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53 Facts That Are As Random As They Are Interesting
Talk about good acting — Toni Collette faked her appendicitis so well when she was a teen that doctors ended up removing her appendix. Snakes can help predict earthquakes. They can sense them up to five days before, from up to 75 miles away. In 2002, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the first TV show to ever use "google" as a verb. There was a case in the UK of a sexually transmitted allergic reaction. Basically, what happened was a woman who had an undiagnosed allergy to Brazil nuts had unprotected sex with her boyfriend after he had eaten them. She had an allergic reaction to his semen, which led doctors to do some testing on the woman's skin. Sure enough, his semen before eating nuts didn't cause any reaction, but after he ate Brazil nuts again, the semen caused another reaction. The immunologists involved believe it may be the first recorded case of a "sexually transmitted allergic reaction." Modern thong underwear was introduced by Fiorello La Guardia, the 99th mayor of New York City. Yes, the same La Guardia the airport is named after. Thongs as a concept were old hat by the time he got involved in 1939 — they were highly present in ancient Greece, Rome, and other cultures — but the mayor is recognized as the man responsible for bringing them into the mainstream. That year, he ordered all nude dancers in New York City to cover up during the World's Fair to make the city seem a little more classy. Thanks to his demand, G-string thongs were invented, and underwear as we know it has never been the same. There are only two escalators in the entire state of Wyoming. If you consider the up and down escalators separately, then technically it has four. In an attempt to make their menu more nutritious, McDonald's once created broccoli that tasted like bubblegum. Ancient Egyptians would use the paste from dead mice to cure toothaches. Martin Luther King Jr. earned a "C" in his public speaking class during his first two semesters of seminary school. If you're being violent or drunk in Japan the police will get a futon and roll you into a burrito. In fact, Japanese police officers are rarely known to use guns or violence at all. If you're drunk (or acting violent), they'll wrap you up in the futons and carry you over to the station to calm you down instead of potentially instigating more hostilities. David Bowie launched his own internet provider in 1998 called BowieNet. Miss Piggy's original name was Piggy Lee. Cruise ships have their own morgues. Miami is the only major US city founded by a woman. Say hello to Julia Tuttle, the mother of Miami. She bought hundreds of acres of land in southern Florida in 1886, and thanks to her negotiations with railway magnate Henry Flagler to extend his railroads south to her property, her city got put on the map in a big way. There are four buried lakes on Mars. Tropical songbirds reproduce less during droughts. There's a rare neurological condition called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, which causes people to feel larger or smaller than they actually are. Barcode readers only scan the white part and not the black. Shakira's school teacher told her she was bad at singing and banned her from choir. Her classmates stated she sounded like a goat. Humans are born with two innate fears: fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. The rest are learned. Harrison Ford got his ear pierced when he was 55 at a Claire's store. He got the piercing because he "just always wanted a pierced ear," and hopped into a Claire's Accessories because it was nearby. He gave Tavora Escossery, the then–18-year-old employee who did the piercing, a signed note that said, "To Tavora. You made a hole in me. Harrison Ford." Because gelatin is made from animal skin and bones, gummy worms technically have more bones in them than actual worms (which don't have any). Cookie Monster's real name is Sid. Canadians eat more mac 'n' cheese, specifically Kraft macaroni and cheese, than any other nation. On average, lightning strikes Earth 100 times each second. Some hummingbirds use colors we can't see to find food. The urban legend about the ghost of a boy appearing in Three Men and a Baby actually started after the film was released on home video. The story goes that in the background of one of the scenes, you can see the ghost of a 9-year-old boy who killed himself in the apartment where Three Men and a Baby was filmed. But the "ghost" is actually a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson's character (which can be seen earlier in the film). Also, the apartment was a set built on a are a few theories as to how this rumor started — like how it was the studio trying to drive up VHS rentals. It could just be that the low resolution of VHS tapes, and the fact that TVs were smaller in the '80s and '90s, just made it hard to determine what the figure was. Cap'n Crunch's full name is Horatio Magellan Crunch. Jack Nicholson grew up believing his mom, June, was his sister, and that his grandmother, Ethel May, was his mother. June was 18 years old when she gave birth to Jack. In order to avoid gossip of having a baby out of wedlock, Ethel May decided to raise Jack as her son, and pretended June was his much older sister. Jack didn't learn the truth until after both June and Ethel May died, according to InStyle. Ears of corn typically have an even number of rows — most have an average of 16. The first Disney Channel Original Movie was 1997's Northern Lights, starring Diane Keaton. Prior to 1997, Disney Channel TV movies were called Disney Channel Premiere Films, and those date back to 1983 when the channel launched. It's likely that more than 11 species of fish can walk on land. The Yoruba people of Nigeria are known for giving birth to more twins than anywhere else in the world — 50 per 1,000 births. According to Reuters, twins are also believed to be magical in Yoruba culture. It wasn't until the Great Depression that movie theaters began selling popcorn as a snack to eat during movies. Early on, movie theaters were trying to re-create a real "going to the theater" experience by building grand movie palaces with fancy carpets and curtains — of course, like a real theater, you couldn't eat snacks in them either. By the mid-'30s, theater owners realized selling inexpensive popcorn was a way to increase profits as attendance numbers went down. Paul Newman taught Jake Gyllenhaal how to drive. The first text message sent to a cellphone happened almost 33 years ago — in 1992 — and the message sent said "Merry Christmas." The text happened in the UK, where an engineer who worked for the telecommunications company, Vodafone, sent the message from his computer to the cellphone of an executive who worked at Vodafone. At the time, cellphones couldn't respond to texts, though. Jennifer Lawrence learned how to skin a squirrel for her role in Winter's Bone. Ladybugs defend themselves from predators by releasing a foul-smelling chemical from their knees. Long before New York received its iconic nickname "The Big Apple," it was known as New Orange. When the Dutch captured New York from the English in 1673, they renamed the state New Orange to honor William III of Orange. But that didn't last long, because the following year, the English regained control and renamed it New York, according to Dr. Seuss created Green Eggs and Ham because his publisher bet him he couldn't write a book shorter than The Cat in the Hat. He obviously won that bet, because The Cat in the Hat had 236 different words, while Green Eggs and Ham used just 50 words, according to Walt Disney actually hated the character Goofy, calling him a "stupid cartoon." All of Tom Cruise's ex-wives were 33 when they divorced the actor. That's right, Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes were all the same age when their marriages to Tom ended. There are even some conspiracy theories swirling around about it. Before deciding on the name Google, the popular search engine was called BackRub. "They called it this because the program analyzed the web's 'back links' to understand how important a website was, and what other sites it related to," according to Business Insider. The first college football game was played on Nov. 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton (formally known as the College of New Jersey). Rutgers won. Owls don't have eyeballs. Instead they have elongated tubes held by sclerotic rings. Owls can't move their eyes around, which is why they have to move their entire head to look in different areas. DUI offenders in Ohio are issued yellow license plates to help police officers identify them while on the road. Jon Hamm was Ellie Kemper's high school drama teacher. Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton used to be a Parisian pimp. In Singapore, anyone spitting out, importing, or selling chewing gum could face a fine or jail time. Although illegal and dangerous, it's possible to walk from Russia to Alaska via the Bering Strait when it freezes in the winter. Late One Direction member Liam Payne has a severe phobia of dirty spoons. Early in his career, Sylvester Stallone was so low on cash, he was forced to sell his dog, Butkus, for $40. When he landed Rocky, he bought the dog back for $15K and gave him a role in the movie. Lastly, vending machines kill more people per year than sharks.
New York Times
11-04-2025
- General
- New York Times
New York Helicopter Crash Recalls Another. And Another.
The helicopter has been a fixture in New York City for decades. In 1945, Fiorello La Guardia, the city's favorite son, became the first American mayor to ride in one. Four years later, the city opened its first commercial heliport, with gee-whiz fascination that likened the bladed aircraft to an 'infuriated palm tree.' But for many New Yorkers, the fanfare has long since faded. On Thursday, a family of five and their pilot died when their helicopter slammed into the Hudson River. Sean Duffy, the U.S. secretary of transportation, said on social media that his department has begun an investigation into the cause of the crash. At least 32 people have died in helicopter accidents in New York City since 1977, according to The Associated Press. Thursday's crash was the deadliest since at least 2018, when a sightseeing helicopter without doors fell into the East River, flipped over, and five people drowned. An invention once synonymous with military might, then with the wonder of the city skyline, the helicopter is now regarded by many as an urban nuisance, or an outright threat. For some, the latest deadly episode is a reminder — like the fatal rooftop crash in 2019, or the crash over the East River in 2011, or a midair collision in 2009 — that there are hundreds of the crafts in the air every week, and restrictions on the industry have been limited. From 2002 to 2013, there was a helicopter accident or fatality in the New York City metropolitan region about once every other year, said Andrew Rosenthal, the board president at Stop the Chop NY-NJ, a nonprofit group started in 2014 to end nonessential helicopter traffic. 'If we had a roller coaster that killed people every two years, on average,' he said, 'how many decades would it continue to operate?' The city controls two of the three heliports in Manhattan, while the third is run by a quasi-governmental trust in Hudson River Park. Around 70,000 commercial helicopter flights take off from the New York-New Jersey metro area a year, and more than half of those crafts are carrying tourists on short joy rides around New York City, Mr. Rosenthal said. The busiest site for tourists, the Downtown Skyport, formerly known as the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, hosts about 27,000 tourist flights a year, according to the city's Economic Development Corporation, the operator. The flight on Thursday departed from that heliport, ending with the deaths of Agustín Escobar, a Spanish executive for Siemens — one of the world's largest companies — his wife, their three children and the pilot. Non-tourist helicopter flights are primarily for trips that taxi wealthy clients to regional airports and the Hamptons. Based on air travel trackers, Mr. Rosenthal estimates that less than 5 percent of helicopter traffic is for essential services, like police work and medical emergencies. The volume of traffic became more apparent during the coronavirus pandemic, when New Yorkers' scorn for the aircrafts exploded. In 2019, before the pandemic normalized working from home, there were about 3,300 helicopter noise complaints reported to 311, the city's help line. Last year, there were nearly 29,000. (Complaints peaked at nearly 60,000 in 2023, in part because critics of the industry created a short-lived application to help residents file grievances.) Public pressure has led to some changes, but often only after a deadly accident. In 1977, a helicopter that was idling atop the Pan Am Building in Midtown Manhattan malfunctioned and sent a 20-foot helicopter blade tumbling 59 stories, killing five people. The rooftop landing pad was closed. More than a decade earlier, pilots had criticized the plan to open a helipad above Midtown. In 1997, weeks after a helicopter owned by the Colgate-Palmolive company crashed into the East River, killing an executive, a surge of complaints moved Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to reduce the number of heliports in the city from four to three. In 2016, at the urging of a number of groups fed up with helicopter noise, pollution and safety concerns, Mayor Bill de Blasio banned sightseeing helicopters from taking off on Sundays, and capped the annual number of tourist flights at the busiest heliport in the city to about 30,000, down from 60,000. But tourist helicopter operators in nearby Kearny and Linden in New Jersey aren't bound by those restrictions. The latest crash has already spurred calls to improve the city's air space, which is, for the most part, controlled by the federal government. New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents western Manhattan, said that he is seeking a ban on sightseeing helicopters in the city. 'Manhattanites aren't caged zoo creatures, and it's offensive that we're likened to a tourist site for the wealthy,' he said. Mr. Hoylman-Sigal signed legislation last year that would force a heliport in Hudson River Park to relocate, but it may continue to operate. Supporters of the industry note that commercial helicopters contribute to the city's tourism and tax revenue. A spokesman for the Economic Development Corporation said the city's heliports employ about 175 workers and generate a 'total economic impact' of $78 million a year. Critics say they're not worth the cost, or the carbon emissions. In response to calls for tighter regulation, the Eastern Region Helicopter Council, a trade group, said in a statement that 'some well-meaning but misguided leaders are using this tragedy to exploit and push their decades-old agenda to ban all helicopters,' and that an investigation is needed before taking legislative action. But there is more that city officials could do to reduce accidents and airspace congestion, critics of the copter industry said. The city has the authority to end its license agreement with commercial helicopter operators at its two heliports, said Gale Brewer, a City Council member who has pushed to limit helicopter traffic since the Bloomberg administration. Her district includes the Upper West Side, where helicopters drone throughout the day. A number of bills that would restrict tourist and 'commuter' helicopter rides have been introduced in the Council. Melissa Elstein, the board chair at Stop the Chop, lives on the Upper West Side and said the latest accident is a wake-up call. And so was the last one. And the one before that. 'If this doesn't stop this industry,' she said, 'honestly, I don't know what will.'
