1Mark Twain
Mark Twain was obsessed with technology, writing science fiction including 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' which featured time travel. He also had a close personal friendship with Nikola Tesla and said: "a man with a new idea is a crank until he succeeds".
2. The croissant is not really French. It was inspired by the Austrian kipfel that dates back to at least 1227.
3. The “Drinkable Book” turns dirty water clean. Not only is it an instruction manual on how to filter water but it also has removable pages that are coated in silver nanoparticles that can be used to filter unclean water itself.
4. Film producer Carl Laemmle immigrated to USA in 1884. He started one of the first movie theaters in Chicago, challenged Thomas Edison’s monopoly on films, began advertising stars to increase their earnings, founded Universal Studios and sponsored hundreds of Jews to immigrate from Nazi Germany to USA.
5. Luciano Leggio, the former head of the Corleonesi Mafia clan, was first convicted at the age of 18 for stealing corn. As soon as he completed a six-month sentence, he murdered the man who had reported him to the police.
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6US money
The reason currency in US is green in color because U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving had plenty of green ink, which was durable. The color green was also associated with stability.
7. Doctors in the early 1900s thought bicycles would turn women gay.
8. Many shoe stores in the U.S. during the 1940's-70's had shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, which were essentially X-ray machines for the feet to see how well a person’s foot fit in the shoes they were considering buying.
9. A genetic condition named Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy gives people increased muscle strength and twice the usual amount of muscle mass. There are no known related health issues. Those affected from it are intellectually normal.
10. There is a military-only resort on Disney property in Florida that charges guests based on their rank.
11Small pocket
The small pocket of blue jeans was originally designed to hold pocket watches. The pocket dates back to the old west. Cowboys kept their pocket watches on chains and they put the watch in the small pocket, to help protect it.
12. In 2006, Judge Garland Ellis Burrell, Jr. ordered that items from Ted Kaczynski’s (Unabomber) cabin be sold at a “reasonably advertised Internet auction.” Bomb-making materials, such as diagrams for bombs, were excluded. The auction raised $232,000 which went towards restitution of Kaczynski’s victims.
13. During the Attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese pilot named Shigenori Nishikaichi crash-landed on the island of Ni'ihau (an island in Hawaii). With the help of Japanese-speaking residents, he terrorized the island before being killed.
14. The reason that Dippin' Dots ice cream which is made by flash freezing ice cream mix in liquid nitrogen is rarely sold in supermarkets is that it requires storage at temperatures below −40°F (−40°C), and supermarkets generally cannot provide such extreme cooling requirements.
15. In 1999, following the Russian apartment bombings, 3 FSB agents were arrested for planting a live bomb in an apartment building. They were later released after the head of the FSB claimed it was an exercise.
16HMS Belfast
The guns on the HMS Belfast, the battleship moored on the Thames, are aimed at a service station in North London.
17. The punishment for theft in Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s rule was amputation of the right hand and a branding on the forehead. Doctors who performed cosmetic procedures to hide the brand had their right hand amputated and their forehead branded.
18. Green smarties are strawberry flavored.
19. A polar bear won't set off an infrared motion detector.
20. Commercials of American restaurant chain ‘Jack in the Box’ featuring its mascot ‘Jack Box’ was launched as a PR campaign after ‘Jack in the Box’ had one of the worst E. coli outbreaks in US History in 1993 due to which four children died.
21Mushrooms
Japanese researchers have discovered that administering an electrical shock that simulates a lightning strike can increase mushroom yields leading to more and bigger mushrooms.
22. The first thing we develop in the womb is an anus. For the first few seconds of life, we are floating anuses.
23. Operation Popeye carried out by USA was the first example of weather warfare. During the Vietnam War, C-130 Hercules aircrafts and F-4 Phantoms were used to “seed” the clouds which would cause them to precipitate with an 82% success rate. The 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron carried out the operation using the slogan “make mud, not war.”
24. Sleeping under a weighted blanket can help reduce insomnia and anxiety.
25. The Mir Russian space station that launched in 1986 lasted for 15 years. It hosted the first wheat grown in space, the longest human presence, and survived several fires. When it began falling apart, astronaut Mike Foale said it was “a bit like a frat house, but more organized and better kept.”
