Fun Facts That Are

Those giant wooden castle playgrounds from the 1980s and 90s were designed by kids. Architect Bob Leathers visited local schools, collected children's drawings, and turned them into blueprints. Then the town's own parents and volunteers built it by hand, usually in about five days. He did this in more than 2,000 communities.

Lin Wang was a young elephant in Burma. Japanese soldiers forced him to haul supplies and pull artillery through the jungle during World War II. Chinese troops captured him in 1943. He marched home along the Burma Road, then sailed to Taiwan in 1947. He spent nearly 49 years at Taipei Zoo as Taiwan's most beloved animal. Lin Wang died in 2003 at 86, the longest living elephant ever recorded in captivity.

The rodeo clown - baggy pants, greasepaint, the guy everyone laughs at - has one real job. When a bull throws its rider, he charges the bull and draws it off the cowboy on the ground. Rodeo has run this way since the 1920s. The PRCA does not even call them clowns anymore. They are bullfighters, and every year the pros vote one Bullfighter of the Year. The cowboy gets to walk away.

Grady was a 1,200-pound Oklahoma cow. In February 1949 she bolted for the only light in a dark shed and squeezed through a 17-inch-wide silo window. She was stuck for four days: the steel-rimmed opening wouldn't widen. 5,400 letters and 700 telegrams poured in from 45 states. A Denver newspaper flew in farm expert Ralph Partridge, who greased a ramp and freed her. She lived 12 more years as a celebrity.

In August 1923, a 2-year-old Scotch Collie named Bobbie was separated from his family during a road trip through Wolcott, Indiana - 2,551 miles from home. Six months later, on February 15, 1924, he turned up at his family's door in Silverton, Oregon: gaunt, paws bloody, claws worn to nothing. He had crossed the Continental Divide alone, in winter. He came home.

Togo was 12 years old in 1925. That's ancient for a sled dog. Diphtheria threatened to kill children across Nome, Alaska. Musher Leonhard Seppala and Togo ran the serum relay's longest, most dangerous leg. It covered over 260 miles, including a deadly crossing of the frozen Norton Sound. Balto ran the final 55 miles into town. He got the parade, the movie, and the Central Park statue. Togo got almost nothing.

Kate Shelley was a teenager when an 1881 storm collapsed a trestle near her Iowa home. A passenger train with 200 people aboard was still coming. She crawled across a flooded railroad bridge on her hands and knees, lantern blown out. She reached the depot in time to stop the train. Railroads gave her a lifetime pass and a Tiffany medal. Today, Union Pacific trains still cross the bridge that bears her name.

Tom DeLonge left Blink-182 in 2015 to chase his obsession with UFOs. The world mocked him for it. His group, To The Stars Academy, published three US Navy cockpit videos in 2017 and 2018. The Pentagon officially declassified those same three videos in April 2020. It confirmed real Navy footage of phenomena still marked unidentified. He was right years before the Pentagon admitted it.

Owen was a one-year-old hippo swept out to sea by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Villagers in Malindi, Kenya spent hours dragging him to shore with ropes and nets. At Haller Park he refused to leave the side of Mzee, a 130-year-old giant tortoise. The two ate, swam, and slept side by side for years.

Steve Buscemi was an FDNY firefighter with Engine 55 for four years before he became a movie star. When the World Trade Center fell on 9/11, he went back to his old firehouse. For five days he worked 12-hour shifts digging through the rubble. He declined every interview and photo request the whole time.

Dennis Anderson bagged grain for $3.65 an hour. He welded a monster truck from a wrecked 1950s Ford. Rivals mocked the junk heap, so he snapped back he'd dig them a grave with it. The name stuck. A booked truck no-showed a car-crush show, and his junker stunned the crowd instead. That truck became Grave Digger, the world's most famous monster truck. The weathered early Digger still sits in his family's truck museum.

Jelly Roll was locked up in Nashville's juvenile detention center as a teenager. He got through it with only a radio and headphones. Years later, he headlined a show at Bridgestone Arena. He used the proceeds to build a real recording studio inside that same facility. He called the launch Redemption Songs. Kids locked up there now write and record in the room that once held him.