1Jack Whittaker
The lottery winner Jack Whittaker was once robbed of $545,000 in cash. When asked why he would carry around that much money, he responded with "because I can". He was later robbed for $200,000 cash.
2. Approximately once every 18 months (on average) a total solar eclipse is visible from some place on the Earth’s surface.
3. The Aeroflot Flight 6502 incident of 1986 in which a Soviet pilot made a bet with his co-pilot that he could land the airplane blind. He crashed the plane, killing 70 out of 94 passengers and crew.
4. ChildLine has spent more than 25 years in making sure that an adult is at the end of a phone to help children tackle all kinds of serious issues, including bullying, neglect, and violence at home to alcohol and drug problems.
5. Katherine Johnson calculated rockets trajectories by hand. Buzz Aldrin trusted no one else. Not even their computers.
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6Charles J. Guiteau
Charles J. Guiteau who assassinated US President James A. Garfield intentionally used a gun that would look nice in a museum.
7. The wild bison of Yellowstone National Park has adapted to utilize the local hot springs as bidets to clean the thick fur of their nether regions before mating.
8. Scotland Yard has a team of over 200 "Super Recognisers" who can remember 80% of faces they ever seen. The rest of us can do about 20%.
9. 35% of British adults sleep with a stuffed bear toy.
10. Not all bats live in caves. These thumb-sized Honduran White Bats sleep in leaves in the rainforest. They are polygamous. Each leaf-tent houses a single male and his harem of up to six females.
11Helium
When helium is cooled to near absolute zero it becomes a liquid that flows against gravity.
12. A Japanese criminal mastermind dubbed "The Monster with 21 Faces". He was responsible for extorting and poisoning products at confectionery companies across Tokyo. His activity ceased after the ritual suicide of a police chief, who failed to stop him. He has never been caught.
13. Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night was a 1945 plan developed by Shirō Ishii to wage biological warfare upon civilian population centers in Southern California in the United States during the final months of World War II, using plague fleas from unit 731.
14. In Greek mythology, Chaos was the origin of everything.
15. When Hall of Fame NFL Running back, Curtis Martin, was 15 years old, he was held up with a loaded gun to his head. The criminal pulled the trigger seven times, but no bullet came out. On the eighth trigger pull, the gun discharged while aimed elsewhere.
16Moon landing
NASA accidentally recorded over the original moon landing tapes and lost a critical piece of human history forever.
17. Studio directors knew to film John Wayne's scenes before noon because by the afternoon he was a 'real mean drunk'.
18. The phajaan process used to train elephants for tourism. They're routinely beaten with whips, sticks, and hooks, kept in cramped cages with feet tied together and pierced with a long bullhook to remove any sense of wild in them.
19. There is a severe shortage of 'spitter apples' which are preferred for making ciders because during prohibition the FBI went around chopping down huge swaths of orchards, effectively erasing much of the nation's stock of spitter apple trees that initially take 20-30 years to grow.
20. Bird's nest custody is a specific form of joint custody in which, rather than having the children go from one parent's house to the other parent's house, the parents move in and out of the house that the children constantly reside in.
21Betty Ford
First Lady Betty Ford was a supporter of the equal rights amendment (ERA), publicly pro-choice, and a breast cancer survivor who raised awareness about breast cancer as well as alcohol addiction as a result of her own struggle with both conditions.
22. After a ticker-tape parade to celebrate his Olympic medals, Jesse Owens was not permitted to enter through the main doors of the Waldorf Astoria and instead forced to travel up to the event in a freight elevator to reach the reception honoring him.
23. Portobello, cremini and button mushrooms are all the same type of mushroom, but at different stages of maturity.
24. The city of London is still paying rent of a sharp axe, a billhook, 6 horseshoes, and 61 nails to the Queen on a property leased in 1211.
25. The morning after Muhammad Ali lost in a fight against Larry Holmes, a 14-year-old Mike Tyson promised him that when he "got big" he would take down Larry Holmes for him. 6 years later, Tyson fought against Larry Holmes and won.
