Some facts stay in your head because they raise more questions than they answer. This mixtape is filled with surprising stories, curious twists, and fascinating details that will keep dedicated overthinkers wondering long after they finish reading.
Dolly Parton Turned Down Elvis Presley
1. In 1974, Elvis Presley expressed interest in covering Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” She was initially thrilled by the proposal, but when she learned she would have to sign over half of the royalties to Elvis, she refused.
2. The first recorded autopsy was performed in 44 B.C. on Julius Caesar to determine which of the 23 stab wounds he received had killed him. It was a chest wound that severed his aorta.
3. A pod of orcas hunted cooperatively with early Australian whalers under a “law of the tongue.” They corralled and located prey in return for the tongues and lips of captured whales, and the arrangement ended when one of the orcas was accidentally killed.
4. Ivan VI of Russia ascended the throne at the age of two months, but his cousin Elizabeth Petrovna overthrew him a year into his reign. He spent the next 20 years secretly imprisoned without the guards knowing his true identity, before being killed in an attempted rescue.
5. In 1995, Jennifer Fairgate was found dead in a locked Oslo hotel room with a gunshot to the head. Ballistics showed that suicide was not possible, yet there were fingerprints, and her clothing labels had all been removed, making it impossible to identify her. Theories speculate that she was a spy.
6. Quentin Tarantino played an Elvis impersonator in an episode of “The Golden Girls” and used his pay, about $3600, to help finance “Reservoir Dogs.”
7. On the night that MTV launched, the opening sequence for the network featured footage of the Apollo 11 launch simply because it was public domain and free to use. That opening sequence helped connect MTV’s image with astronauts, including the Video Music Award “moon man” trophy.
8. In the 1630s, a song was performed only in the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican kept the composition of “Miserere Mei, Deus” secret for 140 years until 14-year-old Mozart listened to it 2 times, transcribed it from memory, and produced one of the earliest records of musical piracy.
9. The Chinese Paddlefish, one of the world’s largest fish, has been confirmed to have gone extinct after having been around for at least 200 million years.
10. Sledge-O-Matic comedian Leo Gallagher sued his brother, Ron Gallagher, for false advertising and unfair competition after the younger brother toured as Gallagher Too. A court stopped him from using a “sledgehammer or other similar device to pulverize watermelons, fruits, food or other items.”
Brian May’s Guitar, Queen, and a Thesis 36 Years Late
11. Brian May’s father helped him build his famous guitar, but he was upset when Brian abandoned his PhD program to join Queen. Brian went on to write “We Will Rock You” and “Fat Bottomed Girls”, and he eventually completed “A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud”, the thesis he finished 36 years later.
12. Mother’s Day was originally a day for women to protest the killing of their sons and husbands in the US Civil War. The observance began with grief and resistance before it became a holiday.
13. Roman Emperor Caligula tormented his senators by making them run in front of his chariot for miles. He was also so hairy that he made it a capital offense to mention goats in his presence.
14. A Judas goat is a trained goat that herds or leads its peers. In stockyards, a Judas goat will lead sheep to slaughter while its own life is spared, and hunters can also use Judas goats to find and capture feral herds. There are also Judas steers for cows.
15. A hemorrhoid cream company once tried unsuccessfully to use Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” in a commercial. The attempt failed, leaving the song out of the ad.
16. Thomas Grasso, a murderer executed in 1995, requested 24 mussels, 24 clams, a cheeseburger, 6 ribs, 2 milkshakes, a pie, strawberries, and a can of SpaghettiOs as his last meal. His last words were, “I did not get my SpaghettiOs, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.”
17. In the 1800s, James “Shanghai” Kelly kidnapped men and forced them to work on ships. One year on his birthday, he announced that he was hosting a free “booze cruise” to celebrate, served opium-laced whiskey to the attendees, then offloaded them onto waiting ships and got 100 men in one night.
18. After Hurricane Katrina, Brad Pitt set up the Make It Right Foundation to build homes for those effected. The project attracted famous architects, but the homes were not designed or constructed for a New Orleans environment. By 2022, only 6 of the 109 houses were deemed to be in “reasonably good shape.”
19. Jared Ream was a card-carrying member of American Coaster Enthusiasts. At 430 lbs, he was rejected from Cedar Point’s “Millenium Force” because he could not buckle the restraint, and the desire to ride Kings Island’s new giga-coaster “Orion” motivated him to lose 190 lbs so he could ride coasters again.
20. The Han Dynasty used jade to plug all 9 holes of the deceased.
A Manipulative Online Plot Ends in Tragedy
21. A depressed teen convinced his friend to kill him using six made-up online characters. Over more than 56,000 lines of text, he told him that his reward would be money, a job as a British secret service agent, and sex with a middle-aged spy.
22. The German wives of 1,800 Jews marched into a German camp to peacefully demand the return of their husbands, who had been taken from them because of their marriages. The officers did not know how to react to the peaceful protests, and all the husbands were sent home.
23. A British communist in New Zealand released more than 15,000 invasive fish using his Ford Zephyr, which he had converted with fish tanks. He permanently damaged waterways and ecosystems.
24. Liam Neeson was training to be a teacher before he punched a student who pulled a knife on him. After that, he gave up on his teaching dream and went into acting.
25. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, who stood at 5′ 2″, always traveled with a pillow bearer. The bearer’s job was to make sure the emperor’s feet rested on a pillow whenever he sat down in a chair, because they would otherwise dangle without touching the ground.
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