1Edmund Clint
Edmund Clint was an Indian child prodigy who in his short life of less than 7 years painted 25,000 paintings.
2. After the U.S. Civil War, the U.S. filed financial claims against Great Britain, claiming that their support for the Confederacy prolonged the war. A Senator named Charles Sumner demanded a payment of $2 billion but offered that the U.K. could just turn over Canada as payment instead.
3. Monkeys display metacognitive abilities, which means that they are aware of their own thought process and knowledge, and seek to actively control it.
4. Between 90-95% of meteors that approach Earth burn up in our atmosphere. The asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere in 2013 over Russia broke 15 miles above the ground and generated a shock wave equivalent to a 500-kiloton explosion.
5. Facebook's facial recognition system was found to outperform similar systems used by the FBI. Where Facebook has a 98% accuracy rating in identifying faces, the FBI had a success rate of 85%.
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6School lunch program
The school lunch program was invented to help prop up food prices by absorbing farm surpluses.
7. In 1983, a USAF KC-135 tanker used its fuel boom to tow an F-4 Phantom to safety after the fighter lost engine power flying over the Atlantic.
8. The British Veterinary Association is urging people to avoid pugs, bulldogs, and Shih-Tzus due to the health problems associated with the breeds.
9. Lion's roar from the Metro-Goldwyn logo is actually made from tiger vocalizations, as "lions don't make that kind of ferocious noise and the logo needed to be ferocious and majestic."
10. In 2016, Rock band Train released an album covering Led Zeppelin II in its entirety. New York Daily News called it "confusing and unnecessary".
11Whiskey Plates
In Minnesota, those involved in certain DWI and DUI incidents obtain special registration plates that always begin with the letter 'W'. These are called Whiskey Plates.
12. The United States Air Force Pararescue (PJs) unit uses the sound bite of "Leeroy Jenkins" from World of Warcraft to notify themselves of an upcoming medevac mission.
13. Every major space vehicle flown from Cape Canaveral has been wired with a remote explosive destruct system to be used if the vehicle should travel off course and towards populated areas.
14. Cats have almost twice the amount of neurons as dogs and can be allergic to humans.
15. The Vatican declared wearing bikinis a sin in the 1950s.
16Pubs
In 1915, Closing and Opening times in pubs had to be implemented to stop factory workers from showing up to work drunk and harming the war effort.
17. A 1948 survey found that, pregnant women in USA were not allowed to be teachers in 57% of public school districts because "the sight of pregnant women would unfavorably influence students" and because "pregnant teachers' minds would not be on their work."
18. There are 33 Shakespeare gardens in the world that only cultivate plants which were mentioned in the works of the English poet William Shakespeare.
19. An island was christened a warship by the British Navy during a French blockade. The HMS Diamond Rock was fortified with cannons and spent 17 months hammering any passing French ships, and to this day anyone in the British Navy is required to salute the rock when they pass it.
20. A critical mass of uranium assembled itself in what is now the Central African state of Gabon, forming the first and only natural nuclear reactor in history. It fissioned for hundreds of thousands of years before fizzling out.
21Sum41
The Rock band Sum41 named the album "Chuck" after the man who got them out of a hotel in the Congo near a war zone.
22. Finland trains elite soldiers in Lapland in preparation for a future war with neighboring Russia. The two countries share an 833-mile border and were in conflict during World War 2.
23. China/Taiwan renamed Guardians of the Galaxy as: "Interplanetary Unusual Attack Team".
24. After being fatally shot in 1996, Tupac Shakur’s last and only words to assisting police were “f*ck you”. He refused to say anything else.
25. Naturalist William Buckland spent much of his life trying to eat every animal possible to see how it tasted. He grew fond of eating mice on toast, while his least favorite meals were that of mole and bluebottle flies.
