1Jason Mewes
Seth Green almost ended up playing Jay (of Jay and Silent Bob) in Mallrats. The studio didn't want Jason Mewes in the role and he was forced to audition for it. While Kevin Smith successfully fought off studio executives, Mewes had to audition for the role alongside both Seth Green and Breckin Meyer.
2. The core of the Earth is about 2.5 years younger than the crust. This is due to gravitational time dilation, a consequence of General Relativity.
3. Texas Hold 'em opening hand of Ace-King off suit is sometimes referred to as an Anna Kournikova - both for the initials (AK) and because the hand looks good, but does not win much.
4. The original founders of Tesla were Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. They created the company's first car, the Roadster, and were eventually ousted by the board of directors.
5. The introduction of the Davy lamp was followed by an increase in mine accidents, as it emboldened companies to mine in areas that had previously been regarded as being too unsafe.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Breaker boys
Breaker boys between age 8-12 were employed to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week to separate impurities from coal. Despite public disapproval, the practice of employing children in this line of work lasted for decades, only finally ending in the US in the 1920s.
7. 12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and generates $2 billion per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect.
8. Chilly Bang! Bang! was a kids' juice in a water pistol. Kids would put the barrel in their mouths and pull the trigger to drink it. It was pulled from store shelves.
9. The Smash Mouth hit song "Walkin' on the Sun" is about the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
10. Disney World has its own government, allowing the corporation control over sewage, roads, building permits, and many other facets of municipal control in the area. This includes issuing themselves liquor licenses.
11International Debutante Ball
The International Debutante Ball is a biennial, invitation-only event hosted in the New York City Waldorf Astoria hotel that presents well-connected young ladies from upper-class families to high society. The participation fee alone starts from $22,000.
12. Angel' by Sarah McLachlan (the song famously used for the ASPCA animal cruelty PSA's) is actually about the fatal overdose of Smashing Pumpkins keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin.
13. In 2011, a 17-year-old boy jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge as a dare and survived with only "bruising and tenderness".
14. In Cambodia, cooking with a "lucky iron fish" (a small iron cooking tool that infuses meals with iron) has helped villagers prevent anemia.
15. The first director of CIA, Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, stated in a letter to Congress that "high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."
16R. L. Burnside
Bluesman R. L. Burnside killed a man and said: "I didn't mean to kill nobody, I just meant to shoot the sonofabit*h in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord."
17. Weird Al donated all the profits for "Achy Breaky Song" to charity because he felt the song was "mean-spirited" since all it did was sh*t on Billy Ray Cyrus.
18. The Mountain Jews were known to be accomplished warriors and horseback riders. They typically were heavily armed and slept without removing their weapons.
19. Actor Hugh Keays Byrne who played Immortan Joe, the main antagonist in Mad Max: Fury Road also played Toecutter, the main antagonist in the original Mad Max movie.
20. Radio GTMO, the Armed Forces radio station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has a vinyl collection of over 20,000 records, including some albums that exist nowhere else.
21Denatured alcohol
Denatured alcohol (sold in hardware stores) isn't chemically different from drinking alcohol. The only difference is it's purposely laced with poison and nausea-inducing additives so you can't drink it. These compromises allows it to be sold without alcohol tax and ensures people don't drink it.
22. When Viggo Mortensen filmed his last scene in Lord Of The Rings, the stunt crew all gathered together to perform a Haka (Traditional war cry) as a farewell and sign of respect.
23. The largest wine cellar in the world is Moldova's Mileștii Mici. It has streets that carry the names of grape. Visitors drive cars or bikes in it, and traffic rules apply. The second largest wine cellar in the world is also in Moldova.
24. The unit of measurement, "smoot", is named after an MIT prank on Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity pledge, Oliver Smoot, whose body was used to measure the Harvard Bridge in 1958. One smoot is 5 foot 7 inches and length of the Harvard Bridge is 364.4 smoots.
25. Marrie Currie's notebook is so radioactive that it has to be stored in a lead box and visitors have to sign a waiver before they can see it.
