1Norway surname change
In Norway, to change your surname to one that 200 or fewer people have, you must ask for permission from everyone who has that name.
2. During Tool's concert at Garden Pavillion, owned by L. Ron Hubbard of the Church of Scientology, Maynard James Keenan "spent most of the show baa-ing like a sheep at the audience."
3. The home remedy of ginger for nausea actually has some science behind it. It turns out ginger contains a substance called gingerol which is converted into a substance that blocks nausea signals in the stomach. It works in a similar way prescription anti-nausea drugs do.
4. A Canadian college named British Columbia Institute of Technology installed sleep pods for students to nap in the library. The units are not sound-proof at all and have been placed directly next to computer workstations which the school hopes will help prevent any bad behavior.
5. In order to graduate from Cornell University, you must pass a swim test.
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6Amanda Berry
Cleveland kidnapping victim Amanda Berry, held for almost 10 years and freed in 2013, has a TV segment on the Cleveland news dedicated to finding missing people.
7. In 2006, Petra, a female black swan made headlines in Germany after falling in love with a swan-shaped pedal boat, following it around and sheltering next to it for two years. Petra then disappeared, causing a nationwide search, and was spotted several years after with a real swan this time.
8. A man named Beau Brummell is largely responsible for the modern suit becoming the standard formal dress of western men for the next 200 years, replacing stockings.
9. The English rock band Oasis was once so popular in Britain that a single was released consisting entirely of the Gallagher brothers arguing during an interview, and the single hit #52 on the UK charts.
10. There is a hotel named Palacio de Sal in Bolivia made completely out of salt and licking the walls is strictly forbidden.
11Sobrino de Botín
Madrid has the oldest running restaurant in the world named Sobrino de Botín which hasn't closed its doors once since its founding in 1725.
12. The original title of the first “Star Wars” film was “Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars”.
13. NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds.
14. The last time the Olympics were in Korea (1988), North Korean agents tried to derail the games by blowing a passenger plane (Korean Air Flight 858) and killing 115 people.
15. One of the greatest boxers of all time was a man of 5'7" in height called Sam Langford who other greats like Jack Dempsey refused to fight because of his power. He fought until the age of 43, at which point he was almost completely blind.
16Katie Melua
In 2006, Katie Melua gave a concert at 303 meters below sea level in one of the legs of the "Troll A" oil rig, earning a Guinness record for "deepest underwater concert".
17. In the 1970s, city officials in Times Beach, Missouri, sprayed waste oil over unpaved roads to alleviate a dust problem, but the oil contained dioxin, a carcinogenic compound of Agent Orange, ultimately forcing the town to be abandoned.
18. Walt Disney had a secret apartment built in Disneyland so that he could watch the crowds in his theme park.
19. Panthers are not a species. Panther is just the name given to any melanistic (dark or black) big cat e.g. black jaguars.
20. Psychologists recognize "the need for drama" (NFD) as a personality trait. High NFD individuals agree with statements like, "Sometimes it’s fun to get people riled up”.
21Rodinia
Pangea was not the first supercontinent. That honor goes to the billion-year-old landmass known as Rodinia. The continents since then have routinely split apart and come back together in a process known as the supercontinent cycle.
22. Deinosuchus was a massive ancestor of the crocodile, measuring around 10 to 12 meters long. By studying teeth marks on other fossils, paleontologists have concluded the Deinosuchus killed and ate some of the most fearsome dinosaurs of its era, including the T-Rex.
23. Harry Glicken's was devastated when his mentor David Johnson died during the eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980. Glicken met the same fate 11 year's later during the eruption of Mount Unzen in Japan. Glicken and Johnson are the only American volcanologists to have died in volcanic eruptions.
24. A 21-year-old named Lieutenant Zvika Greengold is an Israeli tank officer who fought in the Yom Kippur War for 30 hours straight, destroyed up to 60 enemy tanks (swapping his own every time he sustained damage) and fooled the Syrians into believing they were facing a company-sized force.
25. Candy Crush Saga had a daily revenue of $633,000 from the United States section of the iOS App Store alone back in 2013.
