You learn something new every post.

[RipRoaringWaterfowl]

Not about bands
1. At one point there were three (3) Popes simultaneously.

Yup. The Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, 'twas called. King of France at the time forced the one pope at the time to do all his business from the papal retreat at Avignon, rather than the Holy See in Rome, which ended up splitting up the church based on who would be pope. Initially there was the one split, as a result of a vote in the College of Cardinals, where there were two popes, the one at Avignon, and the one in Rome, with the College voting in one at Rome to be the real pope, and the one at Avignon, the original, tried to hold on to power. At some point another pope was elected to make it three at a time, until finally the dispute was settled.

Or at least, that's what I remember from that high-level history class. Could be off on on or two things.

Oh! Yes, OT: My own fact: Fish live in water. Doesn't that just blow your friggin' mind!?!?

But seriously, today (March 17th) marks the anniversary of several things:

1950: The first synthesis of Californium, a radioactive, transuranium element not found in nature.

1988: As part of the Eritrean War of Independence, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front won a decisive victory the Battle of Afabet, managing to encircle the joint Soviet-Ethiopian force and crush it, delivering a massive and humiliating defeat to the forces of Mengistu Haile Mariam, the military leader of Ethiopia at the time.

And tomorrow (March 18th) is the anniversary of the end of the OPEC oil embargo of the US (1974).

 

[artanis_neravar]

Not about bands
1. At one point there were three (3) Popes simultaneously.

Yup. The Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, 'twas called. King of France at the time forced the one pope at the time to do all his business from the papal retreat at Avignon, rather than the Holy See in Rome, which ended up splitting up the church based on who would be pope. Initially there was the one split, as a result of a vote in the College of Cardinals, where there were two popes, the one at Avignon, and the one in Rome, with the College voting in one at Rome to be the real pope, and the one at Avignon, the original, tried to hold on to power. At some point another pope was elected to make it three at a time, until finally the dispute was settled.

Or at least, that's what I remember from that high-level history class. Could be off on on or two things.

Oh! Yes, OT: My own fact: Fish live in water. Doesn't that just blow your friggin' mind!?!?

But seriously, today (March 17th) marks the anniversary of several things:

1950: The first synthesis of Californium, a radioactive, transuranium element not found in nature.

1988: As part of the Eritrean War of Independence, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front won a decisive victory the Battle of Afabet, managing to encircle the joint Soviet-Ethiopian force and crush it, delivering a massive and humiliating defeat to the forces of Mengistu Haile Mariam, the military leader of Ethiopia at the time.

And tomorrow (March 18th) is the anniversary of the end of the OPEC oil embargo of the US (1974).

Yep, each of the two pope's cardinals got together (as in the two groups got together into one group) and voted their own Pope IIRC. Funny that people still see this institution as infallible

The word sentience is very commonly misused, it means something that can feel, rather than something that can think. So the assertion that there is other sentient life in the universe is completely true, there are many sentient animals on Earth. The word people usually mean is Sapience, or the ability to reason or think.

 

[requisitename]

ZOMG! D'awwwww. So cuuuuuute.

*ahem*

I'm better now. I just had to get that out of my system.

Let's see.. a fact.. a fact..

Zebra finches are noisier than some medium sized pet birds. Just two of them "chattering" can create roughly the same din as a cockatiel screaming!

Also, "cockatiel" isn't in Firefox's dictionary. Heh.

 

[twistedmic]

Your hair and fingernails don't actually keep growing after you die. It only seems like they keep growing because as your body dries out, your skin shrinks.

 

[triggrhappy94]

My random fact: That random fact threads are becoming the new "You're avatar..." threads.

 

[rubinigosa]

5: the only people you will see crossing the road when the man is red are Geijin sick of waiting and young members of the Yakuza trying to look badass

Actully thats not true.
Every time I go to the train station I see at least one person crossing the strets when it's red...Alright it's often during the 5 sec before it turns green but still.
Also if it's no car in sight for a while crossing the street is no problem or maybe that old man is a young member of the Yakuza...mhhm...maybe not.

 

[Vryyk]

The alien, from Alien, was going to be able to talk. It would be reveled at the end of the movie. An M-might-namalong, sort of twist.

That would have been awesome. The Alien breaks out into a musical number, the surviving humans link arms with it and they start singing Sinatra and dancing.

 

[Vryyk]

Did you know that in many places there is essentially no point to recycling glass? The recycling facility just grinds the glass up and spreads it out on top of the landfill.

Did you know that switching 10 lights from regular to flourescent bulbs saves 10 times more CO2 emissions than switching to a non-disposable water bottle for a year?

Yes, but switching to rabbit based fuel saves hundreds of trees!

http://abcnews.go.com/International/rabbits-burned-fuel-sweden/story?id=8824540#.T2Q8GuVCVRI

 

[Guffe]

Unicorns aren't actually real.
Sorry to break this down to you guys.

 

[NorthernStar]

The reason that the lights in the red light district are actually red is because blemishes and imperfections are harder to spot under a red light, i.e. you look prettier under a red light.
True story.

 

[Eddie the head]

Washington grows more potatoes than Idaho, and Idaho has more evergreens then Washington. Yep the only things to come out of Idaho is wood and racism. Also Idaho had the largest wooden bridge in the world at a time. Oh and the worse maintained bridge in the U.S is also in Idaho.(on a scale of 0-100 it was a 2 when the Japanese attacked Perl harbor) This is all local crap so I figured unless you live with in 100 miles of me you are not going to know this shit.

 

[Crenelate]

...
4. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle, if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

This isn't actually true (QI said so, also http://www.snopes.com/military/statue.asp)

It's normal to be lactose intolerant unless you're from northern European decent.

Irish people don't necessarily have Celtic heritage - no one used the term Celtic to refer to Ireland until a couple of hundred years ago (some linguistics guy noticed some superficial language similarities), then all the Irish people jumped on board because they wanted to distance themselves from the English. So yeah, it really annoys me when people say there's some great big bronze age 'Celtic' tradition in Ireland (archaeologists are pedantic).
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

 

[necromanzer52]

Yep the only things to come out of Idaho is wood and racism.

And champagne.

Spoiler

EDIT: oh and I also read somhwere that the thing of "agoraphobic shut in" is actually a real issue in japan (they have a word for it I cant remember) specifically because of the culture that doesnt really help somone like that.

I think you're thinking of the word "otaku", which in japan means someone with an unhealthy obsession with anime/manga etc, leading them to become an agoraphobic shut in, but in the west is used by people (like me) who simply have an interest in japanese pop culture.

 

[BabyRaptor]

Camel piss is apparently the same thickness as syrup.

Learned this will flipping around a "stupid shit parents do" blog earlier. Had no idea I'd actually have a use for it later.

 

[Vault101]

Yep the only things to come out of Idaho is wood and racism.

And champagne.

Spoiler

EDIT: oh and I also read somhwere that the thing of "agoraphobic shut in" is actually a real issue in japan (they have a word for it I cant remember) specifically because of the culture that doesnt really help somone like that.

I think you're thinking of the word "otaku", which in japan means someone with an unhealthy obsession with anime/manga etc, leading them to become an agoraphobic shut in, but in the west is used by people (like me) who simply have an interest in japanese pop culture.

actually its Hikikomori http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Hikikomori (tv tropes might not be the most "scienfiic" scource but it was an interesting read all the same)

I am familiar with "Otaku" which I think is generally a negative term

 

[Buizel91]

The voice of Mufasa in "The Lion King" also does the voice of Darth Vader. Only learned this a few weeks ago. I will never be able to watch The Lion King the same way ever again...

There will be a Stretch Armstrong film in 2013...no joke.

if anyone is wondering who he is...well, face it, we all had one.

EDIT: Played by Taylor Laughtner apparently

Oh dear...

 

[Scarim Coral]

I'll leave one of the Mameshida videos on here
They are cute and informative videos.

 

[SckizoBoy]

I read this book about Japan for geijin (none japanese people) so I know a lot of stuff about Japan.

Quoted a handful of times and no-one's picked up on the spelling mistake (even though it is transliterated so it hardly matters), but it's romanised as gaijin.

Moving on...

The voice of Mufasa in "The Lion King" also does the voice of Darth Vader. Only learned this a few weeks ago. I will never be able to watch The Lion King the same way ever again...

Really?! James Earl Jones... the (slightly more contemporary) vocal equivalent of George Sanders. Originally David Prowse wanted to do the voice as well, but seeing as he's from the West Country... ooooh, that wouldn't've gone down well...(!)

OT: Parts of the Great Wall of China will soon cease to exist... the extreme west of it is being eroded by sandstorms while other rural parts are torn apart for local building work. Only the central section north of Beijing is fully intact.

 

[rubinigosa]

I read this book about Japan for geijin (none japanese people) so I know a lot of stuff about Japan.

Quoted a handful of times and no-one's picked up on the spelling mistake (even though it is transliterated so it hardly matters), but it's romanised as gaijin.

The people that knows Japanese most often know this and the people that dose not know this often has no intrest in Japan,so it's just a simpel spelling misstake.Anyway to topic, I belive/think that it is Finnish that have an actully word for "grammar nazi"
Will Edit this when I find the site.

Edit: meh,found the word instead "Pilkunnussija"

 

[hewhocommunes]

Alright heres mine. The Canadian rock group currently known as Billy Talent originally started as a garage band calling themselves "Pezz" or "El Pez" But due to the fact that there was already another group under that name, as they grew in popularity they were forced to change their group name due to copywriting.

Their first album, released as the Pezz was named "Watoosh!"