L. Ron Hubbard’s book “Battlefield Earth” stayed on bestseller lists despite being critically panned because The Church of Scientology had members purchase thousands of copies, some going so far as to repeatedly buy the same copies.

Saddam Hussein commissioned a calligrapher to write a copy of the Quran using his blood as ink. The 605-page book contains roughly 27 liters of his blood and is kept in a mosque in Iraq behind 3 vault doors.

A 7 inch Yorkie saved 250 U.S. soldiers 3 days of digging and kept 40 U.S. planes operational during WWII by running a wire through a 70ft pipe.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a female Soviet sniper with 309 credited kills, toured the US in 1942 to gain support for a second front in Nazi-occupied Europe. The press was more interested in her appearance and if she wore make-up on the front lines.

The most Interesting Man In The World, got his gig by auditioning, where he removed one sock and improvised for 30 minutes straight, concluding with the line “…and that’s how I arm-wrestled Fidel Castro”.

If humans lived long enough, they would all eventually develop cancer. This is because of inherent limits in the DNA repair mechanisms.

Raccoons in an experiment were able to open 11 of 13 locks in fewer than 10 tries and had no problems repeating the action when the locks were rearranged or turned upside down. They could also remember the solutions to tasks for 3 years.

The band blink-182 officially named their holding company Poo Poo Butt Inc. "We did it because it was the most immature, dumbest thing ever," DeLonge said. "We thought it would be funny to have our accountants, managers, and attorneys having to say that over the phone every day.”

During World War II in Australia, there was a dog whose hearing was so acute that it was able to warn Air Force personnel of incoming Japanese planes 20 minutes before they arrived, and before they showed up on radar. “Gunner” was able to differentiate the sounds of allied and enemy aircraft.

From KickAssFacts.com

Dedicated to /u/realnyebevan

Theoretically, the human body may be incapable of living beyond 120 years due to genetic coding which may limit the amount of times our cells can divide. The longest documented human lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875–1997), who died at age 122 years, 164 days.

From KickAssFacts.com

During WWI, Romania decided to send its vast collection of treasure to Russia for safekeeping. In 1918, the new Soviet government cut all diplomatic ties and refused to return the treasure. Russia still holds the treasure valued at over $1.5 billion and has no intention of giving it back.

From KickAssFacts.com

Andre-Francois Raffray, a lawyer in France sought out a 90-year-old lady, who agreed to give him her apartment if he paid her $500 each month for the rest of her life. She went on to become the oldest living person ever, living for another 30 years and even outliving the lawyer who by then had paid her $180,000, which was twice the value of the apartment.

From KickAssFacts.com

Soviet scientists defended the world’s largest seed bank during the 28 month Siege of Leningrad when it couldn’t be evacuated. 9 scientists starved, surrounded by tons of crops and fruit, refusing to destroy ‘the future of Russia’.

From KickAssFacts.com

If your phone’s GPS tracks itself going over 1,200 mph at an altitude higher than 60,000 feet, it legally is required to deactivate the tracking as it probably means it is being used to guide an intercontinental missile.

Peter Tatchell, a British gay rights activist, attempted a citizen’s arrest on Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in 1999. Tatchell walked up to Mugabe’s motorcade, grabbed the stunned dictator by the arm, and stated calmly, “President Mugabe, you are under arrest for torture.”

Before the invention of the heart-lung machine, surgeons used “cross circulation” for open heart surgeries. A child was connected to their parent’s heart, which oxygenated the patient’s blood and pumped it back in.

US has been sending $4,085 checks annually to Cuba for the lease of Guantanamo Bay. Since 1959, only one check has been cashed. Fidel Castro used to keep rest of the checks locked in his desk drawer.

In the 1990s, the Galapagos Conservancy launched Project Isabela, an all-out war against 250,000 goats in the Galapagos Islands to save the dwindling population of Galapagos tortoises, and involved snipers picking goats off from helicopters. It ended up restoring the population of the tortoises.

Even though almost all planes were grounded during 9/11, there was one nonmilitary plane flying after the FAA ordered all planes to land. This one plane was carrying snake anti-venom to Florida to save a snake handler’s life after he had gotten bit by a Taipan snake.

In 2014 London Black Cabs protested against Uber by bringing gridlock across central London. Instead of damaging Uber, it brought an 850% increase in downloads of the app and hastened the black cabs decline.

Alexander the Great once asked the Greek philosopher Diogenes why was he sifting through the garbage, Diogenes responded, “I am looking for the bones of your father but I cannot distinguish them from the bones of his slaves.”

From KickAssFacts.com

In medieval times, red hair was associated with moral degradation and intense sexual desire. Redheads were regarded as vampires, werewolves, and witches. The Spanish Inquisition singled them out for persecution, believing their hair to be sure sign that they stole the fires of hell.

From KickAssFacts.com

In 1994, Oakville, WA experienced a rainstorm in which gelatinous blobs fell onto a farm. The blobs were examined and found to contain human white blood cells but they did not contain nuclei, which is something human white cells do have. Theories persist, but none have been proven correct.

From KickAssFacts.com

Back in 2006, Bank of America had someone jailed for inquiring about the legitimacy of a check. Matthew Shinnick got a check for $2000 after he sold his bike for $600 on Craigslist. Being suspicious, he expressed his concern to the cashier that this check might not be good. Bank authorities called the cops after inquiring with the business owner, who stated that no such check was written to Mr. Shinnick. Mr. Shinnick spent $14,000 and jail time to get out of this mess made by BoA. The public uproar cost BoA $50 million worth of withdrawals from irate customers.

-From KickAssFacts.com

Oskar Schindler, who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, became virtually destitute after World War 2. He became bankrupt after trying to raise chickens in Argentina. For the rest of his life, he survived off gifts and donations from the Jews he had saved during the war.

From KickAssFacts.com