1Skipper
The Skipper’s real name on Gilligan’s Island was Jonas Grumby, but it was rarely mentioned after the pilot episode.
2. Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jonge was scheduled to fly on Malaysia Air flights MH17 (which was shot down over Ukraine) and MH370 (which disappeared). Both times, he changed his plans and booked a different flight.
3. Jim Carrey's chipped tooth in Dumb and Dumber is genuine, the result of a childhood fight. He had the crown temporarily removed to play the role of Lloyd.
4. Australian racing driver Sir Jack Brabham finished the 1959 Formula One race on foot when his car ran out of fuel with 500 yards to go. He pushed the car the rest of the way to clinch the title.
5. On 12th April 1945, for their last performance before the end of WW2, the Berlin Philharmonic performed Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' - Twilight of the Gods - while the Hitler Youth distributed cyanide pills to the audience so that they could kill themselves.
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6Isaac Asimov
American writer Isaac Asimov died of AIDS. He contracted HIV during a blood transfusion but it was kept secret until after a decade of his passing in the early '90s because of the hostility of the general public to the disease.
7. The cult that inspired “drink the Kool-Aid” didn’t actually drink Kool-Aid. They drank Flavor-Aid. The phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” refers to the 1978 Jonestown massacre, in which more than 900 people committed mass suicide by drinking a flavored drink mixed with Valium.
8. The milk of the Domesticated Eland (large African antelope) can last 80 times longer than cow's milk, and Elands need much less water.
9. A viewer of "America's Most Wanted" called to report that he'd seen the kidnapped girl named Monica Judith Bonilla who was featured. The authorities investigated and found that while she wasn't the girl featured, she had indeed been kidnapped years ago. She was then reunited with her mother Rosemary Levi.
10. American supermarket chain Piggly Wiggly was the first true self-service grocery store. Before their founding on September 6, 1916, grocery stores did not allow their customers to gather their own goods. Instead, a customer would give a list of items to a clerk, who would then go through the store, gathering them.
11Upper Peninsula of Michigan
Upper Peninsula of Michigan (UP) is the only region in the US where Finnish Americans make up a plurality of the population. Even the local English dialect is influenced by Finnish.
12. Since 1951 in Israel it is required by the law that every new building will have a security room that can withstand blast and shrapnel from conventional weapons, and offer protection against chemical and biological weapons.
13. Despite being a tiny country with a large population density, the Netherlands is the world's second largest agricultural exporter.
14. Dave the Slave was a 19th-century potter who would inscribe his wares with original poetry. It is believed that he made over 40,000 pieces in his lifetime.
15. In 2017, Harvard scientists managed to store a GIF animation of a galloping horse in the DNA of bacteria.
16Virginia Woolf
British writer Virginia Woolf killed herself by filling her pockets with rocks and walking into the River Ouse.
17. Norse explorer Erik The Red who discovered Greenland, called it Greenland in spite of its ice cover, because people would be attracted to go there if it had a favorable name, and used it as a trick to lure settlers to Greenland.
18. Ninjas didn't wear black masks. The mask associated with ninjas is actually an amalgamation of how a thief dressed in Japan. Ninjas also didn't use shuriken (throwing stars). These were used by Samurai swordsmen.
19. A shogun of Japan named Tsunayoshi Tokugawa loved dogs so much that he set laws for dogs in place such as making it a capital crime for harming a dog and saved over 50,000 dogs from the streets, placing them in kennels begrudgingly funded by citizens of the capital city of Edo.
20. NBC refused to produce a Seinfeld episode wherein the script—George Costanza got in trouble for saying he’s never seen a black person ever order a salad.
21French Exit
In English, a ‘French Exit’ is to sneak out of a party without telling anyone. In French, it’s known as ‘partir à l’anglaise’—to leave the English way.
22. Jingle Bells is actually a Thanksgiving song, written about sleigh racing.
23. In the shanty "Drunken Sailer," one response to "What shall we do with the drunken sailor?" is "Put him in the bed with the captain's daughter." The Captain's Daughter is another name for the Cat o' Nine Tails, a multi-tailed whip.
24. During the 2015 active shooter incident at the Navy facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Staff Sergeant David Wyatt, one of four slain Marines, directed his junior troops to clear a nearby neighborhood park that was packed with children. They rounded up all of the children and hunkered down in a building nearby.
25. Due to the explosive popularity following the release of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, the cast was thrust into stardom so quickly that when Harrison Ford went to a record store to buy an album one day, enthusiastic fans tore half his shirt off.
