Random Useless Facts Thread

On the Italian island of Sardinia, a special cheese known as “Casu Martzu” is prepared; it’s a wheel of pecorino cheese with fly larvae on it and is eaten, insects included. Reportedly, those who eat it with no caution suffer from the larvae inside their body, leading to death. Highly illegal and banned by the European Union, it gets sold on the black market for high prices.

The record for the World’s Smallest Park is held by ‘Mill Ends Park’ in Portland, Oregon. The “park” is literally just the tree in the foreground. It was created when the city made a hole in the road to put a lamp post in but never did, so someone just planted flowers there instead.
 

 
The nearby city of Salem also has a park consisting of a single tree, but their tree is a lot bigger.

Misirlou, which gained worldwide recognition thanks to Dick Dale’s 1962 rendition, originated as a folk song from the Eastern Mediterranean- though the exact country of origin is not known, many believe the song to be of Greek origin, due to the earliest recording originating from Greece, and Nick Roubanis, a Greek-American music instructor, releasing a jazz instrumental arrangement of the song in 1941, crediting himself as the composer. The Dick Dale version in particular originated as the result of a wager, when a fan bet Dale that he could not play a song using a single guitar string. Hey Natalie succeeded, but dramatically increased the tempo, creating the version of the song most are familiar with today.

India has now surpassed China as the country with the largest population in the world

McDonald’s once lost the original recipe to their special sauce in the 1980’s. A high ranking employee who’s been in the company for decades still had the recipe memorized and brought it back.