1 Porky Pig’s Original Voice
Joe Dougherty, the original voice actor for Looney Tunes’ Porky Pig, had an uncontrollable stutter. His lengthy recording sessions significantly increased production costs. As a result, Mel Blanc replaced him, allowing the stutter to be controlled and used for comedic effect.
2. After filming John Wick 4, Keanu Reeves gifted stunt performers customized T-shirts displaying how many times they “died” in the film-some exceeding 20 deaths. Additionally, he presented his personal stunt team with custom Rolex Submariner watches as a token of appreciation.
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King received 11 Oscar nominations and won all of them, making it the biggest sweep in Oscar history.
4. Dr. Harold Shipman, an English serial killer, allegedly murdered so many patients that his trial charged him with only 15 murders-just 5% of his suspected victims.
5. At age nine, actress Jodie Foster suffered a lion attack on the set of Napoleon and Samantha, leaving scars on her back and stomach. She observed the crew flee as the lion held her sideways in its mouth and shook her “like a doll.” Although the lion released her when commanded, the traumatic experience left her with lifelong ailurophobia (fear of cats).
6 King’s Secret Elephant Hunt
In 2012, Spain’s King Juan Carlos I secretly went elephant hunting in Botswana. However, when he suffered a severe injury and required a medical flight home, the trip became public, triggering a scandal over its cost-especially since he was an honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund at the time.
7. When AOL charged users an hourly fee for internet access, it added 15 seconds to each session and rounded up to the next full minute. For example, a user connected for 12 minutes and 46 seconds would be billed for 14 minutes.
8. Despite being the title character, Michael Keaton had only 17 minutes of screen time in Beetlejuice.
9. The mysterious 1997 death of “Baby Garnet” remained unsolved until 2022, when a woman’s at-home DNA test revealed that her grandmother had committed the crime.
10. Washington, D.C. has a Titanic monument, funded by women, to honor the men who sacrificed their lives so that women and children could survive. While over 70% of women and children were rescued, only 20% of men survived.
11 Forgotten Song, Huge Payday
Singer James Carter (also a former convict, musician, and shipping clerk) once received a $20,000 royalty check for a song featured in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which he had recorded 40 years earlier but had completely forgotten.
12. After Germany’s 7-1 victory over Brazil in the 2014 World Cup, Pornhub had to issue a plea asking users to stop uploading match highlights to the site.
13. Ancient Roman tourists visiting Egyptian tombs often left negative reviews in graffiti. Some complained that only the sarcophagus was interesting, while others were frustrated by their inability to read the hieroglyphs. Ironically, these criticisms later became valuable historical records.
14. In 2017, five bald men were murdered in Mozambique because their killers believed that bald heads contained gold.
15. In 2006, a jury awarded $5.6 million to the family of a man whose surgeon implanted a screwdriver shaft into his spine after discovering that the two planned titanium rods were missing. The screwdriver later snapped, requiring three more back surgeries. The man died two years later.
16 Saudi Arabia’s First Movie
In 2018, Saudi Arabia lifted its 35-year ban on cinemas. The first movie screened publicly after the ban’s removal was The Emoji Movie.
17. For 73 years, people did not believe Titanic survivors who claimed the ship split in half before sinking. One survivor even recalled people arguing with her about what she had seen. This skepticism persisted until 1985, when the wreckage was finally discovered in two pieces.
18. The 1944 Nobel Prize for the discovery of nuclear fission was awarded solely to German physicist Otto Hahn, despite his collaboration with Lise Meitner, a Jewish-German scientist forced into exile. Meitner not only contributed significantly to the work but was also the first to use the term “fission” and explain the process.
19. A Brazilian judge ordered identical twin brothers to pay child support after DNA tests failed to determine which of them had fathered a child. Since both men refused to confess, the judge ruled that they were depriving the girl of her right to know her biological father.
20. J.R.R. Tolkien disliked the title The Two Towers and repeatedly changed his mind about which towers it referred to. There are actually five towers relevant to the story.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Armstrong’s Missing “A”
Neil Armstrong claimed he said, “One small step for a man…” but the word “A” was lost in transmission.
22. In 1978, a hostage crisis involving 30 people in Melbourne, Australia, ended when the perpetrator’s mother stormed in, hit him over the head with her handbag, and told him to “stop being so stupid.”
23. In 2019, Robert Kirkman abruptly ended The Walking Dead comic book series-the foundation of a multibillion-dollar franchise-without any prior warning. He concluded issue #193 with a letter explaining that the series was over, having chosen to end it on his terms while also partly concerned that he lacked more material to continue.
24. A 2018 study found that male gorillas who actively participated in babysitting duties sired more than five times the offspring of those who avoided childcare. These gorillas were often affectionate, allowing infant and juvenile gorillas to cuddle, play, and rest in their nests.
25. In 1919, Britain’s most remote colony, Tristan da Cunha, learned about World War I only after it had both started and ended-having gone without resupply for 10 years.
RE: Fact #41 (Giancarlo Esposito’s Darkest Moment) – I recall his interview about playing Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian. He loved teasing his daughter by pretending to “squeeze” Grogu – classic dad joke!
I think he said something like, “I’m gonna squash that little guy with the big ears!” 😂
RE: Fact #35 (Accidental Discovery of YInMn Blue) – I’m an artist, and I got my hands on some amazing blue pigment. Seriously, it’s a gorgeous blue! My daughter’s a biology student at Oregon State, so that helped me get some. It’s non-toxic and just beautiful.
Blue is a tricky color because it can fade. The amazing blue you see in Renaissance paintings came from lapis lazuli (also called ultramarine), a semi-precious stone from Afghanistan. It’s the same blue in King Tut’s mask.
Lapis was super expensive, more valuable than gold, but it didn’t fade like other blues. Most art-store blues today are synthetic and not great for the planet.
YIN-Mn blue is awesome.
RE: Fact #13 (Roman Graffiti: Bad Reviews) – “Beware of Ea-Nasir’s copper; it’s not what he claims.”
RE: Fact #35 (Accidental Discovery of YInMn Blue) – This color is super hard to find. Some company bought up all the rights to use it—they’re making roof sealant or something with it, I heard. You can get tiny tubes from Gamblin, but they’re ridiculously expensive! All I want is enough to paint a wall or car—it’s such a cool color and has great cooling properties—but it’s almost impossible to get enough.
Back in 2016, AMD and some other companies started using this color in things that get hot. Here’s a short interview clip of Mas Subramanian, the top scientist at OSU who found this pigment, about why YInMn Blue is so great at blocking heat and UV rays.
RE: Fact #9 (DNA Test Solves Infanticide) – Sixty-one-year-old Nancy Gerwatowski admitted it was her baby, and now she could spend life in prison. Little Baby Garnet suffocated, and a maintenance guy found her in a campground toilet in Michigan back in June 1997. The town really took her in—they called her Baby Garnet—and chipped in to bury her in a white casket with a headstone, not far from where they found her.
RE: Fact #10 (Titanic Monument in D.C.) – It used to be right in the middle of the city. But after a while, people forgot about the disaster, so they moved it to a quieter spot by the Potomac. Some folks even made a little memorial there for the victims of that American Airlines flight that crashed into the helicopter—it’s close to where it happened.
It’s a bit of a trek, but it’s gorgeous. I saw fresh flowers there a couple weeks back. I wondered who’s still mourning the Titanic after all this time, but the helicopter crash explanation makes more sense.
Recently, I saw another Titanic fact on factrepublic, and someone brought up the MS Estonia disaster. I’ve been lucky enough to know a few survivors and crew, and it’s striking how quickly memories are fading. Some survivors have passed away, and many families have moved on.
Last year was the 30th anniversary, and it seems future memorials will be smaller – maybe just a church service and concert, with smaller towns hit hard by the disaster holding their own events. No more huge services or media coverage.
It’s strange, but also comforting, to see time heal, even if it’s just to a degree. It feels like yesterday I was on a similar ship in a similar storm, everyone terrified. Now, passengers mostly complain about the karaoke bar or being kept awake by the rocking.
Almost all those ships are gone now – scrapped or sailing less demanding routes in the Mediterranean.
A Swedish musician, Pierre Isacsson, died on the Estonia ferry. His most famous song is readily available online.
RE: Fact #21 (Armstrong’s Missing “A”) – That’s way clearer than repeating yourself.
RE: Fact #16 (Saudi Arabia’s First Movie) – Imagine paying for tickets to this huge historical event, only to have your eyes assaulted by terrible visuals.
It was probably a good lesson for them. They weren’t missing anything.
So maybe that was the plan. Let’s try it for a day and see how quickly people want it banned again.
West’s idea of cinema? Total crap!
Maybe it was the other way around. They were so desperate for Western stuff that even *The Emoji Movie* seemed amazing.
I bet a lot of them weren’t actually that hungry.
Pirates always find a way.
RE: Fact #49 (Elderly Americans Lost $3 Billion) – It’s usually pretty easy to spot a scam, but older folks can get tricked because they aren’t as used to things like online banking. Once scammers get better with AI and hacking, though, it’ll be much tougher to tell. And seriously, why does my bank send emails with links?! That’s a huge red flag for a legit bank.
RE: Fact #48 (Child Actor Named His Siblings) – Getting renamed by your more successful brother just because he’s successful? That’s a real bummer.
It’s pretty ironic, huh? The actor who played the most famous poor kid ever ended up so spoiled he got to name his own brothers and sisters.
Timmy, you’re gonna be sorry if you’re mean to me again. I’m getting Mom and Dad to legally change your name to Rufus!
RE: Fact #42 (Simón Bolívar Freed His Slaves) – Bolivia’s actually named after him.
Oh, and Venezuela – I just found out it’s officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
In Venezuela, they use the bolívar.
So, Hugo Chavez, that leftist president who took office in 1999 and really admired Bolivar, added the “Bolivarian” bit to the name. Before that, it was just “Republic of Venezuela,” and even earlier, before 1953, it was the “United States of Venezuela”—most people are pretty surprised by that last part.
RE: Fact #9 (DNA Test Solves Infanticide) – Do the police ever look at AncestryDNA databases?
It’s happening more and more. That’s how they caught Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., the guy who killed 13 and r*ped over 50. His crimes stopped in 1986, and everyone figured they’d never find him – or that he was even still alive! They dug into a database, found distant relatives based on crime scene DNA, built a family tree, and narrowed it down to him. Then they got his DNA from his trash, and – bam! – they had a match.
RE: Fact #47 (Hawaiian Home Built on Wrong Lot) – Growing up, the guy building our neighborhood messed up on one of the last houses. He put the foundation too close to the neighbor’s property because he thought the fence was the property line, but it wasn’t – it was set back a bunch. Nobody noticed until the house was almost done, then everything stopped for months while lawyers fought about it. Finally, he knocked it down and built a new one farther away.
Seems like the first thing to do would be a survey.
That’ll hurt our profits, won’t it? And, uh, what do you mean it’s misplaced?
RE: Fact #1 (Porky Pig’s Original Voice) – That executive was probably like – Hey Mel, the last guy had a serious disability that was a real headache. We liked the effect it gave his character, but dealing with him was tough, and we don’t want to pay him. So, could you check out a few short videos and just copy his performance? We let him go today.
Dude was an AI before AI was even a thing.
Hey, they’re always hunting for free work, right? Slaves, prisoners, robots, unpaid internships – now it’s AI. Those in charge are always scheming up new ways to take advantage of everyone else.
So, Mel Blanc was the voice behind almost every Looney Tunes character, even doing a lot of the sound effects.
Nope, not then. Dougherty did Porky from 1935 to 1937. Then in ’37, they got Mel Blanc to do the duck in “Porky’s Duck Hunt”—that was Daffy’s first time. They also had Blanc do Porky, so he did. That’s how Blanc got started with Looney Tunes.
Basically, Blanc only voiced all those Looney Tunes characters *after* they let him do Porky, which was only his second character for them.
RE: Fact #13 (Roman Graffiti: Bad Reviews) – One star — everything’s in Egyptian, and nobody’s got any decent garum.
I’m from Pompeii, and I haven’t seen a single NSFW image.
Family trip to the tombs was awesome, until some annoying Pompeii teenagers showed up looking for inappropriate stuff.
Best tomb ever, but seriously, it was scorching. One star.
The art was great, but the rest? Not so much. Two stars.
This thing is terrible. Zero stars if I could, but we Romans didn’t even have a way to represent that!
RE: Fact #18 (Lise Meitner’s Nobel Snub) – Even that didn’t fix things for her. The Nobel Committee gave Hahn the 1944 Chemistry prize for discovering how to split heavy atoms, but it’s weird because Hahn didn’t even use the word “fission” in his first paper—Meitner came up with that word later in a letter.
RE: Fact #21 (Armstrong’s Missing “A”) – I bumped into Buzz Aldrin once, and he seemed a bit full of himself. He was like, “Hi, I’m Buzz Aldrin, second guy on the Moon—after Neil, of course.”
That’s a killer line! I mostly know Buzz Aldrin from those awesome street fight videos I’ve seen on facebook.
That guy figured, “What’s this old guy gonna do? He’s not gonna punch me, right?”
That guy totally deserved it, but the video doesn’t show the whole picture. He was relentlessly harassing Buzz about the moon landing, not just a one-off thing. The guy had been pushing Buzz’s buttons for ages.
Honestly, if I was the second guy on the moon, after Neil, I’d probably have a bit of an ego too.
Only twelve people have ever walked on the Moon. That’s a pretty small group! Just getting into the astronaut program, let alone going to the Moon, was a huge deal.
RE: Fact #43 (Massey Hall’s Affordable Tickets) – The Masseys really gave a lot back to Ontario over the years. Many of them, like Hart, seemed to genuinely believe in helping others. Back in my hometown, Newcastle, Ontario – where they started their business way back in the 1800s – they kept giving even after moving to Toronto. They paid for a community hall in the 1920s, did a ton for the town’s United Church (even building a hall that’s still used!), and supported lots of other projects that helped build the town.
RE: Fact #31 (Sharks Are Older Than Polaris) – Sharks have been around longer than trees.
Not as old as the hills
Maybe this isn’t true. Sharks could be older than the Appalachian Mountains, which formed 300 to 500 million years ago.
RE: Fact #22 (Mom Ends Hostage Crisis) – Wow, imagine ending up in jail for *that* – nobody saw it coming!
How’d you get caught?
My mom showed up and whacked me with her purse.
Wow, and she totally wrecked you before the cops got you? Brutal!
RE: Fact #17 (Titanic Split: Disbelieved for Decades) – Man, I’d hate to survive the Titanic only to have some clueless people who weren’t even there tell me what happened.
RE: Fact #1 (Porky Pig’s Original Voice) – So, you’re replacing me? I get it, my stutter doesn’t work for the character. But wait, the new guy’s *going* to stutter on purpose? 🤨
Hey, just a heads-up: Porky Pig’s stutter was part of his thing—they chose him *because* he stuttered. It was just too much, so they couldn’t keep using him. I bet they kept some of his quirks though, after they swapped him out.
The actor’s stutter, even though it was part of the character, made it tough to get the lines just right. But there’s something else about Porky’s voice that explains this. When he stutters, he often uses a different word – a synonym, you know? That’s really hard to do and keep the comedy timing perfect if you actually stutter. That’s probably why they changed things.
He probably would’ve stammered something like, “You’re rep-p-p-p-p…”
He’s seriously one of the only people who can pull that off flawlessly.
I love how he ends this interview with, “…and nobody can do that, that’s why my job’s safe!”
He also shows you exactly how he does it. Check it out!
That’s not Mel Blanc; your wording made it sound like the video was an interview with him, not Bob Bergen, who took over after Mel passed away.
RE: Fact #25 (War News Arrives a Decade Late) – American Johnny Lambert was the first guy to settle there permanently, showing up in 1810. He even declared himself king, saying he owned the place because he was the first one there. Sadly, he drowned two years later.
He was the top dog for two years straight.
RE: Fact #27 (Deadly Hazing at St. John’s) – My school was brutal; they shaved the heads of first-years, piled on the rules, and since you could spot a newbie a mile away, that whole year was a nightmare. One year, they nearly drowned a freshman—the pool got filled in, and nobody even got in trouble.
Brilliant people looks like
Their parents likely chipped in a lot.
College students get away with a lot, huh? Not *this* much, but lots of colleges have their own police who handle things internally.
I like that better, so minor screw-ups don’t haunt you forever.
Of course, I’m not saying murder should be excused as a “minor screw-up.”
RE: Fact #30 (Ben Franklin’s Free Inventions) – Honestly, if you’re already loaded, idea theft’s less of a worry.
RE: Fact #7 (AOL’s Hidden Billing Trick) – That’s why you snagged that promo CD-ROM with tons of free stuff on it.
Yeah, and then you were stuck waiting for a fresh batch of internet because you’d used it all up.
My local Blockbuster was giving them away!
Back when I flipped burgers at Burger King, like, twenty years ago, we had to stuff these discs in every bag. I’d just cram a bunch in each one to get rid of them faster. Some people ended up with a ton of free frisbees—didn’t bother me.
RE: Fact #36 (North Korean Brides in South Korea) – Charging me that much for a few dates? I’d tell you where to go.
You haven’t seen anything yet.
It’s true, people, especially those in office jobs, don’t socialize much outside of work these days. And Asian folks, generally speaking, tend to be more private with people outside their close circles. Finding someone who’s become close friends with someone they met at a bar is pretty uncommon.
In Asia, people consider social standing as much as romantic compatibility when looking for a partner. So, this service focuses on matching people based on social status, hoping that sparks fly romantically too.
This kind of service is pretty popular in Singapore, where everyone’s super busy with their careers.
Dating South Korean girls is probably more expensive.
North Korean women experience a lot of violence, so they often put up with sexism more than women in South Korea.
Totally agree!
What’s the yearly cost for Tinder/Bumble premium?
RE: Fact #29 (Woolworth’s Transition to Foot Locker) – Hey, where I live, we still have a Woolworths! It’s the last one left in the whole US, I think. It’s closed for a remodel right now, but it should be back open around August, I think.
There’s also one in Asheville, North Carolina.
The Greensboro, NC, one’s now a civil rights museum.
RE: Fact #19 (Twins Ordered to Pay Support) – So, a judge in Goiás decided both guys’ names should be on the baby’s birth certificate. The twins—let’s call them Fernando and Fabrício—kept their real names secret for legal reasons. The judge basically said one of them was being a real jerk, trying to dodge responsibility for the baby. He called it unacceptable. Apparently, these guys used their identical looks to pull off some serious dating shenanigans and then used that same resemblance to avoid being caught.
Sounds like they were also raping women.
Those awful brothers
The C*nt of Monte Cristo
I bet those guys both slept with her and tried to pin the child support on each other.
RE: Fact #40 (Hidden Comics Worth $3.5 Million) – His great uncle, when he was a kid, bought this amazing comic book collection. Some of the highlights and how much they sold for:
* Detective Comics #27: $523,000
* Action Comics #1: $299,000
* Batman #1: $275,000
* Captain America #2: $114,000
This Virginia kid had a real talent for picking winners! Out of the 345 comics he bought, 44 were among the top 100 in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide’s list of Golden Age comics. They were all super well-kept. A comic book expert, J.C. Vaughn, said the whole collection is mind-blowing! Most Golden Age comics—from the late 30s to the 50s—are gone because of the war, wear and tear, or moms throwing them away. For example, only about 100 copies of Action Comics #1 are left!
Rorrer, from California, got half the collection from his great uncle and his mom gave the other half to his brother. Rorrer didn’t know how valuable they were until he talked to a coworker, who wondered if he had Action Comics #1. He checked, and there it was! That’s when he really started looking into how much the collection was worth.
So his uncle was a time traveler, huh?
If he did go back in time, either he was clueless about how it works, or there’s more to the story than we know.
RE: Fact #30 (Ben Franklin’s Free Inventions) – Reminds me of how the seatbelt patent was free. Imagine if it was invented recently – you’d be paying a setup fee, plus a subscription based on how many seatbelts you needed!
Give it away free, and some big company will totally claim it as theirs and hit you with a lawsuit.
I worked ages ago at this huge company, super rich. My team came up with something awesome, and we just released it without patenting it – with the boss’s okay, of course. A couple years later, some patent troll swooped in, grabbed the patent, and tried to sue the company. My company wasn’t happy. Luckily, we had all the proof of when we invented it. The troll didn’t stand a chance; my company really went after them. It was seriously satisfying.
The takeaway? Patent your stuff, even if you’re giving it away for free. It’s not that expensive. And apparently, you can even tell them you’ll let others use it freely during the patenting process.
That’s awful, I was already pretty annoyed by how likely my guess was. Now I’m furious it actually happened.
Volvo didn’t just hand it out, they made the patent open so anyone could use it without paying, as long as they gave Volvo credit. It’s like how Visual Basic gives credit to Lotus Improv. Volvo does this a lot – besides the seatbelt, they’ve done the same with rear seatbelts, anti-lock brakes, safer gas tanks, some electric battery thing I don’t get, windshield safety improvements, and safer window switches. They’ve opened up over 120 safety patents.
The Volvo museum in Gothenburg is awesome, even if you’re not into cars or don’t drive.
RE: Fact #5 (Jodie Foster’s Lion Attack) – I just learned about ailurophobia—the intense, ongoing fear of cats.
I bet everyone’s scared if it’s a lion or tiger, right? Those things are crazy fast – 80kph! – can jump ten meters, and one swipe or bite is all it takes.
I’ll never forget the time I came face-to-face with a tiger – nothing between us. The look in its eyes, man, just pure, gut-wrenching fear. It was like a primal scream in my brain.
Saint Bernards are about the same size as panthers, which is pretty wild. Fifty pounds is medium-sized for a dog, but a cat that size? Forget about it. They’d win a fight. If you took away tools, cats would rule the animal world.
Unless you’re a bird, it’s not too much.
A nine-year-old getting attacked by a lion would definitely have it afterwards.
RE: Fact #39 (Reviews in Pompeii’s ) – “Helena’s grip was super strong, and her teeth were seriously sharp.”
RE: Fact #50 (Napoleon Arrested the Pope) – Napoleon sounds like a real handful.
He’s a total enigma, super complicated, and ridiculously full of himself. His life? Seriously unbelievable, once you dig into it.
Ridley Scott left out all the cool stuff when he made his Napoleon movie.
The pope wasn’t exactly a saint, right? Lots of people were happy to see Napoleon, even in places he was conquering. In Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, many saw him as a liberator, especially those who liked the French Revolution’s ideas like getting rid of feudalism and making everyone equal under the law. Napoleon’s changes, including his legal code, modernized things and seemed pretty progressive compared to the old kings and nobles. But not everyone was thrilled. Spain really fought back, and the war there was brutal. In Russia and much of Prussia, he was just seen as an invader. And later on, high taxes, the draft, and the hard times caused by his wars turned a lot of his former fans against him.
People got over it pretty fast once they saw Napoleon and France were just using their conquered lands to pay for their wars, not actually freeing anyone. But his reforms and ideas really stuck around, and they’ve shaped Europe and the world for the last two centuries.
So, seriously, he crowned himself Emperor, stuck his family on all these thrones in countries France controlled, and then married them all off to the old royal families. Wouldn’t you expect people to like him less after that?
RE: Fact #40 (Hidden Comics Worth $3.5 Million) – I’m lucky, I never have to deal with that. Mom’s a total minimalist; she’d toss gold bars if they were “clutter.” At least the house will be clean when she’s gone.
My parents are total hoarders, and guess what? They got rid of all my video games and my brother’s Pokémon cards!
My grandpa had a thing for pricey old books. Problem is, he stamped his name and address in every single one! So, books that could’ve been worth €200-300 are now worthless. Ha!
RE: Fact #15 (Surgeon Used Screwdriver Shaft) – Providence messed up big time with a surgeon doing needless operations. Their rival, Multicare, then hired him. The feds told Multicare not to, ’cause it was under investigation’, but they did it anyway. He did it again! Hospital bosses can be clueless sometimes.
I get it, you’re right. But it’s not just stupidity; it’s mostly greed, I think. The big bosses, the risk managers – they probably figured the money was worth the gamble, even if it hurt patients.
Seriously, what a mess! Total lack of planning. There was nothing good that could come of it, and now they’re facing the consequences. Providence had to cough up over $20 million because of it. It’s going to be even worse for Multicare, since they hired him knowing he was under investigation—and they were warned! The whole thing is just boneheaded. I’ve worked for both companies, and I’m never going back.
RE: Fact #42 (Simón Bolívar Freed His Slaves) – Leftist groups aren’t the only ones who think he’s great; he’s a big deal all over South America.
It’s kind of like saying George Washington’s a hero to right-wing militias.
Seriously, they named a whole country and tons of money stuff after him. Revered doesn’t even begin to cover it.
RE: Fact #44 (French Nobility Lost at Agincourt) – Timmy Chalamet really beat up that Twilight guy, if I recall correctly.
Whoa, they got a French actor to play the English king and an English actor to play a French royal? That’s crazy!
Everyone was French, that’s why our food has French names. The English kings? Just French nobles from the west and northwest. The Hundred Years’ War? The English king was the French king’s vassal but wouldn’t kneel. The earlier kings either knelt or found good excuses—sending your wife and son worked well.
Pattinson’s amazing in that movie – seriously over the top, but in a great way! The movie itself is a bit uneven, but I really enjoyed it.
Oh, and completely unrelated, I just got an OLED TV, and the colors in that movie are stunning on it.
That final scene with the French queen was amazing – totally stole the show when she ripped into him about his ridiculous campaign.
The art direction was awesome.
RE: Fact #10 (Titanic Monument in D.C.) – My great-great-grandpa was on the Titanic, and I guess he’s still there.
RE: Fact #14 (Bald Men Killed for Gold) – Huh, why didn’t they get it after the first two were gone? Criminals are getting dumber, I swear.
Some people are unbelievably clueless.
Malnutrition can really mess with someone’s brainpower, especially when they’re still growing.
RE: Fact #47 (Hawaiian Home Built on Wrong Lot) – I worked at a title agency, and let me tell you, people don’t double-check enough! There was this four-unit condo building – the contractor numbered the units on the doors, and everyone just went with it. The thing is, he got the numbers totally backward compared to the official documents. So, eight years later, when someone tried to sell, it turned out the guy in unit four actually owned unit one, and so on.
I handled two almost identical buildings, and some stuck-up agent messed up the wrong 114 and tried to pin it on me. It was a total mess.
Everyone got the right unit, but the wrong number written down?
Your lease/mortgage says you’re in unit 1, and your door says 1, but it’s actually unit 4. You’re living in the wrong place, and someone else is in yours – and they legally own the place you’re in.
It’s all about the details, right? People hate being called pedantic, but details are super important. Typos, bad punctuation, and fuzzy details – they’ve even changed history, sometimes preventing wars, sometimes starting them.
RE: Fact #26 (EVE Online’s $300K Battle) – I spent a whole 21 hours there! It was awesome!
Being a North American Eve player sucks because the good stuff happens in EU time, and I miss it. I once bolted from work early to help with a dreadnought extraction, but that was about it.
Considering time dilation, it was a solid 5 minutes of fun!
RE: Fact #7 (AOL’s Hidden Billing Trick) – I did AOL Canada tech support for two years back in ’99. It was awful; we could identify modems just from the connection sound. “Sssskkkkrrreeeeee… Yep, that’s a Conexant v34.”
I was at one of the first US call centers – back when we used AOL DOS, GeoWorks, Win 3.1, and whatever old Macs were around. The microwave was always busted because people microwaved CDs to watch them spark. Even though it was a private call center, we still had tons of install CDs.
RE: Fact #41 (Giancarlo Esposito’s Darkest Moment) – It’s wild how after *Breaking Bad*, he just got stuck playing villains, tons of parts like that.
Getting pigeonholed isn’t so bad, actually—you’ll be a top contender just because of your track record.
Being typecast is probably a big deal for famous actors, but most actors are just glad to have a job.
Honestly, he was such a great villain because he nailed that whole good-guy/bad-guy thing. Sure, he was a ruthless drug lord, but he also showed a softer side – helping people in the community, being nice to his workers, and even having a sad past. It seems a shame he’s stuck playing villains, ’cause I reckon he could totally pull off other parts.
Wow, that’s a lot to take in!
RE: Fact #47 (Hawaiian Home Built on Wrong Lot) – The house next to my old job? It was built backwards! The owner messed up the foundation, the builder just went with it, and then BAM! Huge fight, they tore it down, and sold the lot.
Should’ve called it “north-facing” and sold it to a Southerner.
RE: Fact #23 (Walking Dead’s Sudden End) – Fake cover stories in the last issue? Total scam! Still, it had a great ending.
How did it end?
Way in the future, they’re hauling around walkers as some kinda sideshow. One gets loose, old man Carl offs it, and the “owner” sues him. Judge Michonne gives Carl a talking-to about how nobody remembers what things used to be like, and basically lets him off the hook, but warns him times are changing. It was a while back, I think.
He let comic shops order fake copies beforehand, and some folks weren’t too happy about it.
He actually gave away a free Negan comic book series to comic shops during Covid, so let’s give him a break.
Comic shops would’ve been bummed if they’d known it was the last issue – they would have stocked up!
My main problem was that, to keep using those 48-issue collections, he had to choose between ending at issue 192 or going all the way to 240. Because of that, the Commonwealth story feels super rushed and not as good as the other big stories. The final story of the whole series only got about half the development time as the Governor, Negan, and Whisperer stories.
He explained in a letter to fans in the final issue that he had about 50 issues left until his planned ending, and he always has to think about how the collections would work. Since they were doing 48-issue collections, he felt it would be wrong to end the series in a way that made people buy a different format to finish it.
RE: Fact #5 (Jodie Foster’s Lion Attack) – Napoleon and Samantha, that Disney movie about a kid and a lion? Disney sure loved giving kids dangerous pets, huh?
And then there was that crazy Roar thing.
No way! I had no idea, that’s insane. Jan De Bont, the guy who directed “Speed” and “Twister”, almost got his scalp taken off by a lion—he needed 120 stitches!
Don’t bother checking on Miles and Otis.
RE: Fact #18 (Lise Meitner’s Nobel Snub) – Hahn didn’t get an element named after him, but Meitner totally got robbed of a Nobel Prize. Getting an element named after you is way rarer though, even if she missed out on seeing it happen. Same goes for Mendeleev.
This is way more complex than it seems. Hahn was the main scientist, and Meitner worked for him. Plus, she was Jewish in Germany, so to keep her safe, Hahn and the others didn’t put her name on the papers. It wasn’t like they intentionally ripped her off. Actually, Hahn even gave her his mom’s diamond ring so she could bribe her way to safety when she had to leave Germany! We give her credit now, but saying she was a victim of sexism back then isn’t quite right.
RE: Fact #34 (No Receptors for Wetness) – Totally makes sense. If you’ve ever tried a float tank, you’re in this dark pod, just floating in salty water. You’re so buoyant because of all the Epsom salts. Since the water and air are the same temperature, you can’t even tell where the water ends. It’s weird, but really cool.
It’s easy to do this in the shower. Just take a long, hot shower to steam it up. Then, fill your mouth with shower water and dip your finger in – it’s hard to tell exactly when the water starts to get in. You can also use a cup.
Sounds kinda kinky, tbh.
Actually, the water and air are different temps—that’s the whole point! Even if things are the same temperature, they can still feel different because of how they hold heat. That’s why a room-temp pool feels chilly. The water’s kept around 35°C, while the air is 24°-26°C, but they feel pretty much the same.
We’re not that great at sensing temperature. I’ve seen lots of different numbers thrown around – it really depends on what you’re touching – but it seems we can only really feel a range of about 20-25°C, maybe 15-40°C at the most. Anything outside that range, we feel as pain. That’s why it’s hard sometimes to tell if something’s super hot or super cold – we have different pain sensors for hot and cold, but they both send the same signal to our brain. Our bodies can still tell the difference though, which is how we know when to sweat or shiver.
RE: Fact #50 (Napoleon Arrested the Pope) – That title’s totally off. Napoleon led the Italian army’s northern invasion in ’96, wrapping things up in ’97 with Klagenfurt’s capture and the Leoben armistice. There was a tiny skirmish with Pope Pius VI, ending peacefully in ’97 with the Treaty of Tolentino. Rome wasn’t even touched—the Papal army’s defeat scared the Pope enough to make peace. Napoleon never actually set foot in Rome. He was in France in February ’98, getting ready to invade Egypt. The ’98 invasion was the Directory’s call, led by General Berthier. And it wasn’t just Berthier who ended the papacy’s temporal power; it was a decision by the Directory and lots of French revolutionaries.
RE: Fact #37 (Breaking Bad’s Filming Move) –
RE: Fact #19 (Twins Ordered to Pay Support) – So the guys would have sex with women, then switch places with their twin brother, and the women were totally clueless? That’s messed up.
Yeah, it could be, but I got the vibe that they were both dating around, and if a girlfriend caught them with another woman, they’d blame it on the twin.
RE: Fact #11 (Forgotten Song, Huge Payday) –
RE: Fact #31 (Sharks Are Older Than Polaris) – Even older than Saturn’s rings—by a couple hundred million years. Scientists guess the rings formed about 100 million years ago.
So, do they know what made Saturn’s rings? It sounds like maybe a planet or moon smashed into it, if they’re that young.
Seriously? Sharks existed before trees, Saturn’s rings, and Polaris!
They’re total killing machines.
RE: Fact #5 (Jodie Foster’s Lion Attack) – That lion almost got Bob Denver in that Gilligan’s Island episode, “Feed the Kitty.” Seriously, don’t mess with fate!
Bob Denver told this crazy story once—a chimp almost bit his fingers off! A trainer yelled at him to punch the chimp in the nose, so he did. Guess that whole “don’t work with animals” thing is real.
Working with animals or kids? Prepare to accidentally clock them to protect your own digits.
Just find the cheapest lion tamer on Craigslist.
RE: Fact #35 (Accidental Discovery of YInMn Blue) – Oregon State University is amazing! Their researchers have come up with all sorts of cool stuff, from the computer mouse to wrinkle-free cotton. And they’ve created some seriously delicious fruits – especially the marionberry. If you haven’t tasted one, you’re missing out! They’re like blackberries, but juicier, with a hint of raspberry. They’re incredible in everything – pies, jam, ice cream, even bread! Plus, they have this awesome purple color.
I’m totally hooked on them.
Go Beavs! And hey, transparent aluminum is cool.
Honestly, I went crazy for marionberries when I was up Northwest, but they just tasted like blackberries to me. The locals weren’t too happy about that, haha.
RE: Fact #25 (War News Arrives a Decade Late) – I’m curious, how long would they have waited before sending out a search party to see if the outside world was still around?
I doubt they could. It’s smack-dab in the middle of the South Atlantic, over 2,700 kilometers from South Africa – the nearest land. They probably didn’t have boats that could make it anywhere else.
It reminds me of the Falklands, one of those places you never knew existed. I’ve been reading up on it, and it’s a seriously weird island—like England in the 1950s, but totally self-sufficient.
I wonder why they were waiting for supplies like that and didn’t venture out?
It still takes a whole week for a ship to get here from South Africa.
RE: Fact #39 (Reviews in Pompeii’s ) – “Wow, didn’t see that coming. I’ve changed my ways, ladies. My days of dating women are over.”
RE: Fact #27 (Deadly Hazing at St. John’s) – So, Jon Hamm (yes that famous actor) was known for being a real jerk. “Setting a pledge on fire” is a bit of an understatement. A junior was pledging, had to answer some stupid questions, got one wrong, and then the fraternity went nuts. They beat him with a paddle, hung him upside down by his underwear, forced him to do push-ups with someone standing on his back, and then Hamm actually lit his pants on fire! The kid had to put it out himself. Hamm also, get this, hooked a hammer claw onto the kid’s…well, you know. The kid waited three years to report it, naming Hamm as the ringleader. Hamm got probation, no degree. Others got community service. The kid sued, but lost. And in a 2018 interview, Hamm basically said the court stuff wasn’t entirely true, blamed it on being young and confused, and never really apologized. No wonder people called it a weak excuse.
Show this to anyone who claims bullying wasn’t a thing back in their school days.
What the heck? That’s awful for that guy. Community service? Seriously? That’s not even a real punishment, and Hamm didn’t even get that!
They probably all came from wealthy families.
RE: Fact #20 (Tolkien’s Tower Confusion) – It’s kinda funny, I always thought it meant Orthanc and Barad-dûr, since that’s what the book’s all about. But, if you think about it, the show really focuses on Barad-dûr and Minas Tirith.
I don’t think the other towers are important enough to be in the title, though.
The movie also portrays Orthanc and Barad-Dûr as being really important.
“The Union of the Two Towers” really spells it out.
Minas Tirith versus Minas Morgul is all about how we read the story – Sauron sends the Witch-king out of Minas Morgul to start the big battle at Pelennor Fields. Barad-dûr mostly hangs back until the third book. Yeah, the title’s a bit tricky.
RE: Fact #15 (Surgeon Used Screwdriver Shaft) – So, Davis said Ricketson’s medical license was yanked in Oklahoma and Texas before he showed up there. That explains it.
RE: Fact #12 (2014 Germany Football Victory) – One local pub slashed 50 cents off each Erdinger pint for every goal, and they completely ran out of beer by the end of the game.
Did they end up losing money?
RE: Fact #44 (French Nobility Lost at Agincourt) – So, apparently, Agincourt, Toronto got its name from that battle. The story goes that when Hill wanted a post office, the French-Canadian postmaster said okay, but only if it had a French name. Hill cleverly picked “Agincourt” to kinda mess with him.
RE: Fact #24 (Babysitting Gorillas Have More Kids) – If you’re not a heartthrob, be helpful instead.
RE: Fact #27 (Deadly Hazing at St. John’s) – Crazy thing happened at my high school. Some senior tried to haze the wrong freshman, way back in that empty stairwell. Things got out of hand, and the senior ended up dead.
Isn’t high school hazing just regular bullying? It seems like hazing only makes sense if someone’s enduring it to join a fraternity, and that’s not really a thing in high school.
High school sports teams are where hazing usually happens, so it’s a real thing, but without knowing more, this sounds like regular bullying.
Hazing is basically when some people pick on newcomers, right? That’s always been my take on it, and your example fits that.
RE: Fact #33 (Pirahã Language Requires Proof) – It’s probably no surprise they stopped caring about Jesus after someone tried to convert them—turns out, this person had never even met him.
Funny thing, but I love this bit of trivia: early Christian missionaries had zero success getting Vikings to buy into the whole “turn the other cheek” thing. Then they switched gears and talked up Jesus’s strength – “This guy’s so tough, the biggest empire ever tried to off him and failed! He even went to hell and beat the devil’s butt!” – and *that* worked like a charm.
So, that’s Paul’s whole deal: be everything to everyone. Most of the New Testament is just Paul pointing at stuff and saying, “That’s Jesus! And that’s Jesus! And that’s Jesus too! Believe it or not!”
RE: Fact #50 (Napoleon Arrested the Pope) – Funny thing about his arrest: French soldiers had to bust through, like, a dozen solid wood doors to get to him! He just sat there, all dressed up, waiting for them to finally break in. Then, he joked about them making a late-night visit.
I really enjoyed Michael Broer’s “Napoleon: The Spirit of the Age”—it’s a great read for history buffs!
I figured the surprise would be him saying, “Why didn’t you just ring the bell?”
One of my favorite pope stories is about the time a pope dug up his predecessor for a trial.
One pope got caught with another guy’s wife and ended up tossed out a window, which, you know, didn’t end well.
RE: Fact #1 (Porky Pig’s Original Voice) – People got the story wrong.
I looked up Dougherty on wiki – it turns out they really wanted Porky Pig to have a natural stutter, not a fake one. That makes total sense, since most voice actors probably couldn’t do a convincing stutter back then.
No idea how they found him, but he seemed keen to act. Maybe through college or friends? His wikipedia page says he studied to be a doctor, but it doesn’t say if he finished.
His stutter definitely got worse when he was nervous. It sounds like it even got worse when filming ended. Maybe it just kept getting worse over time.
He voiced Porky for two years and was in a bunch of other movies, too.
There’s not much info about his personal life, though. No family details or anything.
Check out these old Porky Pig cartoons. If you’re picturing his voice, that’s Mel Blanc, for sure. Joe Dougherty, the original Porky, had a stutter, just like his character. In “Plane Dippy,” it’s classic Looney Tunes silliness, but also shows a regular guy trying to serve his country, really struggling because of his stutter – can’t even write his name! They still put him in the army and give him a voice-controlled drone. Seriously.
It’s funny, but Porky’s still the hero. You feel bad for him, but he keeps going. That’s pretty powerful stuff for a cartoon from the 1930s.
And Mel Blanc? The guy practically invented voice acting and was the best ever. So, about Dougherty being replaced… you can decide what to think about that.
RE: Fact #4 (Dr. Harold Shipman’s Kill Count) – What I don’t get about Shipman, besides the lack of a clear motive, is how long it took to catch him. People noticed! Several doctors got suspicious about all the deaths under his care, but the police just brushed them off. Even a taxi driver saw something fishy months after the police supposedly looked into it. It was only after he faked a will—to get a ton of money—that they finally caught him.
RE: Fact #33 (Pirahã Language Requires Proof) – There’s this book, *Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes*, about a linguist studying this language and culture. He’s funded by some evangelicals, and ends up losing his faith. They even have a whole whistling dialect for hunting.
RE: Fact #31 (Sharks Are Older Than Polaris) – It’s crazy how ancient sharks are. Seventy million years ago isn’t that long ago; T-Rex was still around! That’s closer to now than the start of the Cretaceous period.
Animals didn’t even breathe air when sharks first appeared. Land animals weren’t even a thing until around the same time sharks showed up. Probably to escape them!
Talk about being a total nightmare! Even your enemies evolve to get away from you. Sharks are all like, “We only wanted to be pals!” 😭
RE: Fact #8 (Beetlejuice’s Surprisingly Short Screen Time) – He basically demanded equal screen time in the sequel, figuring too much of his character would mess up the whole movie.
That was way too much Beetlejuice!
It could have used less of everything.
That movie felt way too much like Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice isn’t really about Betelgeuse, you know. It’s about this young couple in the country who build their dream home, then die and have to haunt it after some New Yorkers buy it and turn it into a totally bizarre museum.
Beetlejuice is just, like, about nothing.
Nope, didn’t work.
It would’ve been better if the plots connected more, haha
RE: Fact #10 (Titanic Monument in D.C.) – It’s a bit much how worked up people get about this. Lots of shipwrecks saw all the women and kids die, but the men lived. “Women and children first” makes sense to a point, but not “women and children only”.
I don’t think it bothered anyone at the time. Only later did people point out things like not enough lifeboat space and boats leaving half-empty. I doubt anyone was actually thinking, “Let’s make sure the men die to save the women.”
That commenter might be talking about how some guys online think “women and children first” shows women get preferential treatment.
RE: Fact #44 (French Nobility Lost at Agincourt) – The French cannons really showed up the English archers at Castillon in 1453. That battle basically ended England’s grip on France and wrapped up the Hundred Years’ War.
So, at Formigny, the French tried attacking an English army holed up in a really strong defensive position – lots of archers and men-at-arms behind stakes and ditches. It didn’t work. Then the French brought in some cannons and started shelling the English. This lured the English out, and they managed to take the cannons, but being out in the open left them exposed. Just then, 1200 Breton knights showed up for the French. The French infantry got their act together and attacked again, and the Breton knights charged. The English got wiped out – 2500 dead, 900 prisoners. After that, the French took back most of Normandy pretty easily.
It’s wild how tech, and those who get it first, can totally change things for so many people.
RE: Fact #20 (Tolkien’s Tower Confusion) – Wonder how the other nineteen rings felt.
Nine rings went to the Ringwraiths. Galadriel and Elrond each have one. Gandalf’s got another—the movie shows him wearing it. We don’t really see the dwarf rings though. Sauron got three back, and Gandalf says dragons ate the other four.
I never heard of those elven rings before! What’s their deal, and why don’t they turn their wearers evil like the others?
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings casting got so crazy, the casting director bailed, forcing them to cut back.
RE: Fact #2 (Keanu Reeves’ Stunt Team Gifts) – The Matrix movies were huge and Keanu Reeves turned down a whopping $75 million in extra cash so the crew could get it instead. Even after that, he still made $200 million! And get this – he gave every Matrix stunt person a Harley Davidson!