1Earth Simulator
"Earth Simulator" is one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet with nearly 35 trillion operations per second and it's used to model Earth's Climate.
2. Welles Crowther a.k.a. “The Man in the Red Bandana” was an equities trader who is credited with saving as many as 18 people in the south tower during the 9/11 attacks, before losing his own life in the collapse. Every year his Alma Mater Boston College honors him during a football game by wearing red bandanas.
3. Deus ex machina (God from the machine) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence. H.G. Wells used it in War of the Worlds to kill the Martians with bacteria.
4. Because of the actions of Bob Hawke and Michel Rocard, Antarctica has been protected from all drilling and mining since 1991. This protection banned these practices for fifty years, establishing Antarctica as a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science.”
5. In ancient China, a huge war was sparked because of a board game gone wrong. The crown prince was arguing with his cousin, the son of a regional king, during a match of a game called Liubo, and when his cousin offended him, he threw the board at him. He died from the blow. His father revolted.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6George Wythe
American founding father George Wythe was poisoned by his great-nephew, George Sweeney. Even though Wythe's black housekeeper provided evidence against Sweeney, it was thrown out in court because a black person could not legally testify against a white person, and Sweeney went free.
7. Chiggers don't actually bite or burrow but rather drill holes into our skin and then excrete enzymes that break the skin down into a liquid mixture. Then they slurp up the mixture through a hardened skin cell straw. They basically make skin frappes out of us.
8. Tumbleweeds, an iconic symbol of the old West, are actually an invasive species and didn't arrive until the late 1800s.
9. In 1745, a British soldier named Hannah Snell joined the British Army by disguising herself as a man. She managed to keep her gender a secret even though she received 500 lashes and was shot in the groin. After her service, she revealed her identity and was eventually awarded a military pension.
10. Jordan Peele decided to make "Us" a full-on horror film due to people being generally confused over the genre of "Get Out."
11Cary Grant
Actor Cary Grant experimented with LSD in the late 1950s an estimated 100 times and stated that it was the solution after many years of "searching for his peace of mind", and that for the first time in his life he was "truly, deeply and honestly happy."
12. Being a NASCAR pit crew member is so physically demanding that today instead of giving mechanics physical training, they take athletes and give them auto mechanic training.
13. During the Trial of Joan of Arc, the prosecution, headed by Pierre Cauchon, sent an agent to France to collect dirt on her life in her home village. Cauchon was enraged when the agent "had found nothing concerning Joan that he would not have liked to find about his own sister."
14. Willem Kolff created the first dialysis machine in the Netherlands during World War 2. Lacking materials, he used sausage casings, tin cans, a washing machine, and saltwater. He also saved more than 800 people from the Nazis by hiding them in his hospital. He later invented the artificial heart.
15. An engineer named Vic Tandy established a connection between supposed paranormal activity and infrasound frequency (~19Hz), which is below the range of human hearing and also roughly the resonant frequency of our eyeballs, causing some people to 'see' things that aren't there.
16Ivan the Terrible
Ivan the Terrible died without ever telling anyone where he put the library he inherited from his grandfather, and ever since there has been a treasure hunt for it.
17. In 1983, US Interior Department secretary James Watt banned the Beach Boys from playing at the National Mall, saying the concerts encouraged drug use and attracted the wrong element. He was forced to apologize after finding Ronald Reagan was a fan.
18. There is a 25 foot replica Statue of Liberty in the river outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was erected as a prank in 1986, and was originally made of Venetian blinds and plywood. A local lawyer admitted his role in the prank 25 years later, “well after the statute of limitations had expired.”
19. In 1972, Canadian radio station CBC held a poll to find a national simile (an answer to 'As American as apple pie'). The winning response was "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances."
20. A 67 million-year-old dinosaur mummy was found in 2007 with a lot its body still intact. This borealopelta was discovered with the protective armor, skin, and partial stomach still intact. It's been so well preserved that scientists deemed it closer to a mummy than a fossil.
21Pirate certificate
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a "pirate certificate" to students who complete the archery, sailing, fencing, and pistol or rifle shooting courses. The department frequently holds "pirate induction" days and has had a steady stream of students awarded the achievement.
22. In 2015, a Texas professor named Irwin Horwitz failed his entire class and quit because he thought that all of his students were disruptive or dishonest and therefore didn’t deserve to pass the course. He said the class was his worst in his 20 years of teaching.
23. White Castle became popular because of public reaction to Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. To make sure that customers thought their food was clean, the buildings were painted completely white, the interiors were made of stainless steel, and the employees all wore spotless uniforms.
24. A man named Richard Proenneke left his career as a heavy equipment operator, flew to a remote Alaskan lake, built a log cabin by hand, and lived there alone for 30 years.
25. The Monkees named their movie Head so that if they ever released a second film they could use the tag line “from the people who gave you Head.”
