12 Trivia Tidbits for Monday, March 11, 2024

In 2010, a Massachusetts man showed up to court, claiming that his brother couldn’t be charged for stealing his girlfriend’s credit cards, because his brother... was dead. The judge accepted the death certificate this guy produced, but it was later pointed out that it was riddled with spelling errors, and also wasn’t certified. They eventually figured out that this guy printed out a fake death certificate and pretended to be his own brother in court.

A short film called Black Angel, created by Star Wars set director Roger Christian, ran ahead of screenings of The Empire Strikes Back in England, Scotland and Australia. It was well-received, but the film’s negatives were lost until 2011. It was released on YouTube in 2015, and at one point, there were talks for it to be made into a feature film.

The legendary duo had long ago split up acrimoniously, but when Martin’s son died tragically in a plane crash, Lewis showed up incognito to pay his respects. Martin only found out later, at which point he reached out to reconnect with Lewis for good.

In 2018, residents of Milton, West Virginia, reported a bunch of disoriented raccoons that appeared to be rabid. In reality, they had gotten into some fermented crab apples and got absolutely wasted. Two of them were apparently aggressive drunks, and had to be detained until they sobered up.

The Roman natural philosopher described the (likely legendary) Abarimon people, a race of humans who were stuck in the Himalayas because they were unable to breath anywhere else on Earth. They had backward feet, which allowed them to run incredibly fast. So, at least they had that going for them, which is nice.

In 1920, Ray Chapman was hit in the head with a spitball, immediately collapsed and died 12 hours later. There have been several similar deaths in the minor leagues, the Negro Leagues and college ball, but Chapman’s still the only pro. Players initially thought the ball hit his bat, and the pitcher fielded it and threw it to first base.

A 75-year-old Brit moved into a rental property, and immediately sold it for £90,000. The landlord finally caught on when he came by four months later and saw a for-sale sign on his own house. The tenant was, tragically, arrested and imprisoned.

When resources are scarce, or they’re threatened, squirrels are capable of vicious group attacks. A pack was observed mauling a large dog to death in a Russian park in 2005, during a “pinecone shortage.”

An off-duty cop who was in some kind of biker gang says he got peer-pressured into chasing down a car that had clipped one of his friends. He totally didn’t want to, but felt like he had to block the car as it tried to exit the highway. He hung back and smashed the car’s tail light while his buddies pulled the guy out of the car and beat the shit out of him. He still got sentenced to two years in prison because he just drove off after the beating.

Jupiter is so huge, it often redirects or completely intercepts asteroids that could otherwise be on a course to plow directly into Earth.

In 2017, the Chinese government cracked down on company names that were clever or unwieldy. A condom company called “There Is a Group of Young People With Dreams, Who Believe They Can Create Wonders of Life Under Uncle Niu’s Leadership Internet Technology,” for example, was forced to change its name.

After interning at a hospital, high school student Tony Hansberry came up with a way to pull off a vertical endo stitch, which proved way easier and quicker than the commonly used horizontal endo stitch, and has since been widely adopted.