26 Lincoln’s Bodyguard John Frederick Parker
John Frederick Parker, the bodyguard assigned to protect Abraham Lincoln, left his post during the intermission of the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. He went to a nearby saloon, got drunk, and fell asleep. Three years later, they fired him for falling asleep on duty again.
27. Boiling water can remove microplastics. Boiling hard water for a few minutes and then filtering it can remove up to 80% of microplastics, but soft water may only see a 25% reduction.
28. Most Little Rascals episodes from the 1930s were heavily edited in the 1970s to remove jokes about race, women, disabilities, children, the elderly, and violence.
29. Gatorade established the Gatorade Sports Science Institute and later successfully influenced the sports industry in the United States to believe that athletes must drink their beverages to avoid muscle cramping.
30. PTSD did not become an official medical diagnosis until 1980.
31 Korean Crown Prince Sado’s Fate
In the 18th century, Korean Crown Prince Sado went murderously insane while he was regent, torturing, assaulting, and killing courtiers and servants on a whim. In 1762, his father, King Yeongjo, executed him by locking him in a rice chest and starving him to death.
32. New Jersey almost made “Born to Run” the state song until its Senate realized the lyrics depicted a desire to leave New Jersey.
33. In 2007, a 75-year-old Swedish pensioner named Sigbritt Löthberg had the fastest internet in the world, with a speed of around 40 Gbps. She was the mother of Swedish “internet legend” Peter Löthberg.
34. Franz Kafka, a renowned writer known for his surreal and existential works, held a lifelong belief that other people found him mentally and physically repulsive. In reality, many who met him found him to be handsome, intelligent, and possessing a good sense of humor.
35. For a long time, people have consumed corn silk as a folk medicine to treat gonorrhea and stop children from urinating in their beds.
36 Ozempic & Gila Monster Venom
The active ingredient in Ozempic, a type 2 diabetes medication, shares structural similarities with compounds found in Gila monster venom. This discovery led directly to the development of all semaglutide-based medications. Notably, Ozempic and similar drugs have gained recent popularity, with several celebrities publicly endorsing their use for weight loss and diabetes management.
37. A New York City man named Wayne Murray won two $10 million prizes on two different scratch-offs that he purchased from the same shop just over a year apart. Murray won his first top prize in August 2022 and won it a second time in December 2023.
38. Forty-three students mysteriously vanished in southwestern Mexico in September 2014. Police and the cartel collaborated to abduct, torture, and murder at least 38 student teachers from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College.
39. The recently built $5 billion SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, has no air conditioning. Instead, it relies on the sea breeze to cool the stadium down.
40. There has never been a US president who was an only child. On average, US presidents have had just over five siblings.
41 Brazilian Slave Destination
During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Brazil was the largest slave destination, receiving 38% of the roughly 10 million slaves trafficked.
42. Electron microscopes produce only black and white images because color doesn’t exist at those scales. Their images are smaller than the visible light’s wavelength. However, false color is often used.
43. As many as 1 in 4 residents in La Rinconada, the highest human settlement in the world, suffer from hypoxia.
44. In the 1960s, Australian researchers brought four VW Beetles to Antarctica as their main mode of transportation across the barren, frozen continent.
45. Volkswagen allegedly used debt bondage, a form of modern slavery, at their large cattle ranch in the Brazilian Amazonia in the 1970s and 1980s.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 German U-Boats & American Ships
German U-boats sank almost 400 American ships off the coast of North Carolina during World War II, resulting in over 5,000 deaths.
47. The last nuclear explosion (as of June 2024) occurred in 2017. North Korea conducted an underground thermonuclear weapon test. It was the country’s sixth nuclear test.
48. The average soccer player runs about 7 miles in a match.
49. The Battle of the Overpass occurred in 1937 in Dearborn, Michigan, when UAW (United Automobile Workers) organizers attempted to hand out unionization leaflets but were attacked by Ford’s quasi-military security service. Ford then attempted to destroy the photographic evidence, but one photographer managed to sneak some out under the back seat of his car.
50. Researchers found in 2023 that just 10 species-wild boar, warthog, African bush elephant, two kangaroo species, and five deer species-make up over 40% of the biomass of wild land mammals on Earth.
