Skull Gift Never Used
26. Actor Del Close died in 1999. In his will, he left his skull to a local theatre so he could continue playing Yorick, the dead court jester, in productions of Hamlet. However, nobody wanted to remove his head after he died, preventing one of his last wishes from being fulfilled.
27. In 1990, disabled activists left their wheelchairs and crawled up the Capitol steps, inconveniencing senators in order to push for a vote on the Americans with Disabilities Act.
28. In 1996, the small Utah town of Spanish Fork mistakenly booked Rage Against the Machine at a venue used for tractor and monster truck shows. Local residents panicked, and businesses boarded up because they thought the band’s fans would riot and damage everything.
29. In 1995, Christopher Reeve appeared in the film Above Suspicion, where he portrayed a quadriplegic character. The movie premiered 6 days before his horse riding accident.
30. In 1991, a man discovered the first print of the Declaration of Independence inside the frame of a $4 painting he had purchased at a flea market. It later sold at auction for $2.4 million.
31. In 1991, a French volcanologist named Maurice Krafft was filmed saying, “I am never afraid because I have seen so many eruptions in 23 years that even if I die tomorrow, I don’t care.” He was killed the next day during an eruption on Mount Unzen in Japan, together with his wife, Katia.
32. In 1994, Joycelyn Elders, the Surgeon General of the United States, was dismissed after saying masturbation is “part of human sexuality, and perhaps should be taught.”
33. On December 10, 1997, Julia “Butterfly” Hill climbed 180 feet, or 55 m, up the redwood tree Luna to stop Pacific Lumber Company loggers who were clear-cutting. Hill stayed on two platforms measuring 6 by 6 feet, or 1.8 by 1.8 m, for 738 days until an agreement was reached with the logging company.
34. In 1997, nearly five million pieces of ironically “ocean themed” Lego were washed into the sea when a massive wave struck a container ship. This led to collector groups forming, and the most prized rare piece is the black octopus.
35. The 1990s PBS game show “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” was made in reply to a National Geographic survey that found 1 in 4 Americans could not find the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.
Wizard Hat Court Rule
36. In 1995, New Mexico state senator Duncan Scott put forward an amendment requiring psychologists to wear a wizard’s hat when they testified in court.
37. In 1995, St. Jude’s Hospital got an anonymous letter containing a $1 million winning McDonald’s Monopoly game piece. Even though rules forbade prize transfers, McDonald’s accepted it after discovering the piece had been sent by someone involved in an embezzlement scheme.
38. In 1997, in Japan, a flashing-light Pokemon scene caused mass seizures among children nationwide. When the nightly news covered the incident, it showed the offending scene again, which led to still more seizures.
39. In 1994, American actor David Hasselhoff attempted to revive his music career by putting on a Pay Per View performance. The show was, however, overshadowed by live coverage of OJ Simpson fleeing from police. Hasselhoff’s event lost $1.5 million.
40. In 1990, Donald Trump threatened to sue the stockbroker firm Janney Montgomery Scott after an analyst said negative things about the financial outlook for the Trump Taj Mahal. The analyst was fired and refused to retract the remark. The Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy later that same year.
41. In 1992, the dance pop duo The KLF were asked to perform at the BRIT Awards. Instead, they turned up with a grindcore metal band, shot machine gun blanks into the crowd, said they were quitting the music business, left a dead sheep at the afterparty, and erased their whole back catalog.
42. In 1998, a group of hackers, known only by their hacker aliases, including “Kingpin”, “Mudge”, and “Space Rogue”, gave testimony before a U.S. Senate committee. They explained that with just a few packets, they could make the internet unusable for the entire nation.
43. In 1994, a 75 pound bag of cocaine dropped from a plane and landed in the center of a Florida crime watch meeting.
44. In a 1999 poll of guitarists, Noel Gallagher was named the most overrated guitarist of the millennium, which was the award he enjoyed getting the most.
45. In 1994, when Married… With Children relocated its taping site from Fox’s Hollywood Studios to the Sony-Columbia location where the ABC series Full House had taped, the cast performed an exorcism before filming their first episode there in order to drive out the Full House spirits.
DOOM Triggers Campus Bans
46. Soon after its 1993 release, the video game DOOM was prohibited on many university networks because a wave of players swamped their systems with deathmatches.
47. In 1994, Tony Cicoria was struck by lightning while standing beside a public telephone, then brought back by a nurse who was waiting to use it. After he recovered, he said music filled his mind. He bought a piano and is now an accomplished composer and performer.
48. In 1990, Kerry Packer, Australia’s wealthiest man, bought defibrillators for every ambulance in New South Wales after a rescue team saved his life using one of the country’s few defibrillators.
49. In 1994, Alvin Straight, a 74-year-old man who could not obtain a driver’s license, traveled 240 miles on a 1966 John Deere lawnmower to see his brother, who had recently suffered a stroke. Moving at no more than 5 mph, the trip took him 6 weeks.
50. In 1995, convicted murderer Daniel Luther Heiss realized that the key shown in his prisoner information handbook was the master key to the entire prison. Another inmate, Shane Baker, who was a trained jeweler, copied it, and the two of them escaped.
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