk of Sputnik IV dropping on a street corner on September 5, 1962. NOW YOU KNOW](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/6/9/769569.jpg)
Source: Manitowoc.org
![Firefighters' water is extra wet. They add wetting agents to water, which reduces its surface tension and allows it to leave surfaces more wet than regular water. That makes water better at extinguishing some types of fires. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/6/8/769568.jpg)
Source: International Fire Protection
![Astronauts' dirty laundry is burned up in disposable spacecraft. There's no way to wash clothes on the ISS, sO dirty laundry sits around for a while and then gets put into a Progress ship (a one-way craft that brings supplies to the ISS) whenever one arrives. Once it's loaded up,](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/6/7/769567.jpg)
Source: NASA