1Frit
The black paint that is used around the outside of your car’s windshield is called ‘frit’. The frit band both hides the sealant securing the windshield to your car and protects it from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, which can damage the adhesive.
2. Rubies and Sapphires are the same mineral, Corundum. They differ with color due to small imperfections of the mineral.
3. Ivaylo the “lettuce” was a swineherd, who, frustrated with the Mongol raids on his lands, led a peasant army which defeated the Mongols and later the Bulgarian army, slaying the king and taking the throne. He defeated the Mongols again and the Byzantines 3 times, at one point fighting a 2 front war.
4. Paul Winchell, the voice of the beloved character, Tigger, also invented the artificial heart.
5. Gonorrhea is one of the strongest known organisms, capable of pulling with a force 100,000 times their own body weight. This is equivalent to a human pulling 10 million kilos.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Oregon Trucker
In 2018, a trucker in Oregon hauling potato chips got lost in an unfamiliar area after entering the wrong GPS coordinates and became stuck on a snowy embankment while attempting to turn around. He was found after 4 days so dehydrated that his kidneys shut down and he was close to having frostbite on one foot but still he didn't eat one chip.
7. Coyotes will often befriend badgers in order to form hunting parties. The coyote hunts for faster-moving prey while the badger digs up burrows.
8. Alexander III of Russia saved his family when the imperial train derailed in 1888, by holding up the collapsed roof of the dining car. The onset of his kidney failure was later attributed to the blunt trauma suffered in this incident.
9. Men and women of the Yanyuwa tribe in the Northern Territory of Australia speak different dialects of the same Yanyuwa language. The only time men use the women’s dialect is if they are quoting someone of the opposite sex and vice versa.
10. Winston Churchill predicted lab-grown meat 89 years ago. “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”
11ABBA Outfits
ABBA’s famous outfits were chosen because of Swedish tax law. If they bought clothes for the performance they could get a tax deduction, but they had to prove they couldn’t be worn on the street. According to Björn “we looked like nuts … Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were.”
12. During a sailing competition in the 1988 South Korea Olympics, the Singapore team’s ship capsized and the two-man team was thrown overboard. They were rescued up by Lawrence Lemieux, who went off course to reach them. Lemieux finished 22nd but was given 2nd place. He later received a medal.
13. Martin Luther King was working on a multiracial Poor People's Campaign when he was killed.
14. Smuckers Uncrustables sends all of their discarded crusts to be made into animal feed.
15. For 70 years, Allied Navies fought over an old photo of Esther Williams. Ship's officers would steal or take it by force, and display it in their ship’s officers' mess. It was retired in 2013 after Esther Williams died.
16Bachelor Tax
In the 1900s Argentina had a tax on unmarried men that included an exemption for single men who had proposed to a woman for marriage but were rejected. Women then started proposals rejection businesses where they would charge to turn down proposals from bachelors seeking to evade the tax.
17. Chimpanzees and monkeys are living in their Stone Age and have been for thousands of years.
18. A man in Hanover, New Hampshire used to feed donuts every day to a bear named Mink, but when he died, she started venturing into the town in search of treats. This behavior forced officials to relocate her, but the determined bear walked over a thousand miles back to Hanover.
19. Jan Baalsrud was a Norwegian who took 11 commandos into the fjords aboard a fishing boat full of explosives to sabotage the Nazis during World War 2. His feet froze solid and an avalanche buried him. He then used a knife to amputate his frostbitten toes and his escape made him into a Norwegian national folk hero.
20. The last person to die of smallpox was Janet Parker in Birmingham the UK in 1978. She was infected in the laboratory at Birmingham Medical School. When the Professor in charge of the lab found out about her illness, he committed suicide.
21Sand Dollars
Scientists believe that younger Sand Dollars sift through sand and ingest small grains of Magnetite, an iron-rich deposit found in the ocean. These Sand Dollars will then take these grains and store them in chambers inside their body to help weigh them down and keep them from floating away.
22. Hans Litten was a German lawyer that represented Nazi opposition during various trials. In 1931, he subpoenaed and cross-examined Hitler for hours. His bravery eventually resulted in his detainment and torture in various concentration camps, leading to his death by suicide.
23. When KFC opened in China in the late 80s, the restaurant accidentally translated its famous slogan “Finger-lickin’ good” to “Eat your fingers off.”
24. Throwing rice at weddings will not cause birds to explode and the myth that it is harmful was probably started by churches and wedding venues who didn’t want to clean it all up and for them to avoid potential slip-and-fall lawsuits.
25. The first-ever Super Bowl Halftime Show (1967) didn't feature award-winning musicians, but rather two men flying around with jet packs. The spectacle was witnessed by 60,000 in attendance and 50 million watching at home.
