1Rene' Laennec

A highly religious physician by the name of Rene' Laennec invented the stethoscope because he was uncomfortable putting his ear to the chest of women.
2. In 1997, Microsoft saved Apple from bankruptcy by investing $150 million into the company.
3. Milton Berle, considered America's first TV star, had a massive p*nis. In his autobiography, Berle tells of a man who accosted him in a steam bath and challenged him to compare sizes, leading a bystander to remark, "go ahead, Milton, just take out enough to win"
4. A "fossil word" is a word that is no longer used in general speech but remains in use because it is part of an idiom. For example, amok as in "run amok", or turpitude as in "moral turpitude". There are many other examples.
5. The longest surgery to date was a 96-hour marathon to remove a 300-lb ovarian cyst from a 600-lb woman. Simply hacking it out would have killed her, so the surgeon gradually drained fluid from the cyst over the course of 4 days, shrinking it to 100 lb. and allowing for a successful removal.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Sir Richard Burton

In 1850s British explorer, Sir Richard Burton called Somalis superstitious for believing mosquitos caused malaria.
7. Domestic geese do a perfect job of weeding mint fields. They hate mint but love the plants that compete with it.
8. Smoking near an Apple device will void the warranty.
9. Walt Disney helped the Army design a Mickey Mouse gas mask in the '40s to make chemical warfare less frightening to kids.
10. It's forbidden to fly over Disneyland and you will be intercepted by fighter jets, just like near the White House Airspace.
11Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson

'The Mountain' actor named Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson from Game of Thrones beat the 1,000-year-old world record for taking 5 steps with a 10-meter log that weighed 1,430 lb.
12. Ed Sheeran's childhood friend was struggling financially and asked him to put one of her songs on his then-nearly completed album "X". Instead, they wrote "Thinking Out Loud" together which was released as a single and hit #1. She'll never have to worry about money again.
13. American sharpshooter Annie Oakley was such a great shooter that she could repeatedly split a playing card, edge-on, and put several more holes in it before it could touch the ground, while using a .22 caliber rifle, at 90 feet.
14. The Plum Island Pink House is a house in which the wife of a divorcing couple forced her ex-husband to build a replica of their family home as part of the divorce settlement. She didn't specify the location, so he built it in the middle of a salt marsh and plumbed it solely with salt water. It's uninhabitable.
15. Arizona has a law called the "Stupid Motorist Law" that allows the state to charge drivers for their rescue if they ignore barricades and get stuck in flooded roadways.
16Bibendum

The Michelin Man's 'real' name is Bibendum, and the reason he's white is because he was created before carbon was added as a preservative and a strengthener to the basic rubber material. Before 1912, tires were a gray-white or light and translucent-beige color.
17. In 2010, a group of Weight Watchers members gathered to see how much weight they had lost, only for the floor to collapse under their combined weight.
18. Best Buy removed the fighting video game "Primal Rage" from its shelves after an Arizona woman complained that her 11-year-old son had faithfully portrayed one of the game's gorilla-like character's "golden shower/urination" fatality move.
19. Portuguese soldiers used black swords in the Age of Discovery in order to not reflect the light and announce their presence on ships, avoiding also it's rusting when used near salt water.
20. Although park authorities deny it, Central Park officially has a population of 25 residents according to the 2010 census.
21Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo was asked to donate boots to raise funds for an ill child's surgery. Instead, he paid for the full cost of treatment.
22. Genoa airport in Italy makes one exception to the 3 ounces of liquid rule - for pesto, which goes through a special pesto scanner.
23. Although deaf schizophrenics who have never heard do report "hearing voices", they are not referring to true auditory hallucinations. Instead, communication comes via the mind's eye: visual hallucinations of moving lips, or disembodied hands and arms making sign language movements.
24. The Federal Trade Commission once issued a cease and desist order to Campbell's Soup company for using marbles in their soup ads. The marbles were placed in the bottom of the soup to push the solid ingredients to the top, which was considered deceptive.
25. Sweden is so good at recycling that, for several years, it has imported garbage from other countries to keep its recycling plants going.

