38 Eccentric Facts About US Cities Very Few Know – Part 2

There is a plane that flies above Los Angeles every single day releasing thousands of sterile fruit flies from 2,000 feet in the air to combat the invasive Mediterranean Fruit Fly. Up to 125,000 flies per square mile are released each week in what’s called “biological birth control.”

27. 1980, Detroit gave Saddam Hussein a key to the city out of recognition of donations he made to local churches.

28. El Paso, Texas is one of the safest big cities in America, despite being across the river from Juarez, one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

29. In San Antonio, Texas lynchings used to be held in front of the San Fernando Cathedral until the priest cut the trees in which the hangings took place.

30. Detroit has the worst 911 response time in America, with police & EMS taking over an hour to show up. In 2013, despite numerous 911 calls, police arrived 90 minutes later to find Stacey Hightower had been murdered by an intruder. Her mother sued the city of Detroit, but they were bankrupt.

It used to be illegal for men to be topless and show their nipples until a judge overturned New York State’s male shirtless bans in 1937 following men protesting for their rights to not sexualize their bare chest.

32. Nashville, Tennessee isn't referred to as the “Athens of the South” because of its full size replica of the Parthenon, but because it was the first American southern city to establish a public school system in the 1850s.

33. Portland was named by a coin flip. Had the coin landed the other way, the city would have been Boston, Oregon.

34. The St. Patrick’s Day tradition of dyeing the Chicago River green arose by accident when a group of plumbers used green dye to trace illegal substances that were polluting the river. The dyeing of the river is still sponsored by the local plumbers union.

35. Art thieves posing as police officers stole 13 works valued at $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. The stolen artwork included paintings by Rembrandt, Manet and Vermeer. The artwork hasn’t been recovered, and only empty frames hang in their place.

The most expensive hot dog at an MLB stadium is $7 at Nationals Park in Washington DC, while the cheapest hot dog is $1.50 at Oriole Park in Baltimore, less than an hour away.

37. Seattle kids have a lower polio vaccination than the African country of Rwanda.

38. San Francisco’s LBGT culture was rooted in the gold rush, when the city’s population was 95% men. The unbalanced gender ratio made things such as cross-dressing and same-sex dancing commonplace.