1Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill authorized a $200 million bribe to Spanish officials to keep Spain from joining World War 2 on the side the Axis.
2. The vast majority of meth labs in the U.S. are located in the Midwest, with Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee being home to as many labs as the rest of the U.S. combined.
3. The Christmas Eve parlor game Snap-dragon is a game where raisins are placed in a bowl of brandy, the brandy is lit on fire, and participants have to snatch the burning raisins.
4. DMX has been in trouble with the law 22 times in the last 20 years. Most of them stem from animal cruelty, drug, weapon possession, driving under the influence or without a license and failure to pay child support.
5. Some kids conclude that it's the birthday parties causing them to age.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6McKee Sons
The McKee Sons was a freighter that ran aground in the Detroit River on Christmas Eve of 2010 while delivering almost 12,000 tons of coal.
7. There is a Peruvian Christmas Tradition (Takanakuy) where people fight each other to settle grievances on Christmas Day.
8. Richard Dean Anderson and 80 other action stars turned down the role of John McClane in Die Hard before Bruce Willis was chosen for the role.
9. The hottest thing in the known universe is actually on Earth: The Large Hadron Collider can reach temperatures of 4 trillion Kelvin.
10. Surplus jet engines were used to de-ice railroads in Soviet Russia.
11Slow loris
The slow loris is the only poisonous primate in existence. Its toxin can kill a human and may have evolved from trying to mimic a cobra.
12. US State Pennsylvania makes 80% of US pretzels.
13. The largest private landowner (John Malone) in the US owns 2.2 million acres which is about three times the size of Rhode Island.
14. John Wayne's voice was heavily processed and edited from archive audio to be used for Garindan in 'Star Wars.'
15. In 1854, the Mayor of Los Angeles (Stephen Clark Foster) resigned to lead a lynch mob and then was re-elected.
16Big Bug Man
Marlon Brando’s final film was a movie called “Big Bug Man”. The animated film, co-starring Brendan Fraser, still has not been released and likely never will be.
17. The egg that created you was formed inside of your mother’s fetus while she was inside of your grandmother’s womb.
18. France won a war over China in 1885 resulting in the creation of French Indochina.
19. The Philippine Tarsier is known to commit suicide in captivity by smashing its own head against rocks.
20. Actor Peter Capaldi chose a buttoned-to-the-top white shirt as his costume for Doctor Who, to be reachable so even poor kids could pretend to be the doctor.
21Stalin
In 1933, Stalin criminalized male homosexuality but left lesbianism untouched.
22. The idiom "When my ship comes in" originated with sailors' wives who promised to pay off debts when the sailors' ships returned to port.
23. On Dec 26th, the aristocracy distributed presents (boxes) to servants and employees, who returned home, opened their boxes and had a second Christmas on what became known as "Boxing Day."
24. Gulag is actually an acronym of "Glavnoye Upravleniye LAGerej" or "Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps and Settlements".
25. Yea and Nay don't mean exactly the same as Yes and No. They were for questions posed in the positive whereas yes and no were for questions in the negative. So answering "yes" to "don't you like it?" always meant you did like it. This removes ambiguity.
