26Spanish Flu
Prior to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 being reported in St. Louis, Dr. Max Starkloff had local physicians on high alert and wrote about the importance of avoiding crowds. As the health commissioner, he closed schools, theaters, and prohibited public gatherings. The city had the lowest U.S. mortality rate.
27. The Zulu part at the beginning of Lion King’s ‘Circle of Life’ basically means “here comes a lion; yup, it’s a lion.”
28. “The Great Leveler” is a book that argues that the greatest redistributions of wealth in history are during times of war, plague, and catastrophe, citing the Black Death and World War 1 as “actually suppressing inequality, by raising the price of labor.”
29. Evidence has shown that during the 7.5 months preceding Elvis’ death (from January 1, 1977, to August 16, 1977), Dr. Nichopoulos wrote prescriptions for Elvis for at least 8,805 pills, tablets, vials, and injectables. Going back to January 1975, the count was 19,012.
30. The marble lions outside the New York Public Library were named Patience and Fortitude by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia during the Great Depression.
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31Rainbow Lorikeet
The rainbow lorikeet is a colorful species of parrot native to the forests of eastern Australia. Reportedly, they love showering and sometimes sleep upside down. As intelligent birds, they easily get bored and love to play with noisy toys. When they eat fermented fruit, they can get quite drunk.
32. Old books have a particular pleasant smell due to lignin being present in the paper. Lignin is related to vanillin, leading them having a faint vanilla scent.
33. A Jewish girl named Eva Umlauf arrived in Auschwitz at the age of 2 in 1944. Despite her young age, she was tattooed with her camp number: A26959. Getting it was so painful, that she passed out. Her mother was a digit lower. Eva thinks she was the youngest child to have been tattooed who survived.
34. When Julie Andrews won the Oscar for Mary Poppins, she thanked Jack Warner, the producer of the competing movie, My Fair Lady. Andrews had starred in My Fair Lady on Broadway but Warner refused to cast her in the movie, leaving Andrews open to play Mary Poppins.
35. There are almost no mosquitoes in Disney World (Florida) even though it is in a swampy territory abundant with bugs. They have a sophisticated mosquito surveillance program to try and eliminate them quickly.
