1Britain women draft
During World War 2, Britain drafted women, starting with 20-30-year-old singles, and eventually employing almost 90% of all single women and 80% of all married women in essential war work in roles such as mechanics, engineers, munitions workers, air raid wardens, bus and fire engine drivers.
2. When Beethoven conducted the premiere of Ninth Symphony in Vienna, he was completely deaf. After it ended, one of the soloists had to turn him around so he could see the audience applauding.
3. The bell on early cash registers (circa 1884), not marketing, is why prices like $1.99 rather than $2.00 exist. The 1¢ change back to the customer forced the cashier to open the till ringing the bell and make a change. Otherwise, the sale could more easily be pocketed by the clerk.
4. The title of Pantera's 1992 album "Vulgar Display of Power" was inspired by a line in "The Exorcist". When Father Karras asks Regan why she can't make the straps restraining her disappear if she's supposedly the devil, she replies, "That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras."
5. A man named Roberto P. Hernandez was jailed for a robbery he did not commit in 1985. The authorities confused him with another man because the two had the same name, birthday, weight, height, brown hair and eyes, and tattoos on their left arms. Only their Social Security Numbers differed, and that too by only 1 digit.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Renous
A German naturalist named Renous in the 1830's was arrested for heresy for claiming he could turn caterpillars into butterflies.
7. After successfully ditching his Airbus A320 in the Hudson River in 2009, Captain "Sully" Sullenberger was granted lifetime membership in the Seaplane Pilots Association.
8. Despite its modern association with vampires, one of the key principles of Gothic architecture is to allow in as much natural light as possible.
9. Internet speed is measured in Megabits, not Megabytes. Bytes hold 8 bits, thus making an internet speed of 100megabits/s actually only 12.5 megabytes/s.
10. Isaac Newton became a member of Parliament but only spoke once, telling someone to close the window.
11J. R.R Tolkien, Otto Frank and Adolf Hitler
J. R.R Tolkien, Otto Frank (The father of Anne Frank), and Adolf Hitler where all present as foot soldiers at the battle of the Somme.
12. Rock star success was once highly regional. In June 1976, Bob Seger played to 78,000 fans in Detroit, only to play to less than 1,000 in Chicago the very next day.
13. Charlie Bucket, the main character in Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", according to Dahl's widow, was originally written as "a little black boy". Dahl's agent, who thought a black Charlie would not appeal to readers, insisted that Charlie be white.
14. A paranoid schizophrenic man’s diary served as Freud’s primary source to understand the condition and write the book “The Schreber Case.” Daniel Paul Schreber believed he was receiving cosmic rays through his anal glands by God in order to transform him into a woman so that he could herald and breed a new race.
15. An inmate named Kevin Pullum escaped Twin Towers Correctional Facility by walking out of an employee exit 2 hours after being convicted of attempted murder. He used a newspaper photograph of actor Eddie Murphy to alter an identification badge.
16Percussive maintenance
“Percussive Maintenance” is the technical term for banging and shaking something until it works.
17. The Stanley Hotel, the hotel that served as the inspiration for The Shining, plays the movie adaptation on a continuous loop on channel 42.
18. Astronauts lose as much as 22% of their blood while in space due to the uniform blood pressure caused by microgravity. Until their body replaces this blood, many returning astronauts can't stand for more than a few minutes without fainting.
19. Rollen Stewart, the “John 3:16 guy” who would wear rainbow wigs and attend numerous sporting events while holding up religious signs in view of television cameras, is currently serving multiple life-sentences in California.
20. Shoplifters were using self-service checkouts to scan expensive fruit and vegetable as carrots at a major United Kingdom supermarket chain. They were only discovered when the supermarket noticed they had sold more carrots than they had ever had in stock.
21Unforgiven
In 2013, there was a Japanese remake of the film Unforgiven that replaced the gunslingers with Samurai, making it a reverse homage to the westerns that were inspired by Samurai films.
22. During the early years of American sitcom 30 Rock, Donald Glover was so young when he started on their writing staff that he was still living in a New York University dorm and working there as a Resident Adviser.
23. 70% alcohol is better at disinfecting surfaces than 91% alcohol. In one experiment, a 50% alcohol solution killed Staphylococcus Aureus in less than 10 seconds, but a 90% solution failed to kill it even after two hours of contact time.
24. It takes 95% less energy to recycle a ton of aluminum cans than to produce anew. 1 ton of recycled aluminum saves an equivalent of 40 barrels of oil.
25. The King (Willem-Alexander) of the Netherlands has been secretly flying as a commercial co-pilot for 21 years and has been doing so even after ascending to the throne in 2013.
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RE: Fact #32 (Rock drawings) – technically these are petroglyphs which are rock etchings (not just drawings) made into the granite which oxidizes over time which is how you get the contrast and can actually age the figures. These glyphs also correspond to time with many figures accompanied by sun circles or seasonal indicators like the monsoon