26 Rumbling in Ears
The rumbling sound you hear when closing your eyes tightly is caused by the tensor tympani muscle contracting.
27. In 2017, the FDA banned a bakery from listing ‘love’ as an ingredient on its granola.
28. The oldest living terrestrial animal is a 186-year old (in 2018) giant tortoise called Jonathan. He has been mating with a female giant tortoise called Frederica since 1991, who was discovered to be a male in 2017.
29. In 1974, a researcher named Jane Goodall observed a social rift in a community of chimpanzees turn into a violent 4 year civil war for territory which involved kidnapping, rape and murder. It changed her perception of chimpanzees. It is known as the “Gombe Chimpanzee War.”
30. There was a popular 1997 Russian TV Show named ‘The Intercept’ in which the contestant had to steal a car and avoid the police for 35 minutes. If the contestant successfully avoided the police, he won the car.
31 Getty Images
In 2016, ‘Getty Images’ sold some of the 100,000+ photos that had been donated, royalty-free, to the Library of Congress by the original photographer and Getty Images then demanded payment from the photographer, for using the photos she owned. She sued them (unsuccessfully) for over $1 billion.
32. The first chocolate bar was made in 1847. Before that, chocolate was exclusively a drink.
33. Until modern times, when artificial lighting allowed us to stay awake longer, most people would go to bed around sunset. The actual time spent sleeping was split into two phases known as first sleep and second sleep.
34. Ridley Scott had plans to adapt the dystopian novel Brave New World into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Ridley Scott ultimately had trouble doing the book justice and stated, “I don’t know what to do with Brave New World. It’s tough….when you reanalyze it, maybe it should stay a book”.
35. In 1977, a woman named Maria Rubio in New Mexico saw a burn mark in her tortilla that looked like the face of Jesus. She then built and ran the “Shrine of the Miracle Tortilla” until 2006 when the tortilla was dropped and broken during show-and-tell at a local elementary school.
36 Home Alone
‘Home Alone’ was released in France as ‘Mum, I Missed the Plane’, and ‘Home Alone 2’ as ‘Mum, I Missed the Plane Again and This Time I Am Lost in New York.’
37. Because written Chinese uses characters to represent concepts rather than sounds, speakers of different languages such as Mandarin and Cantonese can communicate through writing, but not speech.
38. Because of the way bacon was being packaged layered so as to emphasize the meaty side of the bacon and make it seem less fatty, the federal government intervened in 1974 by enacting strict regulations requiring that a “representative slice” be made visible through a “transparent window.”
39. Pablo Picasso’s full name has 23 words and 103 characters. His full name is ‘Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso.’
40. There’s a noticeable uptick in heart attacks immediately following Daylight Saving Time likely due to people suddenly changing their sleep patterns, going against their “internal clock.”
41 Burning Mountain
The Burning Mountain in Australia has an underground coal fire that has been burning for approximately 6000 years and is the oldest known coal fire.
42. A single wolverine crossed the ice of Lake Huron into Michigan, where it lived out its days as the only one in the entire state. A local science teacher named Jeff Ford followed and studied her closely for years until her death. Upon finding her dead he said, “I feel like I lost a member of my family.”
43. The 2005 film “Brokeback Mountain” originally intended to star Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix but both actors were uncomfortable with the film’s sex scenes and declined the parts.
44. Death by misadventure is a legally-defined manner of death, primarily attributed to an accident that occurred due to a dangerous risk that was taken voluntarily.
45. In 2022, we will be able to see a red supernova with a naked eye.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Georges Bizet
A French composer named Georges Bizet died of a heart attack at the age of 37 about a month after his masterpiece ‘Opera Carmen’ premiered to bad reviews and low attendance. Despite dying convinced his work had been a flop, the Opera would go on to become one of the most iconic works of music.
47. In 1968, when the UK government did not celebrate the Royal Air Force’s 50th anniversary with a flypast over London, a pilot named Alan Pollock performed his own fly through the Tower Bridge, round Big Ben and was fired.
48. At an art display, live goldfish were placed on display swimming in blenders, and visitors were told they could press the “on” button if they wanted. At least one visitor did end up pressing the button, killing two goldfish.
49. Picasso once famously said: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Researchers hypothesized that this is because early childhood is a period characterized by “exuberant neural connectivity” that facilitates “arbitrary sensory experiences in infants.”
50. 25% of suicides happen on a Wednesday, 11% more than the next highest day.
Can hardly wait until 2022 when I can see a supernova with my naked eye. (#45).
RE: Fact #3 (Yuri Gagarin) – what a wonderful man