1B Blood Type Norovirus Resistance
People with B blood type tend to be resistant to most Norovirus strains.
2. Volkswagen offered 5 years of free connected emergency services on certain car models after law enforcement contacted VW's Car-Net service to ask for the GPS location of a carjacked vehicle with a child inside, and the representative refused to help until a $150 subscription fee was paid.
3. After one of the contestant's parents accused it of being rigged, Fox canceled the TV game show "Our Little Genius". Since the show never aired, the FCC couldn't conduct any investigation.
4. The earliest depictions of Jesus from the 3rd century present him as a beardless man wearing Roman clothes.
5. Egyptian mummies would have their eyes replaced by shells, linens, or painted onions. This has made it especially difficult to study Egyptian mummy eyes since embalmers often made no effort to preserve them.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Mayor Daley's Invasive Gift
Mayor Richard J. Daley presented the bluegill fish to the then-Crown Prince of Japan, Akihito, in 1960 as a gift from the city of Chicago. The prince donated the fish to fishery research agencies in Japan, but they escaped and became an invasive species. Emperor Akihito apologized in 2007.
7. Tortoiseshell, used in eyeglass frames, guitar picks, and luxury items, has been banned for trade since 1973 because it mostly comes from the endangered hawksbill sea turtle. Manufacturers now use plastic to make most "tortoiseshell" objects.
8. Due to consistent rock falls, Reunion Island (France) has created the most expensive road in the world. The road is estimated to be worth 1.6 billion euros for a length of 12.5 km. That is 133 million euros per kilometer. To avoid the rocks, engineers constructed the ring road in the ocean.
9. Director Michel Gondry found Jim Carrey's emotional state after a breakup "so beautiful, so broken" that he asked him to stay that way for one year to fit his character in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
10. Although chopsticks have supplanted spoons for eating rice in China and Japan, Korean people continue to use spoons to eat rice and alternate back and forth with chopsticks during a meal.
11Merci Train: French Gift to U.S.
The Merci Train was a collection of 49 boxcars sent by France to the United States in response to humanitarian aid the US provided after World War II. Each state, barring Alaska, got their own, and 43 still survive today.
12. When the Mongols defeated the Poles at the Battle of Legnica, they beheaded King Henry II and paraded his head. His wife recognized his mutilated body by his eleventh toe.
13. Nintendo copied LEGO in the '60s and outsold them for a few years in Japan. Their N&B Block series was very similar to LEGO and way more popular because it had more round shapes. Nintendo stopped the N&B Block series in the early '70s, most likely due to legal pressure from LEGO.
14. In 2013, astronaut Chris Hadfield took a picture of Berlin at night from the International Space Station, which showed the division between the former east and west through its streetlights. East Berlin looks orange due to sodium vapor lamps, while West Berlin looks white due to fluorescent lamps.
15. The person who published the first map with the word America later tried to change the continent's name to Parrotland.
16Alaska's Stolen Bear Sketch
The drawing of the bear on Alaska's license plates was appropriated from artist Douglas Allen without his permission. The plates were first released in 1976, but Allen didn't even know until 2015. Allen had never been to Alaska. He had sketched the bear at the Bronx Zoo.
17. Following the success of the '90s hit film "The Bodyguard," Kevin Costner contacted his longtime friend Princess Diana to star in a sequel. She agreed. The first draft arrived the day before her death, in 1997. After her death in 1997, they scrapped the film.
18. A B29 weather reconnaissance plane called Straight Flush flew over the city of Hiroshima before the atomic bomb attack to determine if conditions were favorable. Its pilot, Claude Eatherly, later expressed remorse, received psychiatric hospitalization, and engaged in anti-nuclear activism.
19. When Ottoman envoys, citing a religious custom, declined to remove their turbans when meeting with Vlad (Dracula) the Impaler, Vlad saluted their devotion and decided to strengthen their custom by having three spikes driven through each of their heads, pinning the turbans in place forever.
20. Whiplash was originally an 18-minute short film that received acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, drawing investors to fund the full-length film, which cost $3.3 million to make and grossed $49 million at the box office.
21Malignant Hyperthermia: Anesthesia Reaction
Malignant hyperthermia is a deadly reaction (temperature as high as 109°F) to general anesthesia. Malignant hyperthermia is an inherited condition that runs in families. It's the reason anesthesiologists always ask you if anyone in the family has had a fatal reaction to anesthesia.
22. Vincent by Don McLean was Tupac's favorite song, and his girlfriend played it as he was dying, so it would be the last thing he heard.
23. During the process of becoming a US state in 1890, Wyoming demanded the right for women to vote. The US Congress denied this request. The state replied by saying that they'd "remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women."
24. The Sweatbox was a documentary about the making of The Emperor's New Groove. It was produced by Sting's wife and was never released by Disney due to the unprecedented access the documentary had to their creative process, which was uncharacteristically rushed and improvised for this project.
25. Canton Avenue in Pittsburgh, PA, is the steepest officially recorded street in the United States, boasting a 37% grade on its hill.
