# Amazing bullshit true facts that are in fact true.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [January 27, 2013, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514 "2013-01-27T03:44:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/21 "2013-01-28T19:53:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The first conscript in World War II was the son of the first conscript in World War I.
>
> Alden C. Flagg Jr., of Boston, held the first number drawn in the U.S. peacetime draft lottery of 1940.
>
> His father, Alden C. Flagg, had drawn the first number in the draft of 1917.
[From here.](http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/07/24/like-father-like-son-3/)
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/22 "2013-01-28T20:00:31Z")
My favorite is that only one U.S. president has an entire department (i.e., province) named after him in country outside of the U.S. He also has a city named after him. And he never set foot in the country involved.
It’s Rutherford B. Hayes in Paraguay.
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### Author:  [@Vicullum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vicullum)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/23 "2013-01-28T20:38:02Z")
Both Richard Pryor and Matthew McConaugheys’ fathers died during sex.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/24 "2013-01-28T20:41:29Z")
Everest was originally measured at exactly 29,000 feet, so they added two more for credibility.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/25 "2013-01-28T20:49:39Z")
Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth, once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln’s son
Robert.
The Imperial Japanese Navy was a contributor to JFK’s assassination.
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/26 "2013-01-28T21:18:19Z")
> [@Vicullum](#):
>
> Both Richard Pryor and Matthew McConaugheys’ fathers died during sex.
That must have been some session!
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### Author:  [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/27 "2013-01-28T21:29:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The Imperial Japanese Navy was a contributor to JFK’s assassination.
This one is going to need some more explanation, because it’s currently getting a :dubious:
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### Author:  [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/28 "2013-01-28T21:40:57Z")
The Monterey Bay Aquarium released a sea otter into the wild. Shortly thereafter, they observed this otter killing seal pups, then toting the corpse around with it, to occasionally mate with. Then they observed another wild otter doing the same thing. They grew concerned, thinking they had somehow corrputed the otter while in captivity and releasing this odd fetish into the wild where it was copied by other wild otters.
Nope, turns out water runoff nearby the bay had a bunch of flushed cat litter in it, which was making the otters insane. (This is common knowledge now and in fact the bacteria started killing otters, but not when the behavior was first observed in 2000).
You [cannot](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Murderous-Otters-Prey-on-Seal-Pups-Serial-2692072.php#page-1) make this [shit](http://cats.about.com/cs/parasiticdisease/a/seaotters.htm) up.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/29 "2013-01-28T21:50:22Z")
During the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland, a single [Finnish sniper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4) accounted for over 500 Russians in less than 100 days, when daylight was short, using a rifle with iron sights. He had half his jaw shot away but lived to the age of 96. At one point the Russians were trying (unsuccessfully) to rub him out with _artillery strikes_.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/30 "2013-01-28T21:59:23Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#):
>
> This one is going to need some more explanation, because it’s currently getting a :dubious:
_Bwa-ha-ha-hahhhh._
JFK, whose health was always frail, managed to get assigned to PT-boat duty in the Pacific. When PT-109 was shot out from under him, he badly injured his back and never really recovered from the injury. For the rest of his life, he wore a truly massive back brace, strapped on by yards of ace bandages, to help control the pain. (You can see in many filmed instances that he turns his whole body, not his head and shoulders.)
When Oswald’s second bullet went through his neck, it should have knocked him over, out of range for another shot. (That is, if he hadn’t ducked from the sound of the first shot.) But with his exoskeleton holding him up and the limousine traveling down a slight downslope, Oswald had no problem making the third and fatal shot.
So the Japanese finally got him… very indirectly.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/31 "2013-01-28T22:50:10Z")
Julia Child was too tall to be enlisted in the Women’s Air Corp (WACS) or the Navy WAVES, so she took a typing job at the OSS, Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA.
She later advanced due to her education and ability and was sent to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, where she met her husband Paul Cushing Child.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/32 "2013-01-28T23:37:56Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> Like, did you know that Ireland was a net-exporter of food during the Great Potato Famine?
Well, duh.
That’s why the peasants left in Ireland were starving – the food was being shipped to England.
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### Author:  [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/33 "2013-01-28T23:57:51Z")
> [@astro](#):
>
> Jimmy Stewart movie actor was a hardcore war hero with ice in his veins.
> [James Stewart - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stewart#Military_honors)
Ditto [Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Fairbanks,_Jr.)
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### Author:  [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/34 "2013-01-29T00:00:41Z")
> [@Vicullum](#):
>
> Both Richard Pryor and Matthew McConaugheys’ fathers died during sex.
Ditto Nelson Rockefeller.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2013, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/35 "2013-01-29T00:27:42Z")
> [@colonial](#):
>
> Ditto Nelson Rockefeller.
Not true! He was sitting up late examining his stamp collection. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2013, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/36 "2013-01-29T00:37:08Z")
> [@astro](#):
>
> Jimmy Stewart movie actor was a hardcore war hero with ice in his veins.
> [James Stewart - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stewart#Military_honors)
That was very well known at the time. He became a bigger star after the war but he was very famous already and an Oscar winner. And he stayed in the Air Force Reserve until the 1960s and retired as a Brigadier General.
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### Author:  [@rhysf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhysf)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2013, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/37 "2013-01-29T01:48:20Z")
Aphids give birth to baby aphids that are already pregnant with their grand-daughters.
During WW2, the US military funded the development of psychologist BF Skinner’s missile guidance system that used the pecks of trained pigeons within the missile’s nose cone to direct it.
Around 50% of people harbour an arachnid called _Demodex_ that lives in the hair follicles of your eyelashes and emerges at night to feed on dead skin cells.
Morphine was marketed by the German drug company Merck as a treatment for opium addiction, but turned out to be more addictive than opium. Heroin was marketed by the German drug company Bayer as a treatment for morphine addiction, but turned out to be more addictive than morphine.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/38 "2013-01-29T03:00:15Z")
A month before 9/11 the actor James Woods was riding first class on a cross country flight. He noticed several middle eastern men acting strangely during the flight, and reported their behavior to both the airport and legal authorities (although I don’t know what kind of legal authorities, FBI, etc), claiming they seemed like hijackers doing a practice run. A month later they were among the 19 hijackers of 9/11.
> **[James Woods Saw the 9/11 Terrorists?](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/out-of-the-woods-2/)**
>
> Did actor James Woods notice and report suspicious men on a flight before the September 11 attacks?
Also Seth Macfarlane (of family guy, american dad, cleveland show) had a seat on a plane that crashed on 9/11, he missed his flight.
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2013, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/39 "2013-01-29T03:59:26Z")
Abraham Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and was raised in a log cabin
John Kennedy once spilled Log Cabin Syrup in his dad’s Lincoln!
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2013, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazing-bullshit-true-facts-that-are-in-fact-true/648514/40 "2013-01-29T04:39:37Z")
Ho Chi Minh once worked at a hotel in Harlem.
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, victor at the Alamo, once lived in Staten Island.
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