14 Random Facts To Remember Forever (or at Least for a While)
![14 Random Facts To Remember Forever (or at Least for a While)](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/7/829607_320x180.jpg)
Did you know that Alexander the Great was inadvertently buried alive? Alexander is thought to have had Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a neurological condition. People believe he was only paralyzed and physically and psychologically aware when he died!
Similarly, ever heard Abraham Lincoln was a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame? By many of his roughly 300 contests, the 6'4" head of state had only one defeat. He established a reputation as an aristocracy fighter in New Salem for this.
When you study history lessons, it may appear that you are simply memorizing spontaneous facts and information about historical events. And while knowing the past is essential, uncovering a few odd history lessons makes learning even more enjoyable.
The below 14 amazingly weird history information and historical trivia are amongst the most interesting tidbits from the previous era, whether you're hoping to expand the history or become a whiz during your next random history facts trivia night.
Spider-Man 3
![Spider-Man 3 didn't actually sink the franchise. We're not saying that Spider-Man 3 was actually good - but it was a huge box office hit (even bigger than its predecessors by some metrics). A fourth movie was underway when Sony chose to reboot the franchise instead.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/0/829600.jpg)
More: Emo Spider-Man's Defense: How 'Spider-Man 3' Dared Make Power Uncool, The 'Amazing Spider-Man' Movies Saved (And Killed) the Franchise
The Fantastic Four and The Justice League of America
![The Fantastic Four were born as a rip-off of the Justice League of America. In 1961, Atlas Comics was rebranded as Marvel and jumped into the superhero bandwagon, because they'd just do whatever was popular. And the JLA, a group of several superheroes, was particularly popular in the genre. So they went and created their own group - the Fantastic Four.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/9/9/829599.jpg)
More: The Most Amazing Thing About Spider-Man (Is That He Even Exists)
Sonic's Protein
![A protein is named after sonic the Hedgehog. The SHH gene codes for the sonic hedgehog protein, which is called that partly because it kicks in during fetal development to split your eyes apart. Before that, your eyes are fused together, kind of like the blue speedster.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/4/829604.jpg)
More: Sonic The Hedgehog Has A Gene Named After Him, And That's Weirdly Appropriate
Peter Pan's Bobby Driscoll
![The boy who played Peter Pan had a crappy life. Bobby Driscoll didn't just voice Disney's Peter Pan, but had a remarkable movie career - which was all but over by age 17. Не spent the rest of his life in and out of jail and rehab houses - and after he died of a drug-caused heart attack at 31, the press took four years to notice.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/1/0/829610.jpg)
Little Red-Haired Girl in 'Peanuts'
![The Little Red-Haired Girl in Peanuts was real. Like many things about Charlie Brown, his perpetual, unrequited crush came from Charles Schulz' life. Right before creating Peanuts, Schulz dated a red-haired woman named Donna Mae Johnson, but she turned down his marriage proposal - just to marry a different suitor two weeks later. Good grief! doesn't cover it.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/9/8/829598.jpg)
More: Historical Figures (Who Looked Waaaay Different Than You Think)
Gorbachev's Ballads
![Mikhail Gorbachev released an album of ballads. In 2009, 10 years after his wife died of leukemia, Gorbachev took the step of contributing to a cancer research charity by... uh, singing ballads and auctioning off the album. It fetched $164,940 from someone who (understandably) chose to remain anonymous. CRACKED.COM](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/9/3/829593.jpg)
More: Gorbachev Released An Album Of Ballads In 2009
Photo: RIA Novosti/Wiki Commons
Bee Crime
![Bee crime is huge in california. Honeybees are very valuable in the state - not because Californians like honey a lot, but because the bugs are in high demand to pollinate crops. So it's no wonder that there's a huge black market for bees, and bee theft is rampant. It's serious enough that some cops specialize in it.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/1/829601.jpg)
Microplastics
![You're eating way more plastic than you think. Plastic doesn't degrade - every piece of plastic ever made still exists, ground down to smaller and smaller parts. These microplastic particles make their way into waterways and soil - and eventually, into our food. It's been calculated that we eat a credit card's worth of plastic every week.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/5/829605.jpg)
CNN's Doomsday Video
![CNN is ready for the end of the world. CNN has the mission statement of broadcasting without interruption until the world ends - and they mean it. When the world does end, a video is ready to be played by the last surviving CNN employee, featuring a band playing Nearer My God to Thee.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/9/6/829596.jpg)
Poe's 'The Raven'
![Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven was inspired by Charles Dickens' actual raven. While Poe himself never admitted as much, it's widely assumed that his dark poem was inspired by Grip, a bird Dickens owned (and wrote into a novel) that Poe was a fan of. Grip didn't ominously hail from the night's Plutonian shore, but he still was a huge dick.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/2/829602.jpg)
More: Charles Dickens' Jerk Bird Inspired Edgar Allan Poe' 'The Raven'
Stolen Crown Jewels
![The Irish crown Jewels have been lost for over 100 years. The jewels were supposed to be kept in a strong room, in a secure tower - except that the safe didn't fit through the door. So the jewels were kept in the office of the Ulster King of Arms - where they went missing from in 1907.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/9/5/829595.jpg)
Quake II
![Quake II wasn't meant to be a Quake sequel. The new FPS that id Software was working on had several titles along its development process - first it was Lock & Load, then Strogg, then Load... Until they pretty much said, screw it, let's make it Quake II.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/5/9/4/829594.jpg)
More: 5 Games That Were Their Own Thing Till The Publisher Threw Them Into A Franchise
Euro Bridges
![Someone actually built the bridges on Euro bills. € 50 The bridges on European money were meant to be merely symbolic, not real bridges - and that was the case until Dutch designer Robin Stam decided to do something about it (his words). In 2012, his art outfit built miniatures of all the bridges near Rotterdam, as a publicity stunt.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/3/829603.jpg)
Apollo 11 and its Child Rescuer
![A 10-year-dld helped Apollo 11 come home. A dish antenna in Guam that was tracking the ship on its trip back home failed - and the only way to fix it was to reach for the bearings through a small hole. The director of the tracking station summoned his 10-year-old son - whose arms were just thin enough to save the operation.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/6/0/6/829606.jpg)
More: A 10-Year-Old Helped NASA (Bring Apollo 11 Back From The Moon)