26Danish Protest Pig
When the Prussians forbade the Danes from displaying their flag in the early 20th century, the Danes responded by creating a new breed of pig (Danish Protest Pig) that resembled the Danish flag and displayed it instead.
27. Radiotrophic fungi were discovered in 1991 growing inside and around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in an environment in which the radiation level was 500 times higher than in the normal environment. This fungi converts gamma radiation into chemical energy for growth.
28. In the US, production of alarm clocks was allowed in 1944, despite them containing brass needed for war materials, because workers kept missing their shifts due to a critical alarm clock shortage.
29. Chess960 is a game created by Bobby Fischer which uses the same board and pieces of regular chess, but randomly shuffles the home row to prevent players from relying on memorized strategies and instead rely on their own creativity.
30. "Häagen-Dazs" was completely made up by its Polish Jewish founders to sound Danish. The umlaut (¨) does not even exist in Danish and neither does the "zs" letter combination.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
31Simon & Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel's first album was so unsuccessful on the charts that the duo split. Their producer took one of the songs from the album, overdubbed/remixed it without their knowledge or permission, and "The Sounds of Silence" became a hit. The duo made four more albums.
32. Olives are essentially inedible when picked. It takes an extensive curing process for them to become edible, with no history of how an inedible fruit became such a popular fruit.
33. A man was snorkeling off the coast of South Africa when an enormous Bryde's whale scooped him up in his mouth headfirst. The man felt pressure on his body but soon realized he was too big for the whale to swallow him whole which was "kind of instant relief." The whale spat him out unharmed.
34. In 1887, a reporter named Nellie Bly talked her way into an insane asylum in New York and published her experience after ten days in the asylum. She claimed many of the patients seemed completely sane and the conditions were horrid. This led to NYC budgeting $1,000,000 to care of the insane.
35. Many non-English languages have no concept of a spelling bee because the spelling rules in those languages are too regular for good spelling to be impressive.
