1Go-Go
The Go-Go's are the only all-female band to both write their own songs and play their own instruments to top the Billboard album charts.
2. When the show of comedian Benny Hill was canceled, it devastated him and his health started to decline. However, fans of his show continued pushing for a new series. A company saw this and sent him an offer for some specials. It arrived in the mail on the same day he died.
3. Because of the shorter commercial breaks in the United Kingdom, every episode of The Muppet Show had two minutes of additional footage, usually consisting of a skit or a short song.
4. In order to prevent tourists from stealing their beer glasses, some bars in Belgium require people to hand over one of their shoes as a deposit which is then put in a basket and hung from the ceiling.
5. Brazilian prisons offer to reduce the sentences of their prisoners by 4 days (up to 48 days/year) for every book they read and write a report on.
Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Quipu
The Incas did not have a written language, instead, they used colorful knotted cords called Quipu to record numbers and archives such as census data and storehouse records. They had up to a thousand unique strands.
7. Cheryl Crane, the daughter of actress Lana Turner, stabbed one of her mother’s boyfriends to death during a domestic struggle at the age of 14 in 1958. It was considered a justifiable homicide and she was deemed to have been protecting her mother. The boyfriend was a known abuser.
8. The drink mix Tang wasn't created by or for NASA. It was introduced in 1957 but sold poorly until the U.S. space agency used it for John Glenn's 1962 Mercury mission. Tang was then marketed as what the astronauts drank, but Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin later said, "Tang sucks."
9. Ama are female Japanese pearl divers that start diving at the age of 12-13, and are well active into their 70s. They endure freezing conditions and great pressure from deep-sea depths to get pearls. They have a unique technique in which they release air in a long whistle as they resurface.
10. Frank Willis, a security guard in 1972. While on duty, he noticed the tape on a basement door lock. Thinking a worker had left it there accidentally, he removed it. Willis later found tape again in the same place. He called the police, saying he believed there had been a break-in at Watergate.
11Blue M&Ms
Blue M&Ms didn't exist until 1995 when a poll was held to replace the tan shade of M&M that was deemed redundant in addition to the brown M&M. Of pink, blue, and purple, blue won.
12. In the United Kingdom, several Prisons have restaurants that are fully run by inmates at the prison, including chefs and waiters. These restaurants are also open to the public and rank highly on Tripadvisor.
13. When French explorers thought they were the first Europeans to ever reach some historical Afghan caves in the 1930s, they were surprised to find a text inscribed on the wall saying: "if any fool this high samootch explore, Know Charles Masson has been here before."
14. The largest empire ever to exist based on the percentage of the world population was the Achaemenid Empire originating from Iran, which contained 44% of the global population in 480 B.C.
15. The summit of Mount Everest is made of marine limestone which means the highest point on earth was once at the bottom of the sea.
16Kodak Kodachrome
The last roll of Kodak Kodachrome film was given to National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry who used it to capture 36 original images including one of a nomadic tribe in India whose nomadic ways were coming to an end.
17. Adolf Hitler's personal chauffeur and close confidant, Emil Maurice, was Jewish. He was also one of the founding members of the SS. After uncovering of his Jewish heritage, Hitler declared that he was an 'honorary Aryan' and prevented him from being expelled from the SS by Himmler.
18. The Guatemalan government carried out a genocide in the 1980s known as the Silent Holocaust against the Mayan people. Throughout it, the US government under Ronald Reagan gave Guatemala military aid, helping the genocidaires commit their atrocities.
19. Scientists have discovered a unique organism that they have named hemimastix kukwesjijk which is not a plant, animal, fungus, or a protozoa. It constitutes an entirely new Kingdom, a new branch on the tree of life.
20. The space shuttle Atlantis flew 135 missions with a flight computer that had less than 1% of the computing power of an Xbox 360.
21Jacques Cartier
In 1536, French explorer Jacques Cartier and his crew were cured of scurvy by drinking tea of pine needles and by eating bark given to them by the Iroquois after the crew suffered months of nutritional deprivation at sea. Pine needles have approximately 3 to 5 times more vitamin C than an orange.
22. Humans hear anywhere from 20 to 100 times faster than they see so that everything that they perceive with their ears is coloring every other perception they have and every conscious thought they have. The sound gets in so fast that it modifies all the other input and sets the stage for it.
23. Tombili was a cat from Turkey that was well known for her friendliness, her unique way of reclining against steps and her chubby figure. When she passed away in 2016, the city of Istanbul honored her with a statue of her.
24. Robin Williams once protested saying, “It’s my voice! You can’t stop me” against Disney when they tried to prevent him from voice acting in Ferngully: The Last Rainforest.
25. Immediately after landing on the moon, the Apollo 11 crew was supposed to sleep for 5 hours. They didn't, because they figured they wouldn't be able to.
