1Box beds
People used to sleep indoors in ornate boxes called “box beds” or “lit close” to protect themselves from wolves, stay warm, and have some privacy.
2. If you get a zebrafish drunk, it convinces the other sober fish to follow it around.
3. The oldest recorded murder victim was probably murdered 430,000 years ago. Archaeologists have discovered a skull dating from 430,000 years ago which shows distinct evidence of foul play. This is the earliest clear case of deliberate, lethal interpersonal aggression in the hominin fossil record, demonstrating that this is an ancient human behavior.
4. After India, the state of Texas now has the world's second-largest tiger population.
5. The city of Detroit has its own local currency, fully backed by U.S. currency. It's printed in $3 bills and features the Spirit of Detroit over the Detroit Skyline.
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6Seattle's Space Needle
Seattle's Space Needle is an example of Googie architecture, a type that flourished in the post-World War 2 era and was parodied on The Jetsons. It was named after the West Hollywood Googie's Coffee Shop designed in 1949 by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.
7. There is a species of samurai ant (Polyergus samurai) that is known to raid rival species nests, kill all the rival ants, collect the rivals eggs, and raise those hatched ants as slaves.
8. Male rhesus macaque monkeys will pay to look at pictures of female rhesus macaques' bottoms.
9. Some chimpanzees have been observed sharpening sticks with their teeth and using them as spears to hunt small mammals.
10. Johnny Stompanato was a bodyguard and mafia enforcer for Mickey Cohen. He dated actress Lana Turner who he physically abused. On April 4th, 1958 after threatening the life of Turner, her mother, and daughter he was stabbed to death by Turner's 14-year-old daughter (Cheryl Crane).
11Bog butter
Bog butter is an ancient waxy substance often found buried in peat bogs that was used as a way of preserving butter in ancient Ireland. The butter would gain flavor notes from its surroundings that were namely described as “gamey,” “moss,” “funky,” “pungent,” and “salami.”
12. Michael Jackson couldn't read or write music. Instead, he fully realized music in his head and recorded himself singing the different parts on a cassette recorder.
13. Bulgarians refer to bucket hats as "idiotka", which means idiot hats.
14. It took 49 years to publish the first authoritative English dictionary. It took 5 years to publish the first part, A to Ant.
15. Underwater basket weaving has been used as a pejorative term for excessively easy/useless/niche courses for at least the past 65 years.
16Vasily Stalin
After a plane crash that wiped out almost the entire Russian National Hockey team in 1950, Stalin's son (Vasily Stalin) feared his father's reaction and recruited a new team in one day and his father did not even notice.
17. The United States invaded Canada in 1812. Former President Thomas Jefferson predicted that the "acquisition of Canada (..) will be a mere matter of marching". However, it went terribly. After a few months, the entire Michigan territory had fallen.
18. The father of modern policing (Eugène François Vidocq) was a former criminal turned detective who refused to arrest anyone who stole out of necessity.
19. American actor Harold Ramis took meth right before his military draft physical to get out of the Vietnam war.
20. The Atacama Desert in South America is the driest nonpolar place in the world. Some weather stations there have never received rain and evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971.
21John F. Kennedy
During the Cuban missile crisis, John F. Kennedy said: “Why does he put these in there, though? … It’s just as if we suddenly began to put a major number of MRBMs (Medium-range ballistic missile) in Turkey. Now that’d be goddamned dangerous, I would think.” His advisor immediately pointed out: “Well we did it, Mr. President.”
22. The sharks built for the movie Jaws were collectively named "Bruce," a tribute to Steven Spielberg's lawyer. Bruce the Fish Friendly Shark from Finding Nemo was also a reference to Jaws.
23. When James Robert Ringrose, one of FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in 1966, he presented the FBI agents with a "Get out of jail free" card from Monopoly.
24. A condemned ship filled with animals sailed over Niagara Falls as part of a tourism stunt. In 1827, William Forsyth, an investor in the Falls, concocted the idea to draw in more tourism. The ship held Buffalo, bears, raccoons, a dog, and a goose. Some 10,000 people watched it sail over the edge.
25. In 2010, a papyrus document featuring Cleopatra's handwriting went on display at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute. The document refers to a tax break for a friend of her husband Mark Antony. Cleopatra signed it with a Greek word meaning "make it happen".
