Odd Random Thoughts

Odd Random Thoughts is dedicated to providing bizarre facts, unusual information and strange thoughts to ponder.

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Has Noah’s Ark Been Found? The Search on Mount Ararat https://t.co/xjEXGW3c2Q via @OddRandomThots

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A broken heart is a real diagnosis now. Grief can stun the heart into a shape that mimics a heart attack.

It is usually temporary.

Do you think grief does physical damage, or is that just a figure of speech?

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Full story: https://t.co/6vhUyHMhF8

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Most people assume Friday the 13th goes back to the Knights Templar, or to the Last Supper.

The earliest real trace is one line in a French play from 1834. The day only took off after a 1907 novel about a rigged Wall Street panic.

Do you avoid anything on that date, even slightly?

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Full story: https://t.co/jzhr9OHnPs

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On a beach south of Adelaide in December 1948, a well dressed man was found dead sitting against the seawall, legs stretched out, like he had stopped to watch the water. He had no identification, and a scrap of poetry was sewn into his trouser pocket.

Someone found what looked like a code, and for seventy years he was a spy.

The answer arrived, and it was quieter than any of the theories. What do you think finally named him?

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The Charles Haskell went down with every man aboard.

The story says another crew later watched her sail past with a crew on deck.

Would that convince you, or would you blame the weather?

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Full story: https://t.co/deiCBPoCYo

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Up on the Kola Peninsula, near the top of Russia, there is a small metal cap bolted over a hole in the ground. You could stand on it, take a photo, and never guess that a Soviet rig once reached further down than Mount Everest is tall.

Then the drilling stopped, and not for the reason you think.

Down there the rock did something nobody had predicted. What do you think they hit?

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In 1835 a New York paper convinced readers the moon had winged people and biped beavers.

Circulation soared. It never printed a retraction.

If that ran tomorrow, would you believe it?

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Full story: https://t.co/yndXWL5WHK

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You have heard this one. In 1947 engineers on the Harvard Mark II found an actual moth inside the machine, taped it into the logbook, and wrote, first actual case of bug being found.

It is a great story and it is not the origin of anything. The word was already seventy years old, and the moth was a joke that got promoted into history.

Where do you suppose the word actually came from?

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Full story: https://t.co/6Vd59JXlPN

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In 1883 a volcano in the Indian Ocean made the loudest sound in recorded history. It was heard nearly three thousand miles away, where people on a beach assumed a ship was firing out at sea.

It circled the planet more than three times.

Here is the part that still bothers me. The closer you were, the less you heard. Why do you suppose that is?

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The grasshopper never got the protection the ladybug and the cricket carry.

It was honored, and also eaten, which is a strange double life for a lucky insect.

Would you still leave one alone?

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Full story: https://t.co/IyxzU938CR

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In February 1910, six people dressed up as an Abyssinian royal delegation, hired a train, and talked their way aboard the most powerful warship in the world. The Royal Navy flew the wrong flag, played the wrong anthem and saluted them.

One of the six was Virginia Woolf, in a false beard.

When the navy found out, what do you think it did, apologize, or go after them?

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The spiders turning up in your house this month are almost all males looking for a mate.

Fewer than five percent of indoor spiders have ever been outside.

Do you leave them, or sweep them out?

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Full story: https://t.co/WxGVBmpRA4

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On the morning of the 27th of August 1896 a British naval squadron opened fire on a palace on an island off East Africa. Thirty eight minutes later the shooting stopped and the war was over. It is still the shortest war in recorded history.

An entire conflict fought over who got to sit on a throne.

What do you think they were actually fighting for, in the thirty eight minutes they had?

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Bird droppings on your shoulder count as good luck in a surprising number of places.

In others it means money is coming.

Would you take it as a blessing, or go and change your shirt?