1 James Cameron’s Titanic Sacrifice
Director James Cameron voluntarily gave up his salary and percentage share of Titanic’s income when the film’s budget exceeded his original estimate. It inflated from $100 million to $120 million and then to $200 million. He wanted to ensure the studio executives didn’t think he had misled them to get the movie made.
2. Scientists once dismissed massive rogue waves as a sailors’ myth. However, an 84-foot wave hit the Gorm oil platform in the central North Sea in 1984, proving their existence. Since then, laboratories have mathematically validated and simulated this phenomenon and even confirmed the existence of rogue holes in the ocean.
3. In 2017, a Santa Rosa couple, John and Jan Pascoe, survived the California wildfire by jumping into their neighbor’s pool and staying submerged for six hours. They only surfaced for air, shielding their faces from falling embers with wet t-shirts each time they came up.
4. In 2016, researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel used machine learning to find out what fruit bats were talking about with one another. Surprisingly, they found out that bats mainly argue with one another.
5. In 2007, during a trip to Paris, Prince Harry had his driver speed through the same tunnel where his mother, Princess Diana, died. He hoped this would bring him closure, but he later described the experience as ill-conceived, saying it only brought him more pain.
6 Carlos Yulo’s Surprising Olympic Rewards
After Filipino gymnast Carlos Yulo won double gold at the Paris Olympics in 2024, companies eager for free publicity rewarded him with a fully furnished three-bedroom home worth $552,802, a lifetime supply of buffets, unlimited phone cases, and complimentary endoscopic procedures for when he turns 45.
7. After George Harrison died from lung cancer, his widow sued a doctor at the hospital where he received radiation therapy. She alleged that the doctor forced Harrison to listen to his son play guitar and even autograph it while Harrison lacked mental faculties.
8. Thomas Edison Jr., the son of Thomas Edison, aspired to become an inventor. However, lacking his father’s talent, he turned to selling snake oil products, marketing them as “the latest Edison discovery.” His father sued him, leading to an agreement where Edison Jr. stopped using the family name in exchange for a weekly allowance.
9. An anonymous family in Venice, Italy has endured a rare disorder known as fatal familial insomnia for more than 200 years. Many family members died from this condition, which prevents them from sleeping until they die.
10. More than half of the decline in America’s total fertility rate is attributed to the sharp decrease in teenage pregnancies. Women under 19 now rarely have children.
11 Centibillionaire Milestones: Bill Gates’ Exception
Every centibillionaire (a person with a net worth of $100 billion, €100 billion, or £100 billion) reached this milestone in 2017 or later, except for Bill Gates, who first achieved it in 1999.
12. Magellan’s expedition to circumnavigate the world began with approximately 270 crew members aboard five ships. Nearly three years later, it concluded with only 18 survivors returning on a single vessel.
13. A month before the film’s release in May 1999, Weird Al recorded his Phantom Menace parody, “The Saga Begins.” Although Lucasfilm denied him an early screening, Yankovic managed to accurately piece together the plot by researching rumors on Star Wars fan forums.
14. During World War II, the average American recruit stood 5’8″ tall and weighed 144 pounds. After basic training, recruits gained 5-20 pounds and added an inch to their 33 1/4″ chest measurement.
15. The T4 Program was a Nazi German euthanasia initiative that forcibly killed people with physical or mental disabilities, emotional distress, incurable illnesses, or old age. The program’s death toll may have exceeded 200,000 victims.
16 GPS Error Sends Woman to Croatia
In 2013, a Belgian woman intended to pick up a friend in Brussels, less than 90 miles from her home, but due to a GPS error, she ended up in Croatia after driving 900 miles across five international borders. She realized her mistake two days later, after her son had already reported her missing.
17. According to FEMA, donations of used clothes are never needed during disaster relief efforts.
18. The Lord of the Rings is presented as a translation of a book originally written in Westron, the common language of Middle-earth. Therefore, Frodo Baggins’ real name in Westron is Maura Labingi.
19. Singer Katy Perry grew up in a strict religious household where she wasn’t allowed to eat Lucky Charms cereal because her mother associated the word “luck” with Lucifer. She was also required to call deviled eggs “angeled eggs.”
20. Tasmanian devils give birth to 30-40 offspring at a time, but the mother has only four teats. The first four to latch on survive, while the rest perish.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 London’s Cocaine Consumption Surpasses Europe
Londoners consume more cocaine annually than the next three largest cocaine-consuming cities in Europe combined.
22. F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen nearly bankrupted his Lotus team by being too good. According to his contract, he would receive €50,000 for each championship point he scored. Lotus thought their car would be so uncompetitive that year that it would not be a problem. Kimi went on to score 390 points in two years, including 13 podium finishes and two race wins at the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the 2013 Australian Grand Prix.
23. Leona Helmsley faced an investigation for tax evasion and received a 16-year sentence after she neglected to pay contractors working on her Connecticut home. During the trial, her housekeeper testified that Helmsley had said, “Only the little people pay taxes.” She then only served 19 months in prison.
24. Skeuomorphism refers to modern objects-real or digital-that retain features from earlier designs even when those features are no longer functional. Examples include the tiny handles on maple syrup bottles, faux buckles on shoes, the floppy disk ‘save’ icon, and the shutter sound on cell phone cameras.
25. In 2010, an Australian teenager named Sam Ballard was dared by his friends to eat a slug crawling across a patio. He was unaware that the slug harbored rat lungworm disease, a brain-damaging parasite. Shortly after eating it, Sam experienced severe leg pain and weakness. Doctors confirmed the diagnosis of rat lungworm, and he soon fell into a coma that lasted 420 days. He woke up paralyzed and in constant need of care. Sam passed away in 2018, eight years after the tragic dare.
RE: Fact #4 (Bats: Arguing Creatures Revealed) – That’s pretty much every species, you see. Just check out the comments on any factrepublic thread.
Is this someone hitting on me?
Get outta here, or else!
What’d you say, mate?
RE: Fact #5 (Prince Harry’s Ill-Fated Tunnel Drive) – I was on a job, and this guy got crushed by a huge concrete pipe – ten feet long! I saw it all, man, it was brutal. He was gone instantly, at least. I held his buddy, the poor guy was sobbing all over me.
I stayed away from that whole street for ages. If I *had* to go near it, I’d floor it and pull over later to just freak out.
It must be awful driving past where someone died.
If you’re dealing with PTSD, look into EMDR, or even just play some Tetris for a while.
RE: Fact #45 (Third Forearm Artery’s Mystery) – Typing, writing, and gaming really drain your energy.
But if you’re really needing that blood, you’re probably not focusing too much on having lots of kids.
RE: Fact #50 (Turk’s Deceptive Tales to Spanish Explorers) – It was just like the Conquistadors’ search for El Dorado in South America – always just out of reach, over the next hill.
Trying to save Princess Peach as a kid was…tough.
RE: Fact #10 (Teenage Pregnancy Decline in America) – Fewer teens having kids is a positive development.
Haven’t you thought about how this impacts businesses? They’re people too, you know.
Hey, ever thought about scaring people straight about birth control? That might do the trick.
Live life, people, these pills aren’t a joke. Going without is the alpha move. Women don’t get pregnant unless it’s a full moon, right?
Fewer corporations having kids is a good thing.
If companies are people, why don’t we create tons of them and make them work for peanuts?
RE: Fact #10 (Teenage Pregnancy Decline in America) – I’m pretty sure quality of life for young teen mother and her child trumps a business. Why don’t we just create breeding programs to ensure a proper workforce. Oh wait, that’s called slavery. You are very narrow minded fool if you think the life of a business is worth more than an actual life. Sincerely, a teen mother who hopes her daughters overcome the priorities of people like you
RE: Fact #34 (King Sancho I’s Obesity and Deposition) – Wow, Queen Toda of Pamplona, Sancho I’s grandma, totally sent him to Cordoba—the big-shot caliphs’ place—to get his weight down. Turns out, the caliph, Abderraman III, was her cousin. This Jewish doctor, Hasday ibn Saprut, put Sancho on this crazy diet: only liquids through a straw for over a month! It didn’t work at first, ’cause Sancho was sneaking food. Seriously, they had to tie him up to stop him from eating solids! They even sewed his lips shut, leaving just a little hole for the straw. Plus, he had daily workouts, hot baths to sweat it out, and massages. The guy lost over 220 pounds in just forty days!
A Christian king, a Muslim caliph, and a Jewish doctor go into a bar…
That person was so incredibly overweight, it brought together Jews, Christians, and Muslims to try and fix the problem. Things got really serious.
RE: Fact #32 (Nobel Disease: Pseudoscience Among Winners) – I’ve noticed this a lot with really smart STEM people who aren’t Nobel winners – they tend to think being great at one thing makes them great at everything.
Wow, me too! I work with physicists. I can’t believe how many people are commenting on this!
Wow, that’s a lot of software engineers.
Every engineer
Yeah, it’s a real pain in the neck with big tech.
RE: Fact #18 (Frodo’s Real Name in Westron) – Hey, I’m off to Mordor with this ring!
Maura, I’ll totally carry you if I need to! Don’t worry about it.
Banazîr Galpsi’s a total goofball, Maura. Stick with Smeagol; we’ve got your back.
Forget the ring, grab the cannoli.
Nope.
RE: Fact #30 (Woman Kept Dead Roommate for 18 Months) – That story’s from way back, twelve years ago. I checked, but couldn’t find anything new online.
Couldn’t find an update online, thanks for clearing that up! 😂
RE: Fact #24 (Skeuomorphism: The Lasting Design Legacy) – Funny how phone batteries still look like old-fashioned AA ones, huh?
RE: Fact #42 (Court Jesters Deliver Bad News) – Maybe a gentler way of telling me the bad news would make it easier to hear.
RE: Fact #25 (Teen’s Deadly Dare with a Slug) – That’s awful what happened. Seriously, don’t eat weird stuff – especially bugs and animals you find.
RE: Fact #32 (Nobel Disease: Pseudoscience Among Winners) – I guess it’s partly ego, and partly that initial willingness to think differently, question things, and chase down every lead. Lots of successful business folks and artists get to the top by taking wild risks, but then they mess things up later by keeping it up.
RE: Fact #43 (Naval Mines’ Deadly Spike Mechanism) – Before now, all I knew about sea mines was from that one scene in Hot Fuzz.
RE: Fact #2 (Rogue Waves: Myth or Reality?) – Ocean holes sound totally terrifying.
It’s like a wave, but upside down. The bottom part dips way lower than usual between the regular waves. It’s not just a random hole in the water, that’d be weird.
Rogue holes are just a theory, never actually seen. Nobody’s survived to talk about it, obviously. So yeah, they’re still just a theoretical idea.
RE: Fact #6 (Carlos Yulo’s Surprising Olympic Rewards) – A lifetime supply of phone cases? That’s awesome! I’m so happy for you.
I loved the unlimited buffet thing.
He’ll need that endoscopy after all that free food.
He was bummed; he’d been hoping for a lifetime supply of shoehorns.
RE: Fact #7 (George Harrison’s Widow Sues Doctor) – It’s not about the autograph, it’s about the pressure, the taking advantage. Being a doctor, I totally see why that’s wrong. He was his patient, not some exhibit.
My family works in healthcare, and we’ve treated a bunch of famous people. None of us ever got anything signed by them, though.
It’s gotta be the same guy.
So, US Attorney Loretta Lynch just announced a settlement with Dr. Gilbert Lederman – the former head of radiation oncology at Staten Island University Hospital. He’s paying $2.35 million to settle claims he cheated Medicare by billing for stereotactic body radiosurgery – a procedure he supposedly invented. A judge already ruled back in 2014 that some of his Medicare claims were false because of incorrect coding and treatments below the neck. The judge also said Lederman owed money because of unjust enrichment and mistaken payments.
His kid’s guitar playing was the real killer.
RE: Fact #44 (The Marvels’ Record Movie Loss) – Marvels was a bit of a mess, nothing special really. Ant-Man 3 was worse, though, and Secret Invasion? That was probably the worst MCU thing ever.
RE: Fact #1 (James Cameron’s Titanic Sacrifice) – James Cameron didn’t need any more money in 1997. He could pretty much make whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. After *Titanic*, he was seriously loaded.
Yeah, he could totally buy a house.
Back then, people had it made. A single movie and they could buy a house! Now, you’d need three movies to do the same.
He basically made Titanic just to get a sub down there and check out the wreck. James Cameron’s not a filmmaker who likes diving; he’s a diver who likes filmmaking.
James Cameron does what he does because he’s just James Cameron.
This guy’s a master at getting people to fund his crazy ideas, and those crazy ideas? They’re actually pretty awesome.
RE: Fact #9 (Fatal Familial Insomnia: A 200-Year Mystery) – Imagine growing up in that family, always wondering if you’d be next.
RE: Fact #43 (Naval Mines’ Deadly Spike Mechanism) – So, yeah, those are the usual types of mines, but they weren’t the only ones used in WWII. There were also magnetic and acoustic mines. Magnetic ones went off when a metal ship passed by – kinda like those metal strips in the road that detect your car at a stoplight. Unlike some other magnetic things, these were pretty reliable because they just sat there. Acoustic mines listened for the sound of a ship’s propeller – if it got loud enough, boom!
These usually sat on the seabed, not dangling from a chain, which made them tougher for mine sweepers to handle. Plus, exploding underneath a ship caused way more damage – it creates this big hole in the water meant to cripple it. They weren’t perfect though, sometimes they’d explode a bit off and only lightly damage a ship.
Even today, we still use these kinds, but newer ones are smarter. They listen for specific sounds so they can pick and choose their targets. A lot of them don’t even use explosives – they launch a torpedo instead, for a really accurate hit.
RE: Fact #11 (Centibillionaire Milestones: Bill Gates’ Exception) – Of all those who got there after 1999, only Bezos made it before 2020. Makes you wonder what happened in 2020 to cause such a huge wealth grab, huh?
RE: Fact #14 (World War II: American Recruits’ Growth) – Recruit health and poor nutrition were huge problems, leading to reforms in both the US and UK during and after the war. The NHS was partly set up to improve everyone’s health. In the US, a lot of recruits got three meals a day and even things like new shoes—stuff we take for granted, plus dental care and a whole lot more—for the first time in their lives.
Wow, that stuff was relevant for ages! My dad’s army buddy actually cried when they got their boots in basic training – he grew up in rural Appalachia and only ever wore hand-me-downs.
The army: free food, your own pants, and tons of boots!
RE: Fact #42 (Court Jesters Deliver Bad News) – How could we ever forget Triboulet, the legendary jester? He once smacked the king on the rear end, expecting a laugh from the royal crowd. King Francis I was ready to kill him, but offered a pardon if Triboulet could come up with an even worse insult. Triboulet’s apology? “My apologies, Your Majesty! I didn’t recognize you – I thought you were the Queen!” The Queen was completely off-limits, of course, and the king was furious. He changed his mind about the pardon and sentenced Triboulet to death, but let him pick his method of execution. Triboulet replied, “Your Majesty, for the sake of Saints Nitouche and Pansard, patrons of the insane, I choose to die of old age!” The king thought this was hilarious, and instead of killing him, he sent Triboulet into exile.
RE: Fact #12 (Magellan’s Voyage: A Tragic Return) – So, there was this guy on the ship who paid his own way – the first tourist to circumnavigate the globe!
RE: Fact #39 (Snake Kills Two Boys in Canada) – The snake and the boys were in the same room, Tremblay said, but he wouldn’t say much more. He mentioned the RCMP are investigating, but wouldn’t talk about charges. It’s not your average case, he said, it’s really tough on the family. But for the police, it’s a death investigation, so they’re approaching it the same way, even though it’s a reptile.
Those darn snakes aren’t cooperating with the police investigation.
Troublemakers get what’s coming to them.
Bad luck—the cop who normally gets suspects to confess is terrified of snakes.
RE: Fact #8 (Edison Jr. and Snake Oil Sales) – Sounds like Jr. was playing the long game.
RE: Fact #37 (Lemons: A Hybrid Creation) – That’s why I’m not anti-GMO. We’ve been genetically modifying food forever; we’re just a lot better at it these days.
RE: Fact #48 (Mussolini’s Brutal Castor Oil Torture) – So, people always debate whether a government’s good or bad, right? Well, here’s how you tell: It’s not just about how they treat their citizens, but also how they treat prisoners.
Lots of people will agree, it’s Mussolini, but the next time someone posts about animal abuse, everyone will suddenly be all for torture.
Robber barons are better than those who think they’re morally superior and boss you around. A robber baron might get tired of being cruel or greedy, but these self-righteous busybodies will never stop, because they think they’re doing the right thing.
People lose their decency when they think they’re totally right.
RE: Fact #48 (Mussolini’s Brutal Castor Oil Torture) – Castor oil? Crazy fact: World War One fighter planes used it in their fuel to lube the engines. The pilots even got some in their lungs from the exhaust fumes – made ’em feel pretty rough.
So, the Castrol name comes from castor oil.
RE: Fact #46 (Roddenberry’s Doubt About Casting Patrick ) – Stewart wasn’t sure why they’d pick a middle-aged, bald, English Shakespeare guy to be Captain Kirk. He even got a toupee shipped from London, hoping to impress the Paramount bosses, but Roddenberry told him to ditch the awful thing. His voice though? That totally blew them away, and he got the part. That’s how we got “Engage!”
Makes sense that he’s a middle-aged captain, right? A young guy wouldn’t seem as believable.
So, Picard’s older than Stewart to show how people live longer and healthier lives in the future. They made him 60 at the start of TNG.
The ship captains were meant to show us what humans could be.
Picard? Total badass. Drinks whiskey, gets into fights, dates whoever he wants, does secret missions – the works.
Kirk, the notorious ladies’ man, was surprisingly tame. He was a great leader, but not much of a playboy.
Sisko was a great dad – loving but let his son be independent. He dealt with his wife’s death, and though he seemed tough, he was really empathetic and idealistic. He was more human than the others – flawed, but good.
Janeway? Don’t mess with Janeway.
Newbie? Thinking back to ’09…
RE: Fact #16 (GPS Error Sends Woman to Croatia) – Yeah, something else was definitely up, maybe early-onset dementia or something.
Yeah, I figured. Driving 900 miles and claiming to be distracted the whole time? No way. Even with a super-efficient car, she had to stop for gas – plenty of chances to think things over. But she just kept driving; her brain wouldn’t let her stop.
RE: Fact #4 (Bats: Arguing Creatures Revealed) – We can’t understand them, but we’re clever enough to build something that can.
What a time to be alive!
I haven’t gotten around to reading the paper, but a couple of years back, researchers discovered a cool geometric pattern in language—and guess what? It seems to pop up in whale and dolphin communication too! They think this shared structure could help us figure out how to translate animal languages, and maybe even crack some ancient human languages we’ve lost.
Communication and languages are different, but math is universal. Most animals can’t do that, but elephants and dolphins can – they’ve got pretty complex communication going on.
Wow, that’s awesome! Do you recall if it came from a reliable source?
RE: Fact #21 (London’s Cocaine Consumption Surpasses Europe) – Next up: Barcelona and Amsterdam! Perfect for a quick London getaway and nose beers.
Thumbs up for nose beers!
Yummy nose clams!
Huh, Berlin’s not next? What gives?
RE: Fact #6 (Carlos Yulo’s Surprising Olympic Rewards) – Loads of companies gave him free stuff for easy advertising. He won the second and third ever gold medals, so it was huge in the Philippines. Then, tons of family drama exploded because his mom’s a real nightmare, and it’s a total mess.
What’s up with the mom? I missed that.
He’s not talking to his mom because she stole his competition winnings, fights with his girlfriend, and a whole bunch of other stuff. She even rooted against Carlos and claimed she only had three kids! It’s also caused a rift with his siblings, including his brother who’s a great gymnast and who his mom is actively supporting. She posts all this drama on Facebook, so it’s all out in the open now. It’s a really tough situation for him. I might have gotten a few details wrong, though.
Mom spent his money on herself.
Carlos moved out, but kept his grill.
During the Olympics, his mom wanted him to lose and cheered for Japan.
Carlos won big time and got all the rewards.
Mom tried to weasel her way back into his life because of money.
Mom’s saying his grill is controlling him, but really she just wants to be in control.
Mom made up a sob story to get people on her side, and it worked.
She used the attention she got from dissing her son to start a business.
Mom’s a real piece of work. His siblings are being raised to think he’s the bad guy.
He’s got it all: Olympic gold, family drama, and even a colonoscopy clinic making a killing.
RE: Fact #19 (Katy Perry’s Strict Religious Childhood) – I’ve heard stuff like that before, growing up in the Deep South. It wasn’t exactly uncommon among families I knew.
I grew up near some kids whose parents wouldn’t let them play Pokémon, because they thought it was demonic. The best part? When one of them forgot to clean up after the dog, his mom locked him in his room in the middle of a Georgia summer…with the dog poop. Talk about religious.
RE: Fact #41 (Norwegians in the U.S. ) – Europeans and their American relatives… this is gonna be good.
Ethnicity isn’t just about genes; it’s way more than that. It’s about what makes a group feel like “one people”—shared culture, language, history, and so on. Sure, family ties matter, but it’s mainly about belonging. People who move to a new place usually become part of that place’s ethnicity after a few generations.
Most Americans whose ancestors came from Europe don’t share our culture or language anymore. They’re American, not, say, Norwegian or Italian.
Lots of Americans get ethnicity and race mixed up, but that doesn’t change the facts.
Iceland keeps proving we’re not really European. We call our people living abroad West-Icelanders.
Being American with Norwegian roots, I get where they’re coming from. I’m American, not Norwegian, though right now I kinda wish I was! My ancestors, smart but sadly, left Norway for America to escape poverty and Swedish rule. Now, it feels like I’m escaping a rich country full of poor people ruled by clueless rich guys.
RE: Fact #8 (Edison Jr. and Snake Oil Sales) – Hey kiddo, don’t rip people off! That’s my thing!
Hey, don’t sell fakes, dummy! Rip off something good and sell *that*.
RE: Fact #34 (King Sancho I’s Obesity and Deposition) – That guy in full armor? He’d be a quarter-tonner, easily.
King Tiger tank, right?
Grab the breastplate stretcher!
RE: Fact #13 (Weird Al’s Phantom Menace Parody) – So, to check his work before the movie came out, Weird Al went to a fancy, $500-a-ticket charity screening. The lyrics were pretty much perfect; just a couple tweaks needed.
I saw Weird Al at a super expensive charity showing – like, $500 a pop! It was for pediatric AIDS, I think. I was right there, still have the tickets, even. I was behind this guy with crazy curly hair and a Hawaiian shirt, and I told my friend, “That’s gotta be Weird Al.” He heard me and spun around, “Well, HELLO!” So, yeah, you can totally spot Weird Al from behind. Same with the Williams sisters, actually. Makes you wonder who else you could pick out from a crowd. Oh, and the screening was probably just a few days before the movie came out; I gotta double-check my tickets though.
My coworker looks like Weird Al from the back, but it’s not a sure thing.
Al’s the most genuine performer around. We’ve seen him tons of times, always splurging on the VIP stuff after the show. He’ll happily sign autographs for a crowd of hundreds, telling the same jokes—probably a few thousand times that week!—after hours onstage, night after night.
The first time we met him, I told him, “I grew up listening to you. Thanks for being a nerd before it was cool.”
He just said, “I wouldn’t know how to be any other way.”
Total legend.
Any idea what changes were made?
Quote from this interview Weird Al did with TheForce.net fan forum in the early 2000s:
RE: Fact #14 (World War II: American Recruits’ Growth) – My grandpa’s Marine enlistment papers show he was 5’11”, 151 lbs at 18. He claimed he packed on twenty pounds during basic training – said he’d never eaten so much! Funny thing is, he grew up on a farm, but they barely made ends meet.
Back in ’90, I joined the Marines at a skinny 125 pounds. They fed me tons in boot camp. I left around 160, and didn’t even realize how much weight I’d gained until I got home. My friends were totally surprised—apparently I’d bulked up! It wasn’t like I was starving before, I just burned calories like crazy.
I’ve got a buddy, this guy’s like six feet tall, but maybe 135 pounds soaking wet. They practically force-fed him in basic training. He felt bad, though, because some of the guys in the “bigger guy” program would totally eye his food. The thing is, they don’t give you extra time to eat it all.
RE: Fact #28 (Coca-Cola’s $3 Billion Cocaine Production) – Stepan Company, a small chemical plant, makes a ton of money processing coca leaves for Coca-Cola. They’re the only ones allowed to bring coca leaves into the US for Coke.
We’re doing alright, but it’s more of a side thing for the company. I’ve been at Stepan for seven years.
How hard would it be to sneak a few bags in now and then?
Getting coca leaves from Colombia…is that why we suddenly changed our minds about those tariffs?
I bet the US gets most of its coca leaves from Peru.
RE: Fact #1 (James Cameron’s Titanic Sacrifice) – After Titanic became a huge hit, Fox and Paramount happily gave Cameron a massive payday – somewhere between $50 and $100 million, maybe even $97 million in the end.
Looks like Mr. Cameron really nailed the bet on his movie doing well.
He backed up his words with actions, so they did too.
Likely not many points, especially since they were probably based on the total revenue.
RE: Fact #7 (George Harrison’s Widow Sues Doctor) – She also helped fight off the crazy guy who broke into their place. I think she used fireplace pokers? He had a knife, and that’s how GH got stabbed.
RE: Fact #32 (Nobel Disease: Pseudoscience Among Winners) – Even famous actors and big-shot business people get it, too.
Lots of really smart academics are like that. It’s not that unusual, really; it just comes from not knowing things. We all have blind spots.
We’re all clueless about most stuff. There’s a ton to learn, way more than anyone could ever know. Even Einstein, he knew a lot, but not everything. It’s not hard to know more than average, though. Not saying we’re dumb, it’s just that there’s a huge amount of information out there. At least 50 things, easily.
RE: Fact #4 (Bats: Arguing Creatures Revealed) – So they discovered that bat chats are all about food fights, arguing over sleeping spots, unwanted flirting, and complaining about other bats getting too close. Think daytime TV, but with bats.
I wonder how they got such precise results. It’s reasonable to think most bat calls are about territory, but I’m a little doubtful they can tell the difference between a “you’re too close” call and a couple of bats yelling “THIS IS ALL MINE!” at each other. Whoever’s loudest or meanest wins, right?
The article says they change their call based on who they’re talking to, showing they communicate directly.
I’m curious how they got those super specific results.
Right? I wish more people questioned things instead of just believing news or assuming experts are making stuff up.
The Nature article explains that they tracked 22 fruit bats around the clock for 75 days. They used a voice-recognition program to analyze 15,000 bat sounds and linked those sounds to what was happening in videos of the bats – like fights over food.
They were able to sort over 60% of the sounds into four categories: food fights, jostling for sleeping spots, mating protests, and arguments. The program even figured out which bat was talking and, about half the time, which bat it was talking *to*. Bats even used slightly different sounds for different bats, especially opposite sexes – kind of like how we humans use different tones of voice. Not many animals do this – mostly dolphins and some monkeys.
Phys.org said they used a voice-recognition system (usually for humans) to analyze the bat sounds and match them to the videos.
And because that wasn’t enough detail for me, here’s the gist of the original study: They watched videos, labeled the sounds, and then fed that labeled data into a Gaussian Mixture Model for analysis. It’s pretty standard stuff – basic category prediction using deep learning.
EDIT: People asked how they knew *what* to label – they just labeled based on what they saw happening in the videos at that moment. So the study used the sounds to predict which of four things were happening on screen.
EDIT: It was actually a GMM, not deep learning.
RE: Fact #41 (Norwegians in the U.S. ) – Surprisingly, more Lebanese people live in Brazil than in Lebanon.
That’s just what happens when you track ethnicity in such a silly way. Think about it: a Lebanese person moves to Brazil, has kids, grandkids… suddenly you’ve got a whole bunch of “ethnic Lebanese” people. The way they count ethnicity is all messed up, so it’s no surprise that smaller countries’ ethnic groups seem bigger in places with lots of mixing.
It’s not just small countries, either. The way Americans see ethnicity, there are probably more Americans who say they’re “ethnic Germans” than actually live in Germany! Lots of people list multiple ethnicities, so it’s common for Americans to name several because most of us are a mix of things.
RE: Fact #22 (Kimi Raikkonen’s Costly Championship Points) – He gave up most of it to save other people’s jobs.
RE: Fact #16 (GPS Error Sends Woman to Croatia) – Wow, a two or three-hour drive ended up taking two whole days?
My parents drove from Kansas to Tampa—should’ve been a two-day trip, not two hours! They even spent a night in Georgia, going the wrong way for hours before they figured it out. That added a whole extra day to the journey. It wasn’t as crazy as that factrepublic post, but I still wondered how you could drive for hours in the wrong direction and not notice.
That guy who put up a “Welcome to Mexico” billboard just below the Canadian border got himself in hot water, haha.
My ex’s brother was on the spectrum, and, man, was he something else. If he missed an exit, he’d easily drive 200 or 300 miles the wrong way—for a ten-minute trip! It was like his brain just wouldn’t register that he’d messed up. Back then, GPS was a fancy car gadget, not something on your phone. So his parents got him a TomTom for Christmas and made him use it everywhere, even for five-minute drives.
I’m not buying that she just slept in her car. She must have gotten a hotel at some point, right? She had to realize she messed up.
I totally accidentally saw Wedding Crashers. I meant to see Grizzly Man, but walked into the wrong theater. An hour in, I realized my mistake, but I stuck around…because, you know, bear attacks – they’re sneaky like that.
I’ve bumped into a few real-life airheads—super nice, but seriously, you wonder how they manage to function. I mean, it’s amazing they even get dressed in the morning.
I’m guessing they might have Alzheimer’s or dementia.
RE: Fact #9 (Fatal Familial Insomnia: A 200-Year Mystery) – So, Giacomo was born near Venice in 1791. His family was pretty strong and sturdy, but in 1836, at 45, he got really sick, developed dementia, and eventually died. He had three kids who lived past infancy, and they had a bunch more. Over time, his descendants became successful doctors and businessmen, even owning tons of apartments in Venice. But, here’s the weird part: a bunch of them died young from strange illnesses. Turns out, it was all the same thing: a super rare genetic disease called fatal familial insomnia – they didn’t even know what it was until 1986! At least 30 family members have died from it, and a lot more carry the gene. Even today, people in the area know about this family and their awful luck with the disease. It makes it hard for them to get married or even get life insurance. Elisabetta, a relative, said she tried to get insurance and the agent straight-up asked her about the family disease.
Adoption might not be so bad, actually.
I want it to be *my* ticking time bomb!
That’s how family curses begin.
RE: Fact #24 (Skeuomorphism: The Lasting Design Legacy) – It’s kinda funny how some words come from older tech. Like “footage” for videos, or saying you’re “taping” something when you mean recording it, or “dialing” a phone number.
Or just hang up.
Close the windows
My New England mother-in-law, she’s 82, says “closing the lights.” I always figured it was an old-fashioned way of talking about turning off a gas lamp.
It gets even more fun when you look at other languages.
In Japan, they have a counter for flat things, like photos – it’s used for digital pictures now too.
And another counter’s for long, thin things, which ended up being used for film reels. Old movies needed lots of reels, stored on a kind of stick through the middle.
So a movie was counted by those sticks.
Even with digital videos now, they still count them that way.
So, to get this across to folks who aren’t up on Japanese counting, you might need to explain how different things get counted differently. Took me a minute to realize you weren’t talking about a literal counter! My brain needs some coffee.
Wow, I never knew “footage” came from “foot-age”—that’s pretty cool!
Huh, I’m a native speaker, never really considered that!
RE: Fact #11 (Centibillionaire Milestones: Bill Gates’ Exception) – This definition’s way off—it’s out by a factor of 10,000! “Centi-” means 1/100, not 100, but I guess it’s become pretty popular on factrepublic.
It’s confusing because “billion” can mean two different things.
Even the Brits don’t use “billion” to mean a million million anymore; that’s old news.
Should’ve been a heck of a billionaire
Or someone super rich
RE: Fact #47 (U.S. Army: Largest Employer of Musicians) – They’re the biggest employer, period.
For every guy who shoots people, there are ten others moving stuff, making stuff, fixing stuff, cooking stuff… That’s why states fight to keep their military bases—they’re huge for the local economy.
RE: Fact #50 (Turk’s Deceptive Tales to Spanish Explorers) – Maybe he was guiding them towards the Mississippian people—they were famous for their metalwork—because the Spanish were after gold. And he was also leading them away from the Pueblos.
RE: Fact #47 (U.S. Army: Largest Employer of Musicians) – They probably employ more people than anyone else in tons of different jobs.
Biggest employer of Abrams tank crews, for example
I bet there are tons more cool ones out there, especially in logistics. Is the Army actually the biggest employer of FTL drivers in the whole country?
A modern army needs to be really good at moving supplies and stuff.
Right. The US defense budget is about 1% of the world’s total economic output – that’s like the yearly earnings of Apple, Google, and Microsoft all put together. So it’s no big shock that the US military’s impact is felt globally in various ways; some areas more than others, of course. But don’t underestimate its huge size and influence – it’s a major economic player, touching lots of different aspects of life.
RE: Fact #9 (Fatal Familial Insomnia: A 200-Year Mystery) – My junior high band teacher? Man, it was awful watching him go downhill so fast. He started losing his patience, getting really short-tempered. He was always nice to us, but he changed super quickly. One day he just blew up, yelled at a girl in class until she cried, and snapped his baton on the stand. A couple months later, they said he was sick and wouldn’t be back. He came to a concert, looked terrible, and passed away soon after.
Death comes on fast once you start showing symptoms; it’s usually within seven months.
RE: Fact #38 (Richard Ramirez’s Mob Justice) – The story’s way better than it sounds. He’s on a bus, sees his face in the paper, and gets mobbed when he gets off. Everywhere he went, people were after him. He ran into a Hispanic neighborhood and, wow, about fifty people came charging out with weapons because he’d embarrassed them.
I really love stories about people working together for a good cause!
Ramirez had been terrorizing LA for over a year, breaking into homes and committing awful crimes. People were understandably freaked out.
Some guy saw the Nightstalker trying to steal his wife’s car and went nuts, beating him up with a pipe. Things got so crazy, he ended up getting himself arrested by the cops because the crowd was ready to hang him.
He messed with East L.A. and paid the price.
RE: Fact #42 (Court Jesters Deliver Bad News) – Brave Sir Robin made a quick escape.
When things got hairy, he ran like heck.
RE: Fact #33 (Eiffel Tower’s $60 Million Repainting) – Before and after photos?
I agree – seriously, what crazy surface prep was that?!
Fifty thousand rolls of painter’s tape? Took three days to get it all off!
RE: Fact #26 (Howard Hughes’ Extreme Germ Obsession) – People always skip over the brain syphilis part when they talk about Hughes’ weird behavior.
He wasn’t careful with his partners when he was young, and later in life he was scared and always repeating himself.
And those head injuries from the plane wrecks.
The painkillers rich guys get from their doctors.
So, more neurosyphilis, less OCD.
RE: Fact #15 (Nazi T4 Program’s Horrific Legacy) – It kinda spiralled out of control, right? Germans protested, Hitler chickened out and called it off. That showed how much ordinary people were involved in the bad stuff later on, though I could be wrong about some of the details.
Yeah, people fought back, so they officially called it off in August 1941. But some killings still happened. Then they shifted a lot of resources to the much bigger genocide in the East.
RE: Fact #6 (Carlos Yulo’s Surprising Olympic Rewards) – That’s awesome, a perfect example of the Olympic spirit!
RE: Fact #16 (GPS Error Sends Woman to Croatia) – I got sidetracked, so I just kept driving,” Moreau told El Mundo. “I saw signs in French, German, then Croatian, but I was distracted and didn’t notice. There was supposedly a GPS problem.
Man, it’s scary sharing the road with some drivers.
Wow, two days of distraction? This woman was either crazy, mentally unstable, high, or just plain clueless—she shouldn’t be driving.
A 90-mile trip is way different than a 900-mile drive across countries over two days. Normal people would stop after a few hours, right?
A minor meltdown? Not needing a hospital stay, but enough to just throw in the towel? My mom ended up in Stockholm instead of work one day – swears her motorcycle wouldn’t turn left. Quit her job soon after, went back to school. It’s one thing as a teenager, but a respected 67-year-old lady… this sounds like a story she cooked up to avoid admitting she almost ditched everything to become an arms dealer in the former Yugoslavia before changing her mind.
It’s like gobbling down your whole dinner set because you weren’t paying attention.
RE: Fact #1 (James Cameron’s Titanic Sacrifice) – Was Titanic just a sneaky way for James Cameron to get funding for his deep-sea Titanic submarine trip?
That’s totally something James Cameron would do. He used Avatar 2 as a reason to visit the Mariana Trench.
He hit the bottom of that trench back in 2012. Doesn’t match up with either movie, though.
Yeah, it totally revived interest in the ship, which is great for research but not so great for all the tourists flocking there. It should really be treated as a sacred site, off-limits to non-scientists.
RE: Fact #23 (Leona Helmsley’s “Little People” Remark) – Bummer, she was right.
She totally spilled the beans. But hey, the wealthy get away with murder—as long as their cash keeps twisting politicians’ arms.
As long as we let money run politics…
The biggest lie about our democracy is that we somehow control those in power.
In a world where everything’s mass-produced and we’re all connected through buying and selling, money and power are the same thing. What we think about it doesn’t matter; nothing will change until we completely overhaul how the world works.
Seriously, it’s worse than you think. Bribing politicians is totally legal—they call it lobbying. And get this, the Supreme Court just said insider trading is okay for Congress, too.
Really quiet, actually.
RE: Fact #39 (Snake Kills Two Boys in Canada) – That happened in my new town, of all places. So sad.
This is crazy! What was the town’s reaction? Did everyone just go nuts talking about it?
Back then, the town was way smaller than it is now. Things have boomed lately, but at the time, there was a lot of chatter and speculation—I figured there was more to the story of why no charges were filed. It seemed like the government asked him to keep the animal because his place was one of the few around that could handle it.
I think it was just a weird accident, nothing malicious or careless.
RE: Fact #25 (Teen’s Deadly Dare with a Slug) – I might take this down later, but this story hits close to home. I wasn’t there, but a friend of mine was. He was one of the best guys I ever knew—maybe this whole thing made him even better. His friends were amazing, always there for him, hanging out, watching games, right up to the end. It was a really bad choice he made as a teen, with awful consequences that changed a lot of lives. RIP Sam
That’s so sad. They were just having a laugh, it seems.
RE: Fact #22 (Kimi Raikkonen’s Costly Championship Points) – Things got even worse: he racked up 390 points over two seasons, meaning Lotus owed him a whopping €19.5 million. His bio says they couldn’t pay him everything. He dropped the lawsuit—didn’t want them to go under—but he ditched Lotus for Ferrari in 2014.
He hardly ever had a good car, did he? Sauber was a bust, then McLaren couldn’t finish races, then Ferrari couldn’t finish races, so he quit. He went back to Lotus, they couldn’t finish races, so he quit again. Finally, he got a Ferrari that was actually good, and he hit the podium 26 times! He could’ve been F1’s top dog for twenty years with a better car.
He’s still the best F1 intro besides Lewis. Just show someone who doesn’t really follow F1 a bunch of Kimi’s best moments – they’ll be hooked.
Almost clinched a world championship with McLaren, but their cars kept breaking down. He’s the last guy to win one with Ferrari, though.
Current Formula 1 champ, Kimi Räikkönen.
RE: Fact #27 (Warren Buffett’s Inheritance Decision) – His three kids will run the trust, and they’ll all have to agree on how to spend the money. Sounds like a recipe for smooth sailing, right? 🤔
A holistic army in Nebraska.
Wow, his kids are grown up, but I looked up his age – he’s 94! That explains it.
Still, I can’t picture having a parent alive in my 70s. Crazy, right?
Mom died in 2015, I was 30. Smartest woman ever—Vassar valedictorian! She didn’t leave any cash, invested it all in Apple, Nvidia, and P&G for her five kids. We couldn’t get at it until 2025. Love you, Mom.
RE: Fact #40 (Erich Hartmann: The Ultimate Flying Ace) – They made him an officer a couple of weeks shy of his 20th birthday. He was 23, almost a month before the war ended. All those kills, all that death and destruction – and he was just a kid. That’s what everyone called him.
Bubi
Yeah, that’s pretty much every soldier, right? I bet the soldier with the most kills was some unknown 18-year-old machine gunner stuck in the worst WWI battles, facing endless waves of enemy soldiers.
World War One – now that would’ve been a rough time. Imagine spending it behind a machine gun; that would’ve been awful.
The person who dropped the Enola Gay’s bomb
RE: Fact #45 (Third Forearm Artery’s Mystery) – So, scientists think this is a small-scale example of human evolution. Other things happening right now: fewer wisdom teeth, extra bones in arms and legs, smaller faces, and some funky foot bone connections.
It’s worth noting that “micro-evolution” is a term creationists sometimes use to avoid accepting evolution as a whole, even though they’ll acknowledge things like these changes. The info I found was from a BBC-related website, so it’s unlikely they meant to play into that idea, even if they used the same word.
Weirdly, I’m missing my bottom wisdom teeth. Turns out, they weren’t there when I got x-rays before braces—more than ten years ago! The whole dental team came to look at the x-rays, so I guess it was a pretty unusual find.
Turns out I have five wisdom teeth – guess I’m a super mutant!
RE: Fact #46 (Roddenberry’s Doubt About Casting Patrick ) – I was in junior high when they announced a new Star Trek show, *The Next Generation*. It was a total shock – the new captain was this middle-aged, bald guy with a French name. Nothing like Kirk! It totally broke the mold for leading men back then. A super bold move, really risky. But I think it was key to the show’s huge success, and also to all the awesome captains we got later.
Back in the 90s, your typical dreamy guy wouldn’t have been able to make “The Inner Light” work.
RE: Fact #29 (Mary Rose’s Longbow Discovery) – Cool find on Wiki: Two of those five old longbows actually came from the Mary Rose—way back, almost 150 years before they got the 137 newer ones.
Me too! How on earth did anyone get down there 150 years ago, and nobody’s been back?
John and Charles Deane, the diving helmet guys, checked out the wreck in 1836 – a fishing net snagged on it, that’s how it was found. They and their buddies pulled some stuff off it over the next few years. Then they moved on, and it disappeared again until the 1970s dig. There’s a short story about the first try back in 1546, too.
RE: Fact #27 (Warren Buffett’s Inheritance Decision) – Letting your kids divvy up your fortune feels like something out of a crazy modern movie, kinda like King Lear.
But hey, he’s also given the Gates Foundation over $43 billion in Berkshire shares—like, almost 10 million shares just in 2024! So it’s pretty clear he’s still a big fan.
Warren and Gates seem to be having a bit of a falling out lately.
There’s this book, *A Thousand Acres* by Jane Smiley, that’s totally about this. It’s a modern take on *King Lear*, a dad divides his huge farm between his three daughters, and well, things go south. They made a movie, too, which was awful, but the book? Definitely worth reading.
RE: Fact #30 (Woman Kept Dead Roommate for 18 Months) – It wasn’t illegal to not report the death, but she got nailed for cashing his checks—$28,000 worth! She got three years’ probation and had to get mental health treatment.
She kept it quiet about his death to keep getting his money, not because she was lonely.
Yeah, but you don’t need a dead body in your living room for that.
So, my question is this: She didn’t kill him or steal his body, he just died, and she kept it quiet. I doubt that’s illegal. But seriously, how did she deal with the smell?
Or, seeing a decaying body?
RE: Fact #21 (London’s Cocaine Consumption Surpasses Europe) – London’s population is actually bigger than all three of those cities put together.
So, the article uses population numbers, making the headline less impressive. The real surprise is Bristol topping the list for daily users – 400,000 people, beating Amsterdam, Zurich, and London.
That explains why my sister picked Bristol over Oxford a few years back!
So, the headline’s claim is still pretty strong: Londoners apparently go through 23 kilos of pure cocaine daily—that’s more than Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Berlin put together! Looking at it per person, those cities are pretty close, though Berlin’s not on that specific list. Bristol’s at 3.5, Amsterdam 3.3, Zurich 3.1, London 2.8, Antwerp 2.8, Barcelona 2.6, and Paris 1.9.
Bristol’s a real hotspot for drugs. Seriously, the streets constantly reek of weed – way more than in places where it’s legal.
Tribe of Frog back then was crazy, like a wild episode of Skins.
One time, at their Black Swan gig, I saw guys wheeling shopping carts packed with drugs around, selling them.
Ah, good times being young.
RE: Fact #7 (George Harrison’s Widow Sues Doctor) – That doctor also got hit with a huge Medicare fraud lawsuit and lost.
RE: Fact #44 (The Marvels’ Record Movie Loss) – Seriously, The Lone Ranger cost $250 million?! That’s insane.
That was a Disney film, right? And John Carter too.
John Carter was actually a pretty fun movie, but its marketing really tanked it. The name itself didn’t help; if you didn’t know who he was, the title meant nothing.
John Carter totally bombed, huh? Guess I missed the Long Ranger one too.
The same guy who directed Pirates of the Caribbean, with Johnny Depp? They figured that was a surefire hit, and it totally backfired.
Seriously, that sounds like a way to get infinite money. How’d they mess that up so badly?
So, who was that movie even for? If it was trying to cash in on nostalgia, the fans of the original show were practically ancient by 2013.
The movie came out after the Pirates movies, and everyone was tired of Johnny Depp. A lot of folks said it was like Depp playing Jack Sparrow playing Tonto.
RE: Fact #50 (Turk’s Deceptive Tales to Spanish Explorers) – I’m not sure if this is true or not, but supposedly when the Spanish asked about the gold cities, most native towns were like, “Oh yeah, the gold cities? They’re somewhere else. Totally, trust me.”
They found a ton of platinum, but tossed it aside because it was so uncommon in Europe back then that they didn’t recognize it.
RE: Fact #14 (World War II: American Recruits’ Growth) – World War II’s impact on US military recruitment helped create the national school lunch program.
RE: Fact #41 (Norwegians in the U.S. ) – Lots of European countries are the same. Ireland’s another good example; its population today is only slightly bigger than it was during the potato famine.
Even the 1841 census showed more people—8.1 million—than the current 5.3 million.
Same thing with Jewish heritage.
RE: Fact #33 (Eiffel Tower’s $60 Million Repainting) – The Eiffel Tower’s all metal, so they have to repaint it a lot to stop it rusting. Crazy to think it’s only been done 20 times!
The Golden Gate Bridge is really prone to rust because of the ocean—the salt water, sea air, fog, the whole deal. It’s constantly wet, and all that salt eats away at the iron.
The Eiffel Tower probably doesn’t need as much maintenance since it’s not by the coast.
The Golden Gate Bridge is newer, so they used better steel – super strong galvanized carbon steel, plus special paint. The Eiffel Tower? That’s not even steel, it’s puddled iron! There’s been a ton of progress in engineering since then, stuff they just couldn’t do back when the Eiffel Tower was built.
They repaint the Golden Gate Bridge as soon as they finish.
That tower’s pretty young—just 138 years old—so they repaint it about every seven years. If you visit, check out the exhibit showing how the paint color’s changed over time.
It’s about an 18-month painting cycle, then a long break before starting over. So, if they had five painters, they’d be constantly starting fresh.
RE: Fact #20 (Tasmanian Devils’ Brutal Reproductive Process) – Marsupials often have lots of nipples; opossums, for example, can have up to 25, even though they only have 13 teats.
RE: Fact #45 (Third Forearm Artery’s Mystery) – Lots of folks are saying it might not be a big deal because they haven’t checked out the article. It went from around 10% in people born in the mid-1880s to 30% in those born towards the end of the 1900s—a huge jump in a short time, evolution-wise. They looked at old anatomy papers to figure this out. Crazy, right?
They author of the fact should have used the actual percentages instead of just saying “three times as much.”
It’s based on just 26 arteries from 78 limbs—not a huge study, right? It doesn’t mean it’s wrong, but the evidence isn’t super strong. And I’m curious why they used cadavers. Ultrasound would’ve been faster and cheaper, letting them look at way more people.
Probably not evolution; more likely better food led to epigenetic changes.
Back then, people didn’t have the same diets or chemical exposures we do now. Thalidomide, for example, was used for morning sickness, but it caused terrible birth defects.
Whatever made blood vessels shrink back might have been blocked. It’s probably microplastics or something else messing with normal development, more so than some new evolutionary thing.
Were their records from back then good enough to make a real comparison?
RE: Fact #12 (Magellan’s Voyage: A Tragic Return) – So, what became of the sailors who made it? Did they get a hero’s welcome, or something else entirely?
Elcano was a big deal in Spain.
After the trip, he and a few guys headed to Valladolid—that’s where King Charles V hung out—so the king could hear all about it himself. The king even offered Elcano horses to get there, even though most people took carriages.
Elcano met with the king within a month. He talked about the whole voyage—first with the king, maybe privately; then with some experts to go over the details and money; and lastly, with some smart guys who were curious about the different cultures they met. We don’t know exactly what they talked about.
Charles V then gave Elcano a fancy new coat of arms with a globe and the words “Primus circumdedisti me.”
Getaria, where Elkano was born, throws a party for his voyage every four years.
If I recall correctly, everyone blamed Magellan for the mess, except Pigafetta. He stuck up for Magellan.
RE: Fact #29 (Mary Rose’s Longbow Discovery) – I saw some of the bows tested – pretty impressive. Most were around 80 pounds. It was wild watching a 400-year-old wooden bow shoot an arrow through a plank from 40 yards away.
Archaeology shows us where longbowmen stood in medieval battles; their skeletons are a bit bent from years of pulling those powerful bows.
They say King Edward III once said something like, “Want good longbowmen? Start training their grandfathers!”
The arm and back muscles weren’t attached normally, so archers could use way more force than usual without tearing anything. Becoming a master archer took a whole lifetime.
Mary Rose bows usually weighed around 110 pounds at 28 inches, but some were as light as 65 pounds and others as heavy as 175.
Guys back then were just tougher.
RE: Fact #40 (Erich Hartmann: The Ultimate Flying Ace) – They say my grandpa shot down over 120 German planes. Turns out, he was the Luftwaffe’s worst mechanic ever.
That’s a classic! My grandpa was convinced the Titanic was going down – he was shouting, “Get off the ship! It’s sinking!” They kicked him out of the theater pretty quick after that.
Sweet, there’s a sequel!
RE: Fact #8 (Edison Jr. and Snake Oil Sales) – Edison was a business man more than inventor and stole his employees inventions all the time