100 Mind-Blowing Struck Facts

While watching a Merry-Go-Round from a bench in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, Walt Disney was struck with inspiration for the creation of Disneyland.

Jim Caviezel was struck by lightning while playing Jesus in The Passion Of The Christ. While filming the Sermon on the Mount, Caviezel and another film crew were suddenly struck by lightning. Luckily, it wasn’t fatal.

Armadillos have bulletproof shells. One Texas man was even hospitalized after shooting an armadillo – the bullet ricocheted off the animal and struck him in the jaw.

A 17-year-old once struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. At 17 years old, Jackie Mitchell pitched against the Yankees during an exhibition game and struck out baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. One of the more inspiring but still WTF facts.

Giraffes are more prone to be struck by lightning than humans. Each year, there are about 0.003 lightning deaths per thousand giraffes. This means that it is 30 times the rate at which lightning strikes humans.

In 1919, Cleveland Indians pitcher Ray Caldwell was struck by lightning in the middle of the 9th inning. He kept playing!

Men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than women.

Two significant car crashes. On 13 December 1931, Winston Churchill was struck by a car while crossing Fifth Ave in New York City. He had looked the wrong way before crossing the street and was dragged for several yards, sustaining bruises, sprains and cuts. In the same year, a 19-year-old British aristocrat named John Scott-Ellis was driving a red Fiat in Munich and almost hit the future Führer, Adolf Hitler. Scott-Ellis jumped out of his car and apologised, and Hitler only suffered minor bruises. They shook hands, and Scott-Ellis later remarked, ‘For a few seconds, perhaps, I held the history of Europe in my rather clumsy hands. . . [Hitler] was only shaken up, but had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.’

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