Although there were rumors about her relationships to John Brown and to Abdul Karim during her later life.
In 2005, in Hamburg Germany, there was a rash of exploding toads.
Research found that some local crows were removing the toads’ livers, and the toads were swelling up to make themselves look bigger
POP
TIL that there was a Ptolemaic deity named Harpocrates, the god of silence, secrets and confidentiality. Which immediately makes me wonder if that was the true origin of the stage name Harpo Marx.
He was a musician who played the harp.
I could tell you about the Harpocratic oath, but then I’d have to kill you.
me, too … but I’d rather keep it to myself
The UK has more than 6 times the number of giant sequoias than California:
Psst… look up post 9184. Which looks almost like an Orwell book title
Bah! 
This is more an interesting random fact that I made up myself this morning.
True fact Ulysses S. Grant was a “Never Nude” as in he never let anyone see him naked.
So I was wondering, how would he dress in the morning if he never got nude?
A dressing gown, of course.
And how would he bathe?
A bathing suit, naturally.
Is this actually the origin of the names of these garments? I doubt it, but if if were true, that would be an interesting random fact.
Didn’t we have a made-up facts thread at one point?
Once there was Crates of Thebes, a great philosopher who studied under Diogenes the Cynic, who belonged to a strange society that mused upon truths, called the Straight Dope.
Plutarch wrote upon Crates, “But Crates with only his wallet and tattered cloak laughed out his life jocosely, as if he had been always at a festival.”
And he bequeathed his laughter to a bevy of sons, named Chicocrates, Harpocrates, Grouchocrates, Gummocrates, Zeppocrates, and Hippocrates. The second son inherited his tattered cloak and the third his wallet.
Harpocrates was known as the nicest man in the woods of hollies, perhaps because he never spoke. Until he was elderly and death faced him, and he dictated to a scribe a lengthy scroll about his adventures. One of these took him to the land of the rushes, where he served as a spy for the king, and concealed documents upon his person, and swore a mighty oath never to reveal their contents to any living soul.
And that is all we know about the Harpocratic oath. But his brother Hippocrates never shut his damn mouth.
Remember 900 numbers? Most of them were sex talk, but there were exceptions, and weird ones at that
But what about Socrates?
Around Christmas time, there were always numbers advertised to children where you could talk to Santa. One of them allegedly got into trouble for one of their ads, where they told children to hold the phone up to the TV, and then it played the tones of the number to “magically” dial Santa.
Yes, probably more than one. Searching for “Leon Shingledown” leads you to a good one:
He, sadly, was Manfred.
{Google it.}
here you go … Made Up Facts Thread
Oh sure, given your username, you would say that.
Harvard has a book bound in human skin. Well, it used to be bound in human skin, but it’s still interesting!