# 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:** 260
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2026, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5181 "2026-07-31T14:48:52Z")
They did this to a disused taconite mine an hour from where I live in Wisconsin. For several decades, it’s been Lake Wazee - several nice beaches, and usually very clear water, and deep. The best snorkeling within a thousand miles (for real). ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2026, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5182 "2026-07-31T15:22:02Z")
> [@salinqmind1](#): > > I learned today Germany has flooded old mine pits and made them into recreational lakes. This is indeed very common in Germany, but it can hardly be an exclusively German thing. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and found the entry for [quarry lake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarry_lake). Apparently it’s sufficiently common to have a word for it. And why are these lakes common in Germany? Because Germany mines a lot of gravel for concrete - for instance, skyscrapers are usually built with steel beam skeletons in America but reinforced concrete in Europe. You dig out the gravel, the abandoned pit fills up with groundwater, voilà you have a lake. ---
**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:** [July 31, 2026, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5183 "2026-07-31T15:26:56Z")
That would be the ore that’s refined to make tacos, of course. ---
**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:** [July 31, 2026, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5184 "2026-07-31T15:27:02Z")
It’s a standard business model in my county for a mining company to leave enough room around the mine pit to allow for development of a residential subdivision after they’re done digging. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2026, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5185 "2026-07-31T16:59:53Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > And why are these lakes common in Germany? And in Eastern Germany and in the _Ruhrpott_ they are filling up the old open pit coal mines. The _Umweltbundesamt_ (German Federal Agency for the Environment) states in their webpage (in **[German](https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/braunkohlentagebauseen-in-deutschland)**) that over 500 new lakes are being formed, including some of the deepest in Germany. **[Here](https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2026/06/brandenburg-lausitz-seenland-fuenf-seen-verbund-reisen-seenkette.html)** is an article with pictures and TV footing showing five big new lakes in the Lausitz (Eastern Germany) that have recently been conected together and how they used to look. The pictures are fascinating, no need to understand German to see the scale of it all. The machines they used to extract the coal were enormous, the holes they dug ate whole villages. Same happened in the Ruhr, in the West. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2026, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5186 "2026-07-31T17:27:16Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > And in Eastern Germany and in the _Ruhrpott_ they are filling up the old open pit coal mines. The _Umweltbundesamt_ (German Federal Agency for the Environment) states in their webpage (in **[German](https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/publikationen/braunkohlentagebauseen-in-deutschland)**) that over 500 new lakes are being formed, including some of the deepest in Germany. > > **[Here](https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2026/06/brandenburg-lausitz-seenland-fuenf-seen-verbund-reisen-seenkette.html)** is an article with pictures and TV footing showing five big new lakes in the Lausitz (Eastern Germany) that have recently been conected together and how they used to look. The pictures are fascinating, no need to understand German to see the scale of it all. The machines they used to extract the coal were enormous, the holes they dug ate whole villages. Same happened in the Ruhr, in the West. This is all mostly true, but I have one nitpick. Most lakes from mining in North-Rhine-Wetsphalia are not in the Ruhr region, but rather in the Lower Rhine region, in the vicinity of Aachen and the Eiffel. The difference is that in the Ruhr region, they did deep (sometimes VERY deep) mining for black coal, which also leaves big holes, but very deep under the surface, so if a lake remains, it’s deep under the ground, with no connection to the surface. In the Lower Rhine regions, they mined (and still do) for brown coal, which can be won from the surface, and these big ass excavators you mentioned you only saw/see there (and in Eastern Germany), not in the Ruhr area. Most coal there was mined manually by men, first with picks and hammers, later with jackhammers. A hell of a toil. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2026, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5187 "2026-07-31T19:49:15Z")
Ha! Well, the hard-shell tacos, anyway. > **[Taconite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite)** > > Taconite (/ˈtækənaɪt/) is a variety of banded iron formation, an iron-bearing (over 15% iron) sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate. The name taconyte was coined in the 19th century by Horace Vaughn Winchell – son of Newton Horace Winchell, the Minnesota state geologist – during their pioneering investigations of the Precambrian Biwabik Iron Formation of northeastern Minnesota within the Mesabi Range. He believed the sedimentary rock sequen... ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2026, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5188 "2026-08-01T19:08:29Z")
In Butte Montana, there is a lake above town that is known as Berkeley Pit. AIUI, it was not created deliberately but filled of its own accord. And it kills birds. Migrating fowl sometimes stop at the lake because they have not been warned of the toxic materials it has been leaching from the old mine. Humans do not swim in it, nor do fish live in it. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2026, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5189 "2026-08-01T20:46:11Z")
It’s also home to a species of [protozoan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit#Protozoans) which, in adapting to the water conditions, began producing several products which have been investigated as possible cancer treatments. Doesn’t make the place any less ugly, though. And it swallowed Meaderville, where my mother began her silver dollar collection at a slot machine on her honeymoon. ---
**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:** [August 1, 2026, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5190 "2026-08-01T21:18:10Z")
One of the original Superfund sites! And from what I understand, tourism to see that toxic hole is one of Butte’s major industries today. Which says a lot about the town’s current economic condition. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2026, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5191 "2026-08-01T22:27:23Z")
There is another old pit mine in Bisbee Arizona that I could have sworn was full of water, but it looks like there is only a small pond at the bottom. We were there a decade ago, so maybe it was drained or evaporated since then. Bisbee is a fair bit less wet than Butte. The Bisbee mine was famous for its “lunchbox turquoise”: the miners would collect pieces of turquoise during their copper ore extraction activities and carry them home in their lunchboxes. Bisbee turquoise is among the best. ---
**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:** [August 2, 2026, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5192 "2026-08-02T01:07:36Z")
I just saw a heat map of how common four digit PINs are when they are self-selected. Among the very most common are ones that can form birthdates but also 1701. I had to look up why that is but I’m certain that many Dopers will know why instantly. It’s the hull number of the Star Trek Enterprise ---
**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:** [August 2, 2026, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5193 "2026-08-02T20:21:30Z")
> [@salinqmind1](#): > > Is this thread current? … I learned today Germany has flooded old mine pits and made them into recreational lakes. I don’t know any details, **or if fish and wildlife can live in them** , but I thought that was rather awesome. **My Bold** The north of Surrey (just south of London) is covered with old gravel pits and sand pits which have been repurposed as lakes. Numerous of them are now nature reserves, [Here’s a link](https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org/nature-reserves/nutfield-marshes-moors#:~:text=Spynes%20Mere%20is%20a%20wetland,means%20%27summer%20fattening%20pasture%27.) to a compex of these lakes which is now a nature reserve. j ---
**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:** [August 2, 2026, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5194 "2026-08-02T20:37:15Z")
…but what I really came to post was this. Today, visiting a local Saxon church, I stood by the grave of Robert Whitehead, the man who invented the self-propelling torpedo - an invention which made him very rich. But wait, there’s more. His son “Cavaliere (Knight) John Whitehead (1854–1902) married Countess Agathe Gobertina von Breunner (1856–1945), Austro-Hungarian nobility, and had issue [children]:” One of those children was Agathe Whitehead “the heiress of her grandfather’s fortune. She had seven children with her husband Georg von Trapp. Captain von Trapp remarried after her death and became famous as the patriarch of the von Trapp Family Singers who were portrayed in the semi-fictional stage play and movie _The Sound of Music._” I guess without Robert Whitehead, someone else would eventually have invented the self propelling torpedo; but we wouldn’t have had _The Sound of Music_. j Quotes taken from the wiki article: > **[Robert Whitehead (engineer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Whitehead_(engineer))** > > Robert Whitehead (3 January 1823 – 14 November 1905) was an English engineer who was most famous for developing the first effective self-propelled naval torpedo. He was born in Bolton, England, the son of James Whitehead, a cotton-bleacher, and his wife Ellen Whitehead née Swift. He trained as an engineer and draughtsman, and attended the Mechanics' Institute, Manchester. His first professional employment was at a shipyard in Toulon, France, for Philip Taylor & Sons, and then as a consultant e... ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5195 "2026-08-04T12:55:58Z")
A sign maker in Southern California once took it upon himself to correct a highway exit sign. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ANFaIeiJ40Q/hqdefault.jpg "LA's notoriously stealthy freeway sign artist still up to his old tricks | ABC7") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANFaIeiJ40Q) Caltrans eventually replaced his version with an official one. ---
**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:** [August 4, 2026, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5196 "2026-08-04T13:21:10Z")
The words “pen” and “pencil” are etymologically unrelated. “Pen” has its origins in a word meaning “feather.” “Penne” pasta has the same etymology, owing to the slanted shape resembling a quill pen. “Pencil,” which originally meant an artist’s paintbrush, has its origins in the Latin word for “tail.” Penicillin has the same etymology, as it was described as resembling a paintbrush. ---
**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:** [August 7, 2026, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5197 "2026-08-07T01:16:39Z")
In _Sunset Boulevard_ Gloria Swanson’s character is supposed to be a much older woman than her co-star’s character, played by William Holden. Swanson was only 19 years older, which isn’t really a huge amount. In addition, Swanson outlived Holden by about two years. ---
**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:** [August 7, 2026, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5198 "2026-08-07T13:47:00Z")
I suspect that others probably know this fact, but I just learned today that actors James Arness and Peter Graves are brothers. They were born James Aurnes and Peter Aurness in Minneapolis. James was born in 1923 and died in 2011; Peter was born in 1926 and passed away in 2010. ---
**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:** [August 7, 2026, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5199 "2026-08-07T14:17:17Z")
The names “Henry” and “America” are etymologically related. We could have been “The United States of Henry.” ---
**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:** [August 7, 2026, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/5200 "2026-08-07T14:21:35Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > James Aurnes and Peter Aurness James Aurness and Peter Aurness Dammit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=259) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=261)