15 Bizarre Facts That Are A Delight To Behold

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15 Bizarre Facts That Are A Delight To Behold

There are some things that I enjoy this list of odd facts for. One is that it makes me laugh, and laughing is good for you. Another is that it's always fun to look back on a list you made years ago and think about how many people have had to go back through it in order to figure out what the tarnation you were talking about. It's also funny that it's taken this long for me to finally publish it. I'm pretty sure the last time I wrote something about this, it was a series of e-mails to my friends, but I can't even remember if I sent it or not. Probably not, since it would have been so long ago. But it's fun to think about anyways. Finally, I just want to say that I really hope I'm not being too presumptuous by calling this a list of “odd facts.” If I am, then I hope you'll accept my sincere apologies. But I think it's fair to say that most people would consider some of the following items to be pretty odd.

Buzz Aldrin’s mom’s name was Moon.

Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name is Moon. CRACKED.COM Marion Moon was the daughter of an Army chaplain and married Buzz's father, Edwin Eugene Aldrin, a colo- nel in the U.S. Air Force.

Biography

John F. Kennedy waited until he received cigars before putting an embargo on Cuba.

JFK made sure to get his hands on Cuban cigars before he placed an embargo on them. CRACKED.COM John F. Kennedy had his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, purchase 1200 of the cigars and before signing the documents that made the embargo against Cuba official.

Daily Mail

A doctor thought ground up squirrel testicles was the cure to aging.

Dr. Horace Emmett thought injecting yourself with red squirrel testicles was the secret to eternal youth. CRACKED.COM One year after he an- nounced this at a Cambridge lecture, touting his newfound virility as proof, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

The Ball Report

Sitting Bull was Jumping Badger for a while.

Native American chief Sitting Bull was born Jumping Badger. CRACKED.COM His father's name was Jumping Bull and his mother's was Her-Ho- ly-Door. Не was renamed at age 14 by his father for his bravery after a raid of a Crow camp.

History

Prison and jail shouldn't be used interchangeably.

Prison and jail are technically not the same thing. 20 CRACKED.COM In the U.S., jail is run by county sheriff's of- fices, while prison is run by the Prisons and Corrections office of each state.

HG

A packing company sponsorship of just $500 named Green Bay’s football team.

The Green Bay Packers got their name from a packing company sponsorship. 11 a NFLI L CRACKED.COM Thanks to just $500 in sponsorship from the Indi- an Packing Company in 1919, the Packers came to be. The future NFL team's co-founder, Earl Lambeau, worked for the packing company at the time.

Diario AS

“Sox” was the preferred spelling of “socks” for a time.

MLB teams Red Sox and White Sox use the sox spelling because of a brief movement to simplify the spelling of socks. SOX CRACKED.COM Socks became SOX for a time, even in such publi- cations as the Chicago Tri- bune. Many teams were named after uniform col- ors, which gave us the Red and White Sox.

Slate

Oprah Winfrey really isn’t Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey's real name is Orpah. CRACKED.COM Orpah is a woman mentioned in the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible. Winfrey changed it simply be- cause most people mispronounced it as

BBC

Athens used to punish adulterers by shoving root vegetables up their behinds.

One punishment for adultery in 4th century BC Athens was shoving a radish up the offender's butt. GRACKED.COM Called rhaphanidosis, it is also allegedly a punishment for other sex-related crimes, such as promiscuity and homosexuality.

Art and Popular Culture

An artist in Japan served his own genitals to dinner guests.

An artist in Japan served his own genitals to dinner guests. GRACKED.COM Mao Sugiyama had his tes- ticles and penis removed when he was 22 and served them to dinner guests at $250 per plate (a total of 6 plates). Не was charged with indecent exposure.

Huffington Post

The back row is the safest to be in a plane crash.

You are about 40% more likely to survive a commercial plane crash if you sit in the back row. GRAGKED.COM According to a study done by Popular Mechan- ics covering every acci- dent aboard commercial planes from 1971 to 2007, the back row is 40% safer compared to the front.

Velvet Escpae

There are more slaves in the world now than in America before the Civil War.

There are more, not less, slaves in the world today. CRACKED.COM There are more slaves in the world today (around 27 million) than were in America just before the Civil War, and possibly more than any other time in known human history.

Washington Post

Temperature determines the sex of an alligator embryo.

The sex of an alligator is based on temperature of the egg. CRACKED COM In the extreme, tem- peratures over 93 de- grees F during incuba- tion will produce only males, and below 86 degrees F only females.

Chicago Tribune

Strom Thurmond completed the longest and most racist filibuster.

The record for the longest filibuster is 24 hours. CRACKED.COM Senator Strom Thurmond spoke for an amazing 24 hours, 18 minutes straight in 1957 in opposition of the Civil Rights Act. Не read the Bill of Rights and other doc- uments, even his grand- mother's biscuit recipe.

NPR

Brett Favre threw his first completed pass to himself.

Brett Favre's first completed pass ever thrown was caught by himself. CRACKED.COM In his first official play in the NFL during the second game of the 1992 season, Favre threw the ball only to have a defender deflect it back. Favre caught the ball and was tackled for a loss of 7 yards.

CBS Sports

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