Finnish School Knitting
26. In Finland, knitting is included in the school curriculum.
27. The 1997 video game “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” included a hidden ending in which Jeff Goldblum urged the player to stop playing computer games, go outside, talk to the opposite sex, and live their lives.
28. In the late 1800’s, you could purchase a mummy from street vendors in Egypt, and the Victorian-era parties that were the highlight of the social season were known as “A Mummy Unwrapping Party!”.
29. The Xbox 360’s “Red Ring of Death” issue was so widespread that, in 2007, more than 30% of the consoles failed, and repairs cost Microsoft $1.15 billion.
30. Susanna M. Salter was elected in 1887 as America’s first female mayor. A group of men nominated her as a joke, but she received over 60% of the vote.
31. Owsley “Bear” Stanley was the first private person to mass-produce LSD. From 1965 to 1967, he made 5 million doses. He also became the Grateful Dead’s first sound man during that period.
32. In 1971, Soviet cosmonauts Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev died when their Soyuz-11 spacecraft lost pressure during re-entry preparations. These remain the only known human deaths outside Earth’s atmosphere.
33. A group of POW during World War 2 made a documentary about their imprisonment with a secret camera assembled from parts smuggled inside sausages.
34. A man named Wesley Carrington found a hoard of Roman gold coins valued at $156,000 within 20 minutes of using a metal detector for the first time.
35. Earwax has antimicrobial qualities that lower the viability of bacteria and fungus in the human ear.
Psychologist Guided Cartoons
36. The 1980s cartoon ThunderCats hired a staff psychologist so that each episode would contain a positive moral lesson for young viewers.
37. Most of MF Doom and Madlib’s Madvillainy was recorded in an old bomb shelter in Mount Washington, Los Angeles.
38. 20% of the genetic material in a typical human nasal swab is a biological dark matter that cannot be assigned to any of the existing categories of living organisms on Earth (bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes).
39. In 2008, Italy spent $65,000,000 to bail out the Parmesan cheese industry.
40. In December 2019, Leonardo DiCaprio and his friends were on his rented boat in the Caribbean when he helped rescue a man who had been treading water for about 11 hours after drunkenly falling overboard a cruise. After hearing an emergency call about the missing passenger, DiCaprio and his crew joined the search, and they spotted him in rough water about an hour before sunset and a heavy rainstorm.
41. Turkey became an official ally of the U.S. after the CIA supported a right-wing coup there in 1980.
42. Ferrock, a promising substitute for concrete, uses recycled waste and absorbs carbon dioxide during production. Although it is not widely adopted because of higher production costs and the use of waste steel dust, its potential remains intriguing.
43. Adult Swim had an original series, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” reach its 7th season in 2009 before a Cartoon Network show did. “Regular Show” reached this milestone in June 2015, narrowly beating “Adventure Time.”
44. Actress Carey Mulligan and singer Marcus Mumford were pen pals as children. They lost contact, got back in touch as adults, and eventually married.
45. China/Taiwan renamed Guardians of the Galaxy as: “Interplanetary Unusual Attack Team”.
Han Tax Exemptions
46. Under the Han dynasty, unmarried women and their families had to pay a special tax because of their unmarried status. In contrast, women with babies did not have to pay taxes for three years, and their husbands did not have to pay taxes for one year.
47. In 1966, two American teenagers found two child mummies in a cave in Mexico, smuggled them to California, and left them in a friend’s garage until the friend’s mother discovered the mummies 14 years later.
48. MGMT was offered 1€ after the French UMP party used “Kids” without copyright permission. The matter was settled for 30,000€.
49. By arranging stones, bones, and shells in and around his nest from small to large, the male bowerbird produces an optical illusion called forced perspective, which makes his nest seem larger than it really is from the viewpoint of prospective mates.
50. Pistachios in the US are no longer dyed red because of the Iran Hostage Crisis (sanctions against Iran). The red dye had been used to hide the staining that picking methods in Iran left behind. US production rose after the sanctions, and faster harvesting removed the shell stains and the need for the dye.
Add Comment