1Chess
Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen never played chess in their life until the movie X-Men required them to do so. A chess master came in to teach them.
2. The worlds largest farm, Mudanjiang City Dairy Farm is located in China and covers an area of 22.5 million acres. This is the same size as Portugal.
3. After sleeping on his couch Robert Englund told a young Mark Hamill to audition for the lead character in Star Wars. Englund later went on to play Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street films.
4. American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart was one of the first celebrities to found her own line of clothing and luggage and was a major icon of women's fashion in the 1930s.
5. The first known juvenile to be sentenced to death and executed in USA was guilty of bestiality. Thomas Granger of the Plymouth Colony was hanged in 1642 for sodomizing “a mare, a cow, two goats, divers sheepe, two calves, and a turkey.”
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Great Gatsby
In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby gave himself the name "Jay" because he believed it sounded upper-class and sophisticated, while in reality, the term "jay" was used as an insult during the early 1900s (when the novel took place) to describe an ignorant or inexperienced person.
7. A man named Tim Friede is immune to Snake venom. He has received more than 160 snake bites in 16 years. This has made his body to develop a natural immune response and generate high levels of antibodies to fight the snake venom. He even survived the bite of Black Mamba, one of the most venomous snakes.
8. The Folsom Prison Blues line "But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" was what Johnny Cash imagined as "the worst reason a person could have for killing another person."
9. Americans were the ones to introduce the use of shotguns in warfare during World War 1. They were so effective at clearing trenches, that they were called "trench brooms" and the Germans complained about its use and how it caused unnecessary suffering.
10. American skateboarder Tony Hawk rejected Activision's buyout deal for the permanent use of his name and likeness on the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater game but accepted a royalty deal in which he would earn a percentage of every copy of the game sold. He earned ten times the original offer within two years.
11Rena Kanokogi
In 1959, Jewish-American judo expert Rena Kanokogi disguised herself as a man, entered a men's judo competition and won first place. Her medal was taken away after her victory when she admitted to being female, but it was awarded back to her in 2009.
12. In 1917, Ernie Shore threw a "perfect game", with 27 outs without allowing a baserunner. However, he is only credited with a combined no-hitter because he pitched in relief of the starter, Babe Ruth, who was ejected for punching the umpire after walking the first batter of the game.
13. In the movie ‘Love Actually,’ Olivia Olson’s voice sounded so good when she sang “All I Want for Christmas Is You” that the director made her train her voice to sound more “believable” so people didn't think she was just lip syncing over Mariah Carey’s original track.
14. Peaches and nectarines are the same fruit. Nectarines simply have a recessive allele for smooth skin.
15. American English spellings like "color" and "center" were first published by Noah Webster as an effort to simplify what he thought were unnecessarily complex spelling rules.
16Kamal Jahanbein
The owner of a DC bar, Kamal Jahanbein, shuts his business down for one month each year to go build schools in impoverished villages and has been doing it since 1994.
17. PowerPoint Karaoke is an improvisational activity in which a participant must deliver a presentation based on a set of slides that they have never seen before.
18. A man named Sven Sachsalber has looked for and found a single needle hidden in a haystack. Done by hand, it took him 18 hours to complete this task at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
19. Israeli magician Uri Geller believes Nintendo 'stole his identity' for the Pokemon Kadabra, and no agreement has yet been reached between the two parties. As a result, there has not been a Kadabra card released in the Trading Card Game since 2003.
20. The cone snail is considered one of the most venomous animals on earth. Their specialized teeth work like a hypodermic needle and harpoon to skewer and can even pierce a wetsuit. The venom is being used to create a painkiller that is 1000 times more powerful than morphine and less addictive.
21Sonic the Hedgehog 2
In 1992, Sega orchestrated the world's first global launch of a video game, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. They chose a Tuesday and dubbed the event "Sonic 2sday". At the time, new games would release at different stores on different days. Thanks to Sega, Tuesday is now the industry standard.
22. Conrad Veidt, the man who played the villain in Casablanca, gave up a career as one of the highest-paid actors in Germany in 1933. When forced to declare his race for the government he wrote “Juden” despite not being Jewish, because his wife was and he wouldn't renounce her.
23. The Roman Catholic Church stated in 1950 that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
24. Infamous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, among other atrocities, was accused of cannibalism. When he was asked about the rumors he replied ''I don't like human flesh. It's too salty for me.''
25. Project Grizzly is a documentary about a Canadian man who, inspired by Robocop and a bear encounter, determined to make bear-proof body armor. In it, he's been beaten with 2X4s, thrown off a cliff, and slammed into by a truck at 50km/hr. It's one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite documentaries.
