# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785 "2024-07-25T15:06:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 162
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3221 "2025-09-21T07:07:57Z")
Puerile of me, I know, but the winner of the newly Putin-revived Intervision Song Contest (which in Cold War days was the USSR’s counter to the Eurovision contest) was the Vietnamese entry, sung by Duc Phuc. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3222 "2025-09-21T16:37:34Z")
In watching “Wednesday,” I discovered that the nickname Gus is short for Augustus. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3223 "2025-09-21T16:40:00Z")
Or Angus. j ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3224 "2025-09-21T16:45:13Z")
Gustav, Augustine ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3225 "2025-09-21T16:58:15Z")
Today I learned that perhaps the first football game to be dubbed the ‘Game of the Century’ was the November 30, 1935, matchup between Texas Christian University (TCU) and Southern Methodist University (SMU), which was played in Fort Worth. Both teams were 10-0 and were contenders for the national championship. Quarterback Sammy Baugh led TCU to a tying touchdown early in the fourth quarter, but SMU, using a fake punt, later scored the winning TD for a 20-14 victory. In the postseason, SMU lost in the Rose Bowl to Stanford, while TCU defeated LSU in the Sugar Bowl. Both teams finished with 12-1 records. The game was the first football game in Texas to be broadcast to a nationwide radio audience. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3226 "2025-09-21T19:15:10Z")
Worst pick up line ever: “My name is Gus…short for Humongous.” ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2025, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3227 "2025-09-22T01:36:44Z")
Or [Asparagus](https://catsmusical.fandom.com/wiki/Gus) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2025, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3228 "2025-09-22T04:43:54Z")
A well-known cliche in the murder mystery genre is “the butler did it”. The earliest known example which can be found where the butler was the character who committed the central murder of the story was _The Door_, written by Mary Robert Rinehart in 1930. However, S.S. Van Dine’s (Willard Huntington Wright) published an essay “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” in 1928. And one of the rules he wrote was to avoid having the butler commit the murder because he said this an overused cliche. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2025, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3229 "2025-09-22T05:28:21Z")
The rule was actually _”A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit.”_ By the time _The Door_ was published there had already been numerous stories of murderous secretaries, maids, cooks, valets, footmen, and stable boys…and even a butler in 1921’s _The Strange Case of Mr Challoner_ by Herbert Jenkins. But that was an obscure story by a writer no one ever heard of. _The Door_ was the opposite of that. > **[The Butler Did It](https://oddathenaeum.com/the-butler-did-it/)** ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2025, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3230 "2025-09-22T10:52:54Z")
Today I learned Kawagarbo, a mountain in China, has never been summited. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2025, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3231 "2025-09-22T11:00:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > A well-known cliche in the murder mystery genre is “the butler did it”. > > The earliest known example which can be found where the butler was the character who committed the central murder of the story was _The Door_, written by Mary Robert Rinehart in 1930. We’ve had a thread on “The Butler Did It” quite a while back. As I pointed out, in Anthony Shaffer’s (he wrote _Sleuth_, among a great many other things) play **Whodunit** , as the last line in the play points out, “The butler actually did it.” ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2025, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3232 "2025-09-23T16:23:23Z")
“Talk Like a Pirate Day” was invented in September 2002 by John Baur and Mark Summers. The date selected, September 19, was Summers’ ex-wife’s birthday. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2025, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3233 "2025-09-23T18:56:37Z")
Apparently, you (almost) can never break raw spaghetti into [2 pieces](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fNtzwdFR1EY). And, there’s a reason why tv cartoon characters only have 4 [fingers](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/x5YWQSMdpvI), and why they have 5 in Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2025, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3234 "2025-09-23T19:24:19Z")
The William Tell Overture is forever famous as the opening theme to the Lone Ranger radio and tv shows. Its fourth movement was probably picked because it is an example of a galop, a dance characterized by fast moves and pounding feet named after a horse’s gallop. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3235 "2025-09-23T19:34:31Z")
Difficult but not impossible: > **[MIT mathematicians solve age-old spaghetti mystery](https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-mathematicians-solve-age-old-spaghetti-mystery-0813)** > > Researchers have long have puzzled over why it’s so hard to break a piece of dry spaghetti into only two pieces. A new MIT study follows up on the musings of physicist Richard Feynman, showing how and why it can be done. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3236 "2025-09-25T19:05:07Z")
Franklin Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio at the age of 39 in 1921. Much more common in children, after a year of treatments (and being close to death), he slowly returned to “normal” although mostly paralyzed below the waist. There was rarely any evidence of a wheelchair or crutches when he appeared in public. 11 years after being diagnosed, he was President of the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3237 "2025-09-25T20:46:13Z")
Diagnosed but that may not be what he had. Many people think it may have been Guillain-Barré syndrome. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3238 "2025-09-29T20:04:02Z")
While there seems to be no evidence that it inspired the name of the social platform, “TikTok” was a clockwork mechanical man character in the Oz novels, introduced in 1907. He was likely the first robot in fiction, though the actual word “robot” would not be coined for a couple of decades or so. > **[Tik-Tok (Oz)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tik-Tok_(Oz)?wprov=sfla1)** > > Tik-Tok is a fictional "mechanical man" from the Oz books by American author L. Frank Baum. He has been termed "the prototype robot", and is widely considered to be one of the first robots to appear in modern literature, though the term "Robot" was not used until the 1920s, in the play R.U.R. > Tik-Tok (sometimes spelled Tiktok) is a round-bodied mechanical man made of copper, who runs on clockwork springs which periodically need to be wound, like a wind-up toy or a mechanical clock. He has separa... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3239 "2025-09-29T22:37:46Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > He was likely the first robot in fiction Didn’t some of the Greek myths feature Haephestus making mechanical workshop-assistants? And the Mechanical Turk was a fictional robot (and real-life remote manipulator) from the 1700s. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2025, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3240 "2025-09-29T22:43:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Didn’t some of the Greek myths feature Haephestus making mechanical workshop-assistants? And the Mechanical Turk was a fictional robot (and real-life remote manipulator) from the 1700s. OK then, the first robot in modern fiction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=161) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=163)