26 Gas Stoves Emit Cancer-Causing Benzene
Gas stoves can pollute indoor air in poorly ventilated homes, releasing benzene—a carcinogenic chemical linked to increased cancer risk.
27. Timbaland allowed OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder to keep 100% of the publishing rights for the remix of Apologize. Tedder’s manager said, “He’s not trying to take food off your table. He produced the remix. You wrote the song.” Tedder said the gesture changed his life—it helped him buy a home.
28. The whistleblower behind the Olympus Scandal—one of Japan’s largest and longest-running corporate frauds—was Olympus CEO Michael Christopher Woodford. After he questioned suspicious transactions and involved external auditors, the board fired him.
29. To become King Louis XV’s official mistress, Madame du Barry used a forged birth certificate to hide her humble origins as the illegitimate daughter of a seamstress. It falsely claimed her family was noble and made her three years younger.
30. Beach towels feature two distinct sides: a drying side and a softer, less absorbent side for sitting. They’re also lighter than bath towels and dry faster—ideal for multiple uses in a single day.
31 Ecclestone Became Dad at 89
Former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone became the sixth-oldest father in recorded history when he conceived a child at age 89 in 2020.
32. Mary Tyler Moore insisted on wearing capri pants on The Dick Van Dyke Show, despite network executives fearing they were too revealing. They worried the pants were “cupping under” and accentuating her rear. However, audiences loved the look, and the show became a massive hit.
33. In the 2000s, actress Linda Fiorentino (Men in Black, Dogma) began dating FBI agent Mark Rosini. Claiming she was researching a role, she persuaded him to access confidential files from a felony case involving a Hollywood fixer. She gave the files to the fixer’s lawyers in an attempt to help him.
34. The water-level task, which was originally designed to test cognitive development in children, surprisingly showed that many college students also failed to solve it correctly.
35. Dirk Willems, a 16th-century Dutch Anabaptist, escaped prison but turned back to save a guard who had fallen through ice while chasing him. His act of mercy led to his recapture and eventual execution.
36 Mormon ‘King’ Assassinated, Killers Fined
James Strang, leader of a Mormon splinter group, crowned himself “king” of his church on Beaver Island, Michigan, and ruled for six years. His “reign” was hated so much by the locals that he was assassinated in 1856. His killers were jailed in an unlocked cell and fined only $1.25.
37. Trigeminal neuralgia, often called the “suicide disease,” causes sudden, stabbing facial pain so severe it’s considered one of the most excruciating conditions known. It has no known cure.
38. Napoleon planned to invade the United Kingdom, financing the effort through the sale of the Louisiana Territory to the United States. Ironically, the U.S. paid for the purchase with a loan from a British bank—meaning Britain unwittingly helped fund its own potential invasion.
39. In 2016, an Ontario man named Sheldon Bergson legally changed his name to “Znoneofthe, Above” to create a “None of the Above” option on ballots for a local election. He added a silent “Z” to appear last alphabetically. However, during the election, the ballots listed candidates by their first names, which resulted in him being displayed as “Above Znoneofthe.”
40. The Bible includes a second set of laws also referred to as the Ten Commandments. Known as the “Ritual Decalogue,” it contains commandments like “Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
41 Lunchbox Revenge from Michael J.
The president of NBC once urged the creator of Family Ties to replace Michael J. Fox, saying, “That’s not a face you’re going to see on a lunchbox.” After becoming a star, Fox had a lunchbox made with his picture and sent it to the exec with a note: “This is for you to put your crow in.”
42. Richard Nixon’s infamous “I am not a crook” line was not about the Watergate scandal but was instead addressing separate allegations of tax fraud.
43. The British royal family owns a stamp collection valued at over £100 million. In 1904, the Prince of Wales paid £1,450 for a rare stamp. When a courtier mocked “some damned fool” for spending so much, the prince replied, “Yes. I was that damned fool!”
44. In 8 Mile (2002), Eminem used real details from Anthony Mackie’s life during the final rap battle. Mackie later revealed that Eminem had researched him online and mocked his comfortable upbringing to make the scene more authentic.
45. During the May 8, 1945, “Victory in Europe Day,” Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret secretly slipped out of Buckingham Palace to join the celebrating crowds in London. Elizabeth later called it “one of the most memorable nights of my life.”
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Neanderthals Lived Dangerous Lives
Neanderthals suffered extremely high rates of traumatic injury, with 79–94% of known specimens showing signs of healed major wounds—which may have come from frequent encounters with large animals.
47. A 10th-century Old English medical text included a recipe for an eyesalve made from wine, garlic, leeks, and ox bile, left to ferment for nine days in a brass bowl. In 2015, tests showed it was as effective as modern antibiotics against certain bacteria.
48. In 1976, Argentina’s military dictatorship kidnapped two French nuns who were helping families of disappeared dissidents. They were thrown into the sea from a plane. Regime officials cruelly referred to them as “the flying nuns,” referencing the American sitcom starring Sally Field.
49. Scientists have found increasing evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction may play a role in the development of autism.
50. In China, there was a fad called “salad stacking” emerging at Pizza Hut in the early 2010s, where customers built towering salads to bypass the “one trip, one bowl” rule—often sharing stacking techniques online to maximize height and volume.
RE: Fact #34 (College Students Failed Simple Test) – It also turned out that women failed the test more often than men. Since then, the main focus of the test has been figuring out why that is.
Wow, that’s a big difference!
RE: Fact #32 (Capri Pants Sparked TV Trend) – Just like in the old Star Trek shows, the actresses wanted to wear miniskirts. They thought women could be powerful and respected without dressing like men. But what seemed modern then, now looks kinda sexist.
RE: Fact #40 (Bible Has Second Commandment Set) – One of the most basic kosher rules is about not boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk. Rabbis have debated for ages whether “milk” actually means “oil” in that rule.
RE: Fact #5 (Peanuts Prevent Peanut Allergies) – I got a list of foods to introduce my daughter to when she started solids: peanuts, bananas, strawberries, eggs, and wheat.
Raw is key. Cooking it kills off some of the good stuff, so it’s pointless then.
RE: Fact #38 (Britain Accidentally Funded Own Invasion) – The French navy got wrecked at Trafalgar, so there was no invasion. The Royal Navy totally ruled the waves—any invasion force would’ve been toast.
RE: Fact #2 (Bake Off Hosts Sabotaged Footage) – That’s really sweet!
RE: Fact #34 (College Students Failed Simple Test) – Wow, I finally figured out why those tests flopped – I hadn’t considered gravity! I kept thinking the problem was just the line being too high or low. Then I was staring at how to figure the water area as a triangle instead of a square, and that’s when I drew the line correctly.
RE: Fact #26 (Gas Stoves Emit Cancer-Causing Benzene) – I was a chemistry student back in the late 80s, and that’s when they found out benzene causes cancer. A lot of my professors were furious because, for ages before that—we’re talking the 50s, probably—they’d used benzene to clean their hands after lab work.
The thinking was, get rid of all the other nasty chemicals on their bare hands so they wouldn’t spread them around campus on door handles. So, yeah, they were basically painting every door handle with benzene.
To them, benzene was amazing—a harmless solvent that was also great for making other things.
These same professors also bragged about how much longer chemists lived—from just 25 years in the 1800s to almost normal life expectancy by the 80s. And they totally counted benzene as part of that success.
We’re probably doing the same thing with other stuff right now. The good news is, most of the risks are just barely under our radar. Even if they’re dangerous, they’re not as bad as the stuff we used back then.
RE: Fact #16 (Florence Created Dowry Investment Fund) – At first, only two lenders were on board because the rules were tough—no money back if the girl died before getting married. But they stuck with it, made some changes, and the whole thing exploded. It was also a handy way for the government to make some cash, since the state ran the fund, which helped with the population problem.
RE: Fact #31 (Ecclestone Became Dad at 89) – His oldest kid was 65 when his youngest arrived.
RE: Fact #4 (Elevator Death Missed for Month) – So, I got on an elevator just as they were shutting it down. The doors closed, and then none of the buttons worked! I hit the emergency button. They said someone was coming. Forty minutes later, nothing. I called again, and they said security checked – said they called out but I didn’t hear them. I definitely didn’t hear anyone. Finally, a mechanic showed up and got me out.
RE: Fact #37 (Trigeminal Neuralgia Nicknamed Suicide Disease) – My grandpa had this awful nerve problem. He had tons of surgeries—they’d wrap the nerve in Teflon, over and over, trying to fix the blood vessels. Nothing worked, and it eventually drove him crazy; he died because of it. Twenty years of daily agony.
Someone said it’s easily treated, but it’s only easy if the treatment actually helps. He finally decided the pain relief wasn’t worth all the surgeries and recovery. Towards the end, he’d start eating and just give up, drooling because he was trying so hard to control the pain. He’d just stare off into space with a plate of food in front of him. It was heartbreaking to watch.
RE: Fact #13 (Macadamia Nut Flight Meltdown) – That family? Total spoiled brats, the whole bunch. The dad, he’s dead now, but he used to go off on how pilots are lazy because of autopilot. The mom? She’s been in trouble a bunch of times for being violent and verbally abusive. And the kids? They’re all pretty terrible, actually. Believe it or not, the daughter’s the best of the bunch.
RE: Fact #6 (Imahara Built Hospital Baby Yoda) – It’s awesome that so many of us online still remember Grant, even five years later. And everyone remembers him fondly, too.
RE: Fact #24 (Dog Thief Denied Gaga Reward) – That article’s a little muddled, but I get the feeling they suspected McBride because she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say where she got the dogs from.
RE: Fact #20 (Ferrari Refused Pretty Woman) – Any real Pretty Woman fan knows Stuckey owned the Esprit; Edward just used it for a night.
RE: Fact #39 (Znoneofthe, Above Backfired Hilariously) – He got what he wanted anyway, ’cause I bet he’d think he was better than anyone else, even if there was a “Znoneofthe” around.
RE: Fact #29 (Mistress Forged Past to Impress) – It’s strange that they say Louis was 34 years older than Du Barry, but she was only three years younger. I mean, back then, who cared if she was 23 or 20 when he was 58?
RE: Fact #1 (Judge Dismisses Lawsuit in Rap) – Relevant part – Back in 2003, Judge Deborah Servitto threw the case out. She even wrote her decision as a rap:
“Mr. Bailey complains that his rap is trash / So he’s seeking compensation in the form of cash / Bailey thinks he’s entitled to some monetary gain / Because Eminem used his name in vain / The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact / They’re an exaggeration of a childish act / It is therefore this court’s ultimate position / That Eminem is entitled to summary disposition.”
RE: Fact #17 (Pantone Colors Turned Black Overnight) – Back in the 90s, when I started in printing, Pantone was pretty chill. They were the industry standard, but not officially. Then X-Rite bought them, and things went downhill. They kept pushing new color systems to replace the Pantone Matching System.
See, the PMS system is all about mixing colors from a few basic ones. Each swatch book has the recipes. So if a job needs Pantone 322, you can mix it from what you already have instead of buying a ton of ink you might not use again. Pantone would rather you buy every color from them or a fancy ink supplier for each job, which is why they’re pushing things like Pantone Go. It’s a real pain for printers and makes even simple jobs more expensive.
RE: Fact #28 (Olympus CEO Blew the Whistle) – Hey, there’s this awesome movie about it, Olympus Has Fallen.
RE: Fact #27 (Timbaland Gifted Royalties to Tedder) – So, when they called about splitting the publishing, I totally cringed. I figured I’d get ripped off—they’d grab half the song or more! But then my manager said, “Tim’s not taking any publishing, man. He’s cool with it being all yours. You wrote it, played it for him ages ago, and he just produced the remix. He’s not trying to steal your money.” That whole thing was a turning point. Tim had all the power, but he said, “I didn’t write it, so I’m not taking any.” It was that simple, and I kept 100%! That changed my life—I even bought a house thanks to him. I’ll be thanking Tim forever for that.
RE: Fact #50 (China’s Salad Stacking Fad) – I made this at Genghis Grill. The trick was using sliced sausage to build a little fence around the bowl, making it taller.
RE: Fact #25 (JFK Used Influence to Enlist) – They started taking anyone, even people they didn’t really want at first. Grandpa tried to join up early to be a mechanic, but they turned him down because of his bad eyesight. Later, right in the middle of the war, they drafted him into the infantry, and he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Nobody wanted to be in front of him – he’d shoot anything that moved, because of his vision. He even shot a cow once, apparently.
RE: Fact #21 (Only Six Condors in History) – Tolkien loved golf, and that’s how he came up with the name “Gondor”.
RE: Fact #14 (Orangutan Outsmarts Zoo Security) – It’s all about making a statement.
RE: Fact #33 (Actress Used FBI for Info) – Rosini was a really important guy in the FBI, even working with the CIA to find Bin Laden, both before and after 9/11. That’s why Fiorentino’s last movie role was a straight-to-DVD thing in 2009.
RE: Fact #18 ($6 Billion Cocaine Behind Padlock) – “just a padlock” —nobody’s dumb enough to mess with a cartel sitting on six billion dollars’ worth of coke.
RE: Fact #36 (Mormon ‘King’ Assassinated, Killers Fined) – Around Little Traverse Bay, folks always joked about the “Beaver Island split”—how storms from the northwest would vanish near the island. They’d say it was because the Mormons blessed the place! Actually, the land just weakens those storms as they pass over the water, but it was a fun story.
RE: Fact #42 (Not A Crook Nixon) – He later said in an interview, something like, “If the President does it, it’s not a crime.” Total crook.
RE: Fact #38 (Britain Accidentally Funded Own Invasion) – Basically, the British knew what was going on with Louisiana but let the Americans have it because they didn’t want to get involved.