Christmas Bans and Backlash
26. Puritans opposed Christmas celebrations because they believed it had “no biblical justification” and simply encouraged immoral conduct. England banned it in the 1650s, which sparked rioting by people in favor of Christmas. The Puritan colonies, including Boston, also prohibited it, and it did not become widely liked there until after 1776.
27. A hypothetical particle known as a strangelet may be found in neutron star cores. If it does exist, it could be the most stable matter known and, as a result, possibly the most dangerous substance in the universe. If one struck Earth, or any other object in the universe, it could convert that matter into more strangelets, starting a chain reaction that would turn Earth into one large strangelet. It may even be the dark matter that scientists think keeps galaxies bound together.
28. Aswang is a monster from Filipino folklore that resembles a vampire and feeds on young children, babies, and unborn fetuses.
29. Air conditioning was not created for people’s comfort at all; instead, it was devised to lower humidity at a printing company that was struggling with excess moisture affecting the paper and ink.
30. William James Sidis, a child prodigy believed to have been the smartest man who ever lived, withdrew from public attention and took blue-collar jobs while secretly producing thousands of manuscripts that have never been read.
31. In 1896, Auburn students spread grease on the train tracks coming into and leaving the local station. When Georgia Tech’s train arrived in town, it slid through town and failed to stop for five more miles. The GT football team then had to walk back to town and later lost, 45-0.
32. An American serial killer named Nannie Doss was responsible for 11 deaths between the 1920s and 1954. Also known as the “Giggling Granny,” it was disclosed that she had killed four husbands, two children, her two sisters, her mother, a grandson, and a mother-in-law.
33. At one point during the 1970s, 1 out of every 204 working Americans worked for Sears.
34. Major orange juice makers add chemical fragrances called “flavor packs” to their juice to give their brand its distinctive taste because OJ loses its flavor during pasteurization and de-oxygenation.
35. The only major court ruling based mainly on the 3rd amendment of the US Constitution came in 1982, when the US Court of Appeals decided that housing National Guardsmen in a private residence without the owner’s expressed consent was unconstitutional.
Stored Produce Timeline
36. The apples sold at grocery stores are 5-12 months old. They are kept in a special low-temperature, low-oxygen (2%) setting that preserves the fruit’s nutritional content.
37. Although he voted for Prohibition as a U.S. Senator, President Warren G. Harding maintained a fully stocked bar in the White House throughout his administration in the 1920s.
38. Bill Gates forecasts that instructional software will grow enough to replace textbooks. Yet in a 2018 survey of college students, the trade publication Library Journal found that 75% said reading print books is easier than reading e-books.
39. The Peace Symbol uses the flag semaphores for “N” (flags held at the 5 and 7 o’clock positions) and “D” (flags held at the 12 and 6 o’clock positions), and it represents Nuclear Disarmament.
40. Woodstock 1999 was so poorly prepared for the size of the crowd that portable toilets overflowed, and there was no shade from the heat. Unaware of the waste leaking from the toilets, attendees played in the mud to cool off, which led to many cases of trench mouth and trench foot.
41. In the 1993 election, Canada’s Progressive Conservative Party was crushed, losing 154 of its 156 seats. It became one of the worst election losses in any Western democratic nation.
42. Astronomers have found a planet called HD189733b where glass, or silicate, falls sideways in 7,000km-per-hour winds. This gives the planet a blue color. It is 63 light-years away from us.
43. Until the 1960’s, poor Swiss children were auctioned off to farmers to serve as a source of cheap labor.
44. In 1974, Portuguese rebels used Portugal’s entry in the Eurovision song contest as one of two secret signals to launch the Carnation Revolution, a peaceful uprising that toppled the authoritarian regime that had governed the country for over 40 years.
45. Lethal White syndrome is an autosomal genetic disorder that is most common in horse breed of American Paint Horses, where foals are born entirely white with blue eyes and seem normal, but internally they have a non-functioning colon, which leads to a very painful death after only a few days.
Sobriety Film Admission
46. In 2012, American singer Demi Lovato made an MTV documentary about her sobriety and the way she got past addiction. 5 years later, she said that she was on cocaine while it was being filmed.
47. Jim Abbott, who was born with only one hand, spent 11 years as a Major League Baseball pitcher. In 1993, he reached a career high by throwing a “no-hitter,” which is one of the greatest achievements a pitcher can have in baseball.
48. Liquindi, also called Pygmy water drumming, is performed by the Baka Forest People of Central Africa. Sounds are made by holding air in the hands and striking the water’s surface to produce rhythmic percussion music.
49. In 2019, a pet cassowary attacked and killed a Florida man named Marvin Hajos, making him the first person killed by the species since 1926.
50. “White Christmas,” the top-selling Christmas song ever, was written by a Jew whose own Christmas custom was to visit the grave of his son, who died on Christmas Day in 1928 at age three weeks. That son was Irving Berlin, Jr.
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