26Lawmaker Charondas' Tragic End
In the 7th century BC, lawmaker Charondas forbade anyone from bringing weapons to the assembly under penalty of death. One day, seeking to defeat some brigands in the hills, he brought a knife to the assembly. In order to uphold his own law, he killed himself.
27. During WWII, Buddy Lewis, an MLB player, served as a pilot and received instructions to carry a cake of cocaine in his pocket while flying over the Burmese jungles. This was because, in the event of a crash, the locals had a fondness for the substance and would assist him in safely navigating out of the jungle.
28. Tanna is a small island in the South Pacific where villagers worship a mythical American WW2 veteran named John Frum, believing that he will bring them material wealth one day.
29. Pedestrianism used to be a major spectator sport. In 18th- and early 19th-century Britain, a common challenge was to walk 1000 miles in 1000 hours, and gambling was often involved.
30. The Mani Peninsula of Greece contained the last remnants of Spartans, the last of the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity, never fully conquered by Ottomans, the source of the Greek War of Independence, contains a cave to Hades and a temple that Roman Generals and Emperors would visit.
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31Humid Environments and Tones
Languages that originate in humid environments are more likely to have a wide range of tones because human vocal folds become more elastic in humid environments.
32. In the 1980s, Jim Davis wanted plush Garfields made with Velcro so people could hang them on curtains, but the factory mistakenly returned the prototype with suction cups. He approved it. They soon became a craze, and people were putting them on car windows and smashing car windows to steal them.
33. Steven Spielberg was not present for the shooting of the final scene in Jaws because he thought the film crew was going to throw him into the water once the shoot ended. Since then, it has become a tradition for him to be absent when the final scene of one of his films is being shot.
34. Ford's first car, a 1903 Model A with an original price of $850, sold at auction in 2012 for $264,000. This specific car was the third 1903 Model A made by Ford and is the oldest known surviving Ford car. The buyer was William Clay Ford Jr., the great-grandson of Ford founder Henry Ford.
35. Even a copy of Action Comics #1, graded as low as 1.5/10 by the CGC, still fetched $175,000.
