Some facts are perfect for a quick break because they are easy to dip into and hard to forget. This mixtape jumps between history, science, mythology, war stories, pop culture, and human oddities, delivering the kind of details that can make even a short coffee break more interesting.
History of early brain surgery
1. Although neurosurgery is regarded as a highly specialized modern medical field, the Incas practiced trepanation as far back as the late Stone Age. Trepanation involves drilling a small hole in the skull to treat intracranial disorders or to release pressured blood from an injury. In Arabia between 936 and 1013 AD, Al-Zahrawi carried out surgical treatment for head wounds, skull fractures, spinal injuries, hydrocephalus, subdural effusions, and headache.
2. Viking men, who were typically brunettes, bleached their hair using harsh soap with a high lye content. In some areas they also lightened their beards.
3. Ergot is a fungus that infects rye and other cereal grains, forming ergot bodies that produce ergotamine, a compound with effects similar to LSD. It can cause convulsions, hallucinations, gangrene, paranoia, and madness. Ergot poisoning has been suspected in events such as the Salem witch trials and outbreaks known as ‘dancing manias.’ In 1951, a mass poisoning in Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, sickened more than 250 people and killed seven, and was ultimately traced to contaminated rye flour.
4. In World War II, Lieutenant George Albert Cairns, a member of a British ‘Special Force’, was tasked with building landing strips in a Burmese jungle. When construction began they came under heavy enemy fire and were ordered to kill the attackers. Much of the combat was hand-to-hand, with British troops using bayonets and Japanese using katanas. A Japanese soldier severed Cairns’ left arm, but Cairns killed that soldier, seized the man’s katana with his right arm, and charged the enemy swinging the sword. He killed and wounded several Japanese before collapsing and dying from blood loss.
5. American songwriter Frank Loesser wrote ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ to sing with his wife at parties. She was furious when he sold the song because it had been ‘their song.’
6. A diver found a 20-ton lump of unalloyed copper in Lake Superior in 1991. Approximately four years of paperwork preceded its recovery in 2001.
7. In the early 1800s, the East India Company amputated the hands of hundreds in Bengal to dismantle the native weaving industry and promote British textile imports.
8. The star honoring Muhammad Ali on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is the only one attached to a wall rather than set into the pavement, because Ali said he did not want the name Muhammad to be stepped on.
9. In 6 BC, the Greeks excavated the Tunnel of Eupalinos, a passage more than 1,000 meters long through a mountain, by tunneling from both ends until they connected in the middle. Ingenious surveying and geometric techniques were used to ensure the two tunnels met.
10. The term Idaho has no real meaning. The lobbyist who proposed it falsely claimed it was a Shoshone word meaning ‘gem of the mountains,’ and Congress did not check the assertion.
Apollo 11 engine switch incident
11. As Armstrong and Aldrin climbed out of the lunar module to step onto the Moon, one of the astronauts broke off a toggle switch that armed the ascent engines. Aldrin jammed a pen into the hole left by the broken switch to arm the engines so they could get home.
12. After seeing The Silence of the Lambs, Martha Stewart broke off her relationship with Sir Anthony Hopkins because she could not stop linking him in her mind to the character Hannibal Lecter.
13. Ancient Sumerians held that their water god Enki created the Tigris and Euphrates by masturbating and ejaculating into the riverbeds.
14. Two families fled East Germany at the height of the Cold War by designing and building a hot air balloon without the German Stasi secret police discovering it, then flying it over 20 miles across the border in the middle of the night.
15. Greek sponge divers discovered the Antikythera shipwreck from the 1st Century B.C.E. It produced artifacts including artwork, jewelry, a statue of Herakles, and coins, and most importantly the Antikythera Mechanism, which consisted of interlocking gears that computed the movements of the sun and the moon and predicted eclipse dates.
16. Because the Beatles’ song made “Penny Lane” famous, signs with that street name in Liverpool were frequently stolen, so local officials stopped repeatedly replacing them and began painting the street name onto building exteriors.
17. Solitary bees are called “super pollinators” and have a 95% pollination rate, compared with honey bees’ 5% rate.
18. In World War I, many women in the UK who worked in TNT manufacturing developed yellow-colored skin and were nicknamed “Canary Girls” because of that discoloration and because canaries were used in the mines to warn of toxic substances.
19. In many large Indian cities, particularly Mumbai, professional ear cleaners are commonly found on the streets; they charge 20 rupees, about 30 cents, for a standard cleaning of both ears using cotton soaked in hydrogen peroxide and a pair of tweezers.
20. On cruise ships, a crew announcement of “Operation Bright Star” signals a severe medical emergency requiring immediate attention, while “Operation Rising Star” indicates that a passenger has passed away.
Isolation On Kubrick Film Set
21. During filming of The Shining, Stanley Kubrick deliberately isolated Shelley Duvall and often argued with her. He forced her to do the exhausting baseball bat scene 127 times. Afterward she handed Kubrick clumps of hair she had lost because of the extreme stress of shooting.
22. When Julie Andrews received a damehood in 2000, Queen Elizabeth told her she ‘had been waiting for this for a very long time.’ One of Andrews’ earliest performances occurred at age 13, when she sang ‘God Save the King’ before the young Princess Elizabeth.
23. When American composer Sun Ra performed at a psychiatric hospital, it caused a patient who had been silent for years to speak again. She stood up during the set, went to stand beside him at the piano, and a few minutes later leaned over and nearly screamed, ‘Do you call that music?!’
24. Carrie Fisher did not wear underwear while shooting Star Wars after George Lucas convinced her, ‘there is no underwear in outer space.’
25. Rita Hayworth first showed signs of Alzheimer’s in her 40s. As the condition progressed, people attributed her behavior to heavy drinking. She did not receive a formal diagnosis until 1979, and when she died in 1987 at 68, she had become a prominent public face for Alzheimer’s awareness.
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