26Sweating
Contrary to popular belief, sweating does not remove toxins from the body. Dehydration from excessive sweating can actually make it harder for your body to remove toxins.
27. In 1889, a lion escaped from a traveling show in Birmingham and ran into the sewers. When an angry mob formed, Frank Bostock, the owner secretly snuck another lion out the back. He then returned with the lion clearly visible and was hailed a hero. The escaped lion was still in the sewers. He eventually came clean to the police and then rounded up a bunch of men to find the lion.
28. The Statue of Liberty almost wasn’t built in New York because the governor wouldn’t use city funds to build its pedestal, but Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper articles inspired 160,000 people to donate. Though a majority of donations were less than $1, they raised over $100,000 in just 5 months.
29. A crocodile from Burundi named Gustave has killed as many as 300 people. He has evaded numerous captures and kill attempts and has obtained near-mythical status in the region.
30. Owls’ ears are placed asymmetrically, at different heights on the sides of their faces, so that the sounds reach each ear at different times. This is essential to identify the exact direction of their prey.
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31Jumbo
P.T. Barnum’s famous elephant Jumbo got his name from the Swahili word for chief. It was the elephant who caused the word “Jumbo” to mean something large, not the other way around.
32. The famously large US President William Taft followed a weight loss program. Taft was in contact with Dr. Yorke-Davies for over 20 years and kept a daily record of his weight, food intake, and physical activity. Taft managed to go from 340 to 244 pounds and walked 3 miles to the Capitol every day.
33. Mark Twain and Nicola Tesla were good friends and fans of each other’s work. Tesla read Twain’s works before they met, and Twain, intrigued by electricity, often visited Tesla’s lab. Twain once participated in one of Tesla’s experiments which caused Twain to have to hastily run to the bathroom.
34. “Formaldehyde Hunger” is a well-known phenomenon in anatomy labs where med students get hungry while dissecting cadavers, allegedly due to formaldehyde being an appetite stimulant.
35. The opening crawl to Star Wars begins with a storybook-esque narration (“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....”) because George Lucas first imagined his films as stories being told by an ancient race of immortals. The immortals were written out for early films, but this vestige remained.
