26Japan's Failed Superbattleship Conversion
The Japanese turned the third of their superbattleships (after Yamato and Musashi) into the largest aircraft carrier ever built at the time. After four years of construction at enormous cost, she left the shipyard and was immediately sunk by a submarine.
27. The aardwolf knows not to destroy its food sources. Aardwolves eat part of a termite mound, leave it, and return a few months later when the colony has rebuilt so it can have another meal. An aardwolf keeps track of mounds it has attacked and can eat 250,000 termites in a single night.
28. When Buddy Holly died six months after being married, his widow inherited everything but signed over 50% to his family.
29. Jethro Tull's album "Thick as a Brick" was created as satire, poking fun at the 10-plus minute songs from prog rock bands at the time. It is now considered one of the best prog-rock albums of all time.
30. The Movile Cave in Romania has been completely sealed off from the outside world for 5.5 million years and has evolved dozens of animal species found nowhere else. These animals are sustained only by toxic chemicals in the air and water, not photosynthesis.
Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
31King Alfonso XIII and Pornographic Films
King Alfonso XIII of Spain was known as "the Playboy King" and considered the pioneer of pornographic cinema in Spain. He commissioned immoral and degenerate pornographic films, including those depicting sexual relationships involving Catholic priests, and had a passion for "women with enormous breasts."
32. Burt Ward once claimed that ABC prescribed him penis-shrinking pills because his bulge was too large for his Robin costume.
33. Iceland has no McDonald's restaurants anywhere in the country. McDonald's left Iceland on October 30, 2009, as a result of the 2008-2011 Icelandic financial crisis and high import tariffs on imported ingredients, which required the prices of their products to increase.
34. Shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, Eugene Stoner, inventor of the AR-15, and Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47, met near Washington, D.C., and developed a friendship that lasted until Stoner's death seven years later.
35. In 1993, Mattel's Barbie division accidentally released a gay Ken doll. Despite being quickly recalled, it remains the best-selling Ken doll of all time.
