1Zhukov's Tank Innovations in WWII
During World War 2, Soviet General Georgy Zhukov oversaw innovations on the Mongolian front, including replacing gasoline engines in tanks with diesel. These developments helped perfect the T-34 tank, which is now considered the war's most outstanding all-purpose tank.
2. Atheist Charles Moore, known as "Kentucky's Most Hated Man," faced imprisonment in the late 1800s for his outspoken opposition to religion and the Bible, as well as for mailing obscene literature about "Free Love," a social movement that accepts all forms of love.
3. Blur's signature rock song, Song 2, that goes "WOOHOO," is exactly 2 minutes and 2 seconds long and also has 2 verses and 2 choruses. The band also decided to keep the song's name as its place in the tracklist rather than naming it something else.
4. The Irish War of Independence received about three times more money in donations from Irish Americans than the amount raised by the people of Ireland through the "National Loan" program established by the new national government to finance the rebellion.
5. During the filming of the original Star Wars, R2-D2 often functioned poorly, leading, among other things, to an accidental visit to the set of "Jesus of Nazareth."
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6Plumber's Post-Thanksgiving Woes
Plumbers in America refer to the day after Thanksgiving as "brown Friday" due to the clogging of pipes, drains, and toilets.
7. A Saudi billionaire named Walid Juffali once bought diplomatic immunity from the government of St. Lucia so he could divorce his wife (Christina Estrada) without paying alimony.
8. As of right now, the identity of the host of the trivia game show Inquizition is still unknown due to stipulations in his contract.
9. Sigmund Rascher, a scientist who performed inhumane medical experiments at Dachau, was himself imprisoned and executed by the Nazis at Dachau after it was revealed that he and his wife were committing fraud by kidnapping (German) babies.
10. During WWII, while arranging prisoner exchanges, the US government discovered that less than 10% of the individuals on Japan's list desired repatriation. It then forged an agreement with 15 Latin American countries to ship their ethnic Japanese to the USA to expand its hostage pool.
11CIA's Aswang Rumors in 1950s
During the 1950s, while fighting the Huks, a communist guerrilla movement in the Philippines, the CIA spread rumors that aswangs, or 'vampires', would attack evil men. As part of psychological warfare, they punctured holes in a dead body and drained it of blood for others to find.
12. Shoe Fitting Fluoroscope or "X-Ray Shoe Fitter" existed in shoe stores up until the 1970s, which allowed customers (mostly children) to look through a viewer at a live X-ray of their feet to see the bones of their toes and how they lined up with the stitching of the shoe's sole.
13. Viewers can disable closed captions, but open captions are permanently displayed. Open captions are burned into the video, while closed captions can be toggled on or off.
14. The Woodstock 1999 festival was so ill-prepared for the crowd size that portable toilets overflowed, and there was no shade from the heat. Unaware of the waste leaking from toilets, attendees played in the mud to cool off, resulting in many cases of trench mouth and trench foot.
15. In 2019, China experienced a severe pork shortage due to the African swine fever outbreak. As a result, some farmers bred giant pigs that weighed as much as an average adult male polar bear, or 1,100 pounds. These giant pigs were worth more than $1,400 each.
16CIA's Legal Limits on Information
The law prohibits the CIA from collecting information on the U.S. government, U.S. citizens, resident aliens, legal immigrants, and U.S. corporations, regardless of their location.
17. Stylitism was a trend among early Christian monks who practiced asceticism by living atop a pillar. One stylite stayed atop his pillar for 54 years without ever coming down.
18. In 1964, when Kia transitioned from making bicycles to cars, they changed their logo. The Kia logo, for 22 years, looked like an upside-down "Q."
19. Originally, people used lignum vitae, a hard wood, to make propeller shaft bearings for ships and submarines.
20. An inmate named Charles Justice was released early on parole for designing improvements to the electric chair, using metal instead of leather for the wrist restraints. Months later, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death by the same chair he had improved.
21Historical Christmas Light Rentals
In the early 1900s, people rented Christmas lights because they were too expensive to buy. An electrically lit tree was a status symbol back then.
22. The AK-47 is so iconic that it appears on the flags and coats of arms of many countries, including Mozambique, Zimbabwe, East Timor, etc.
23. In 2017, Visa offered up to 50 small food and restaurant vendors $10,000 each if they agreed to stop accepting cash.
24. While US President McKinley was shot in Buffalo, the city's premier surgeon, Roswell Park, was performing surgery on someone else in Niagara Falls. When they informed him of the need in Buffalo, he initially refused to leave, even for the President of the United States. He agreed to go only after they informed him of the identity of the person who had been shot.
25. Some members of the Sama-Bajau ethnic group in Southeast Asia intentionally rupture their eardrums at a young age to enhance their ability to dive and hunt at sea. This allows them to dive for extended periods between varying depths without experiencing pain from water pressure changes.
