26 Invisible Nick Kills Five Aboard
In 1989, a helicopter flying near New Jersey crashed after an invisible fatigue crack in a main rotor blade, which began at a tiny tool mark where a sharp blade had trimmed adhesive from the blade spar, finally caused the blade to fail after 922 hours of operation. The resulting imbalance sent it into an uncontrolled descent. All five people on board were killed, and investigators traced the accident to that manufacturing-induced scratch and inadequate quality control.
27. In 2006, Alitalia Airlines accidentally listed a business class fare from Toronto to Cyprus as $39 instead of $3,900. Within hours, more than 2,000 people bought tickets at the mistaken price, and the airline chose to honor the fare, eating about 7.2 million dollars in losses. The costly typo became one of several financial missteps on Alitalia’s slide toward eventual bankruptcy.
28. In 1853, U.S. Vice President William R. King was so ill that he took his oath of office in Cuba instead of traveling to Washington, becoming the only U.S. president or vice president ever sworn in on foreign soil. He never recovered enough to serve in the capital and died less than a month later, ending his term before he could carry out his duties in Washington.
29. Ferdinand Magellan set out with a crew of about 270 sailors to circumnavigate the globe, but he died in the Philippines before he could complete the journey. After his death, a surviving crew of just 18 or 19 men, led by Juan Sebastián Elcano, brought the expedition home and completed the journey he had begun without their original commander.
30. The Westermarck effect describes how children who grow up together during key early years do not usually develop sexual attraction to each other as adults. Researchers observed this in settings like Israeli kibbutzim and arranged “minor marriages,” where boys and girls raised in close proximity showed very low rates of romantic pairing. Psychologists use this effect to explain why people often feel a strong, almost sibling-like aversion to sexual relationships with those they lived closely with as children.
31 Oxford Denies Thatcher Honorary Degree
In 1985, the University of Oxford broke with tradition and voted to refuse an honorary degree to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a deliberate protest against her government’s cuts to higher education funding. Oxford had previously awarded this honorary degree automatically to all prime ministers, so the decision publicly singled her out.
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who later became the only four-term U.S. president, carried on a long-term secret affair with Lucy Mercer, the former social secretary of his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor discovered the relationship in 1918, and although the Roosevelts stayed married for political and personal reasons, Lucy remained connected to FDR’s life in varying degrees for years afterward, including being present at Warm Springs when he died in 1945.
33. In 2023, an elderly man in the UK died after taking excessive amounts of over-the-counter vitamin D supplements for about nine months. His prolonged high-dose intake led to vitamin D toxicity, which caused dangerously high calcium levels and serious health complications.
34. Jamaica’s national flag stands out in the world because it uses only black, green, and gold, making it the only country flag without red, white, or blue in its design. Adopted at independence in 1962, the flag’s bold color choice sets Jamaica apart from every other nation that includes at least one of those three common colors.
35. In rare instances, the sound of tinnitus is detectable by someone other than the patient. It can be heard using a stethoscope, and doctors call this form objective tinnitus. Instead of being a purely internal noise only the sufferer perceives, the sound in these cases comes from a physical source in or near the ear that produces an audible signal another listener can pick up.
36 Jonny Greenwood Pretends To Play
When Jonny Greenwood first joined Radiohead, he pretended to play keyboards by miming on a powered-off instrument and only learned the chords after studio sessions. During early recording, Thom Yorke would tell him that he could not quite hear what Greenwood was doing but thought he was adding an interesting texture.
37. In 1997, Danish pop group Aqua released Barbie Girl, a song that played with sex and kink rather than children’s dolls, and toy maker Mattel sued, claiming it violated the Barbie trademark by portraying her as a “blonde bimbo” and sex object. The case, Mattel, Inc. v. MCA Records, Inc., reached U.S. federal court, where judges ultimately treated the track as a protected parody and rejected Mattel’s attempt to control the song’s depiction of its famous doll.
38. The Wide Awakes were a youth organization and marching club that formed shortly before the American Civil War, made up of young men who organized nighttime political parades across the northern United States. They marched in silence to the beat of a drum, eyes fixed straight ahead, dressed in black capes and hats while carrying six-foot torches through city streets.
39. In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned sassafras, the original ingredient that flavored root beer, because it contained safrole. Studies had shown safrole to be carcinogenic in lab animals, so commercial producers dropped traditional sassafras oil and switched to artificial flavorings or safrole-free sassafras extracts to keep root beer on shelves without the risky compound.
40. During the American Revolutionary War, George Washington earned the nickname American Fabius because he used a Fabian strategy similar to the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, known as Cunctator, or the delayer. Instead of seeking large, decisive pitched battles, Washington avoided full-scale confrontations and focused on wearing down British forces through attrition, raids, and strategic retreats. This approach preserved his army and helped keep the revolution alive until conditions favored a decisive victory.
41 Electric Chair’s Horrific First Execution
In 1890, New York carried out the first human execution by electric chair at Auburn Prison after testing the device on calves and a horse. The initial current failed to kill the prisoner cleanly, and a second 2,000-volt surge reportedly set him on fire in front of horrified witnesses. Afterward, the generator’s supplier said, “They would have done better using an axe,” and the New York Times condemned the event as “far worse than hanging.”
42. Mana Ashida, the young Japanese girl who played young Mako Mori in the 2013 film Pacific Rim, could not pronounce Guillermo del Toro’s last name, so he told her she could call him “Totoro-san” instead, after the character from the animated film My Neighbor Totoro.
43. In 1978, Lego’s patent on its interlocking brick design expired, which allowed other companies such as Mega Bloks to start producing their own compatible “clone” bricks. Once that legal protection disappeared, rival manufacturers copied the stud and tube system.
44. In World War I, armies introduced an early version of the buddy system to fight trench foot by making each soldier jointly responsible for a partner’s feet instead of just his own. Paired soldiers checked and cared for each other’s feet in the wet, unsanitary trenches, which improved compliance with prevention routines. With this simple change in responsibility, trench foot rates dropped significantly among frontline troops.
45. In Colombia, a drug-sniffing dog was so successful at finding cocaine that a cartel put a bounty on her head. The dog, named Sombra, worked with the national police and detected so many cartel shipments that the powerful Gulf Clan reportedly offered a reward to anyone who killed her. In response, authorities reassigned Sombra to safer duty with extra protection so she could keep working without becoming an easy target.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Masked Lonesome Gal Radio Fantasy
In the 1940s, the radio show The Lonesome Gal featured actress Jean King speaking in a seductive, one-on-one style to each listener, using a microphone sensitive enough to pick up each wisp of her breath. Her intimate monologues helped her build a devoted following of thousands of fans across more than 50 cities. To protect her real identity from the men who fantasized about her, she posed in photos wearing a mask, keeping Lonesome Gal as a mysterious persona rather than a public face.
47. In 1974, Gig Young was originally cast as the Waco Kid in Mel Brooks’s film Blazing Saddles, but his alcoholism caught up with him on the very first day of filming when he collapsed on set from alcohol withdrawal. Brooks fired him after the incident and brought in Gene Wilder to replace him in the role.
48. In the United States, nursing is the most common job for women, topping the list of female-held occupations. Data from the U.S. Department of Labor show that more women work in nursing than in any other single profession (as of January 2026).
49. As a child, a girl named Helena Valero was kidnapped by the Yanomami, an Indigenous group living in the Amazon rainforest, and she stayed with them for more than 20 years. In 1956, she managed to return to Brazilian society, but subsequently made the decision to rejoin the Yanomami and live with them once more. She remained there until her death in 2002.
50. The third person to walk on the moon was astronaut Pete Conrad, who struggled with dyslexia and got expelled from high school as a teenager. He later turned his academic life around, earned an engineering degree from Princeton University, and joined NASA. In 1969, he walked on the lunar surface as commander of Apollo 12, proving that early learning difficulties did not stop him from reaching one of the most elite achievements in human history.
RE: Fact #22 (Flea Enrolls As USC Freshman) – Jimi Hendrix, the guitar god, even said he wanted to study music more. Goes to show, everyone’s capable of learning.
Nah, not me. I’ve pretty much mastered everything already. Go ahead, challenge me with a question.
Why does the moo cow make a moo sound?
RE: Fact #39 (FDA Bans Sassafras Root Beer) – When I was a kid, my friends and I would pick young sassafras saplings, clean off the roots, and brew a tasty tea from them. Now I live somewhere that has no sassafras at all, and I miss it.
That sounds like some odd regional phrase—“Oh, her? She lives in a place with no sassafras, if you catch my drift.”
RE: Fact #34 (Jamaica’s Black Green Gold Flag) – I’ve heard that Jamaica even fields a bobsled team.
RE: Fact #38 (Wide Awakes Torchlit Silent Marches) – No phone in sight—just living in the moment.
Every time you stroll down the street, you’ve probably passed a social club somewhere in our past. It was really when radio came along that things began to change.
Yo! We’re out here marching silently tonight, and I’ve got this amazing torch! #wideawakes #1860 Like and subscribe!
RE: Fact #20 (Winter Sun Fails Vitamin D) – Yep, I’m a Finn, and I can tell you, almost everyone there has a vitamin D deficiency in winter. The only exceptions are folks taking pills, or those who manage to spend weeks vacationing somewhere warm like Spain. Oh, and maybe a handful with extremely specific diets who get enough that way. The sun’s angle is so low, you barely see it, and when it does show, most office workers are stuck inside. On top of that, winter weather is just constantly cloudy. For decades, the recommended doses were laughably small too, nowhere near an effective amount.
RE: Fact #38 (Wide Awakes Torchlit Silent Marches) – They were part of the abolitionist movement, backed Lincoln, and among the very first volunteers in the Union army.
Those who sparked the whole “woke” movement—what total legends!
It’s really interesting how the parties have flipped so completely over time. Back in Lincoln’s day, Republicans were the ones pushing for abolition and civil rights, while Democrats mostly backed slavery, a smaller government, and pushing westward—think Texas annexation and the Mexican‑American War.
You’ll notice it’s changed in Kansas. It used to be a hotbed for progressive ideas—big pushes for public schools, anti‑slavery, pro‑suffragette movements, labor rights, socialism, the Little Blue Books, and more. Now it feels like hyper gerrymandered territory tightly controlled by the Koch Brothers and KSGOP.
God, imagine a 21st‑century “radical” Republican and a 19th‑century radical Republican just chatting for half a minute – both would go absolutely insane. It’s wild how much the GOP has shifted. Though fair to say the 1800s Republican would freak out too, probably even more violently.
RE: Fact #12 (Terence Crawford’s Untouched Scorecards) – This guy is a total legend, seriously one of the greatest boxers ever. He actually jumped up two whole weight classes just to take on Canelo Alvarez, who’s also a legend, and completely crushed him. He was just on another level. He’s earned his retirement.
It’s a bummer, but the top boxers often miss out on the best fights and the huge paychecks because no one wants to step into the ring with them. What usually happens is they’re just avoided until the current champ retires, or they’re forced to move up a weight class just to find anyone willing to fight. Meanwhile, Jake Paul is raking in a hundred million bucks on Netflix to get punched in the face.
Oh, and don’t forget he actually got detained and messed with by the police on the night of his own victory parade against Canelo, right there in Omaha. Honestly, he’s gotta be the most underrated boxer from the last decade and a half.
RE: Fact #33 (Vitamin D Supplements Kill Elderly Man) – Maybe a quick heads‑up: he was 89 and had the highest recorded vitamin D levels in that lab ever measured.
Wow, it actually hit the highest level the facility can record, so it capped at 380. That’s exactly like what happened with Chernobyl—people saw the Geiger counter read only about 100, thought “oh that’s not too bad,” and then someone pointed out that 100 was just the maximum the device could show; the real value was probably way higher. The same thing is going on here. I know 380 for vitamin D is high, but it would have to be much higher to kill him. The testing site caps readings at 380 because anything above that means something’s seriously wrong. I suspect this patient might have been in the 500‑1,000 range.
380? Not great, but not terrible either.
RE: Fact #47 (Gig Young Collapses, Wilder Replaces) – I watched a doc on that movie, and Wilder just improvised, “You know – morons,” and Cleavon Little started laughing.
No matter what people say, I’ll forever believe he was totally high during that scene. Cleavon’s eyes are so glassy and the way his face breaks out—just perfect.
RE: Fact #34 (Jamaica’s Black Green Gold Flag) – If it’s accurate, that’s just a recent change – sometime back Libya’s flag was only solid green.
From 1977 till 2011 they were rocking that solid‑green flag.
That was one of my favorite flags in the “wait you can do that with your flag?” category. It reminded me of Wales putting a dragon on it—just like when I was 12 and “designing” my need‑for‑speed underground car—and Nepal refusing to bow to the tyranny of rectangles.
They scrapped it in 2011, which is pretty recent—just about two years back, right? Yeah, that’s what I think.
Back in the day Mauritania’s flag was all green and gold—nothing else. Then in 2017 they tossed in red bands on the top and bottom.
RE: Fact #45 (Cartel Bounty On Sombra Dog) – You should totally get that dog into the witness protection program.
Seriously, the first thing the article says is that the authorities had no choice but to move the dog.
Which unfortunately did exactly what they wanted. I don’t think the cartels had enough grudges to actually kill a dog just to scare other dogs; they just wanted it out of the picture.
Check out the Woofness Protection Program!
How do you even miss Pawtection? 😜
RE: Fact #7 (Northumbria Caffeine Decimal Point Disaster) – There’s an old joke in healthcare: A med student got a failing grade because she used the wrong formula for dosages. She asked for partial credit, saying ‘All the answers followed my formula.’ The instructor just said, ‘Yes, and all your patients would be consistently dead.’
I actually know of a nurse who almost killed someone because she confused UNITS of insulin with milliliters of insulin.
Don’t forget Radonda Vaught, the reckless murderer who truly belongs in prison.
I knew one who made a similar mistake during dialysis. She gave point eight milligrams of something instead of point zero eight, and it tragically killed a newborn baby.
This makes me feel better about the time in college I made pot roast. I thought a ‘clove of garlic’ was the entire bulb. I put two of those bad boys in there, and it took forever to mince them. It was still delicious though, so maybe that just means something about my taste buds.
As a researcher, it still blows my mind how some people skip a ‘sanity check’ on their calculations before running experiments. Seriously, who in their right mind would think 30 grams of caffeine is a reasonable amount to give a person?
RE: Fact #22 (Flea Enrolls As USC Freshman) – Anthony Kiedis also felt that way, though his reasons were totally different.
RE: Fact #21 (Neil Armstrong Moon Call Myth) – This reminds me of tales I heard from some really intense students at university, claiming Charles Darwin took back all his evolution ideas right before he died, and that he just invented it because he was mad at his dad.
RE: Fact #37 (Barbie Girl Sex Joke Lawsuit) – I was like, what a song—lines that go “You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere,” then “Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky‑panky,” and even “I can act like a star, I can beg on my knees. Come jump in, bimbo friend, let us do it again.” Is that all about sex and kink stuff? I’m honestly shocked—shocked!
I can’t wrap my head around how most people just never get the lyrics at all. It feels like they’re purposely not listening to the words, lol. There are tracks I love for their melody and instrumentation but hate the lyrics, so I skip them altogether because of that.
It doesn’t help that super popular songwriters like Max Martin aren’t great at English and don’t really care if their lyrics have a clear, specific meaning as long as there are catchy rhymes and rhythms. Even a lot of pop stars would struggle to give a precise meaning to some of the songs they built their careers on.
Sometimes I find it hard to read song lyrics as plain text rather than thinking about them as part of the music.
When I was little I thought it was all about “you can brush my hair and dress me everywhere,” which seemed totally normal for a Barbie!
Maybe there was a “radio edit” that purposely did that.
That’s exactly how I heard it too!
RE: Fact #25 (1978 Marquette Case Unleashes Usury) – I just want to point out that in 1981, right after that ruling, the fed funds rate shot up past 18 percent because the Fed was hiking rates to curb huge inflation. Trying to lock a fixed number on credit‑card rates without looking at market conditions has always been a bad, doomed idea.
Many countries cap loan and credit‑card interest and don’t see any problems with it. Getting credit is tougher there, which actually pushes lenders to keep products affordable for people. No fancy pizza‑financing schemes.
RE: Fact #28 (Vice President Sworn In Cuba) – Wow! So he actually has both records at once—sworn in outside the US and died before serving in Washington?
RE: Fact #44 (Buddy System Saves WWI Feet) – If you ended up with trench foot, you’re in big trouble—you actually have a real duty to look after your feet. In the worst case they might claim you got it on purpose just to dodge fighting.
RE: Fact #32 (FDR’s Affair With Lucy Mercer) – Honestly, she did have her share of affairs too.
RE: Fact #31 (Oxford Denies Thatcher Honorary Degree) – They also tore down the art programs that gave working‑class actors like Patrick Stewart and Brian Blessed their first break. The class gap in the arts has just gotten wider.
I didn’t realize Patrick Stewart actually comes from a working‑class background. He’s such an amazing actor, he can pull off this polished façade that makes you think he’s upper class too.
His mom worked in a factory and his dad was a postman – true working‑class Yorkshire background. Edit: Since the mid ’80s, after Thatcher’s slashing of secondary education, most British actors now come from money or are nepotism.
RE: Fact #48 (Nursing Tops U.S. Women’s Jobs) – The thing is, nursing turns out to be the most common gig for babies.
RE: Fact #33 (Vitamin D Supplements Kill Elderly Man) – He must have been taking seriously crazy amounts— you can take a lot of vitamin D without any problems. Not literally unlimited, but the RDA is pretty conservative.
Yeah, you’ve got to take a lot over a long stretch to hit that level. European health guidelines say a safe daily dose is 4,000 IU and they’re pretty cautious about it. Most supplement pills are 1,000 or 2,000. If you’re diagnosed with a deficiency, doctors might prescribe something like 20,000 for a week or two—just to give you an idea of the numbers. For deficiency, the recommended blood level is around 80, and roughly 80 % of people are way below that; the average sits somewhere in the 30‑40 range.
I’m taking 4,000 UI every day during winter—otherwise that S.A.D. just hits me too hard.
I used to be super low on vitamin D—my levels were under 7 nmol/L—and I was only given 4,000 IU for a few weeks. My girlfriend’s numbers weren’t even close to mine, yet she got prescribed 40,000–50,000 IU for two weeks. I have no idea why there’s such a huge difference lol—just a heads‑up that this is how it works in the UK with NHS.
Given how old he is, it’s pretty likely he could have taken the pill, forgotten about it, and taken another dose—maybe even multiple times a day.
RE: Fact #35 (Objective Tinnitus You Can Hear) – My tinnitus is so bad that even the doctor says he can hear it.
If it can be picked up, it could go straight into noise‑cancelling earbuds. By the way, my cat can hear me clicking her ears—I see her ears swivel toward me every single time.
RE: Fact #48 (Nursing Tops U.S. Women’s Jobs) – Elementary and middle school teachers show up as the second most common job on the list, and all the other teaching levels are pretty high up too. If education wasn’t broken down that way, it would actually be more common than nursing, but I get why they split it up.
In a lot of states there are separate certifications for elementary and secondary teachers, which is probably why they’re seen as two different jobs.
There are so many different certifications for nurses. You can specialize in any part of the body, and it feels like that would divide nursing even further than education already does.
RE: Fact #25 (1978 Marquette Case Unleashes Usury) – Who needs consumer protections, anyway? If businesses make more profit, it’s better for the economy, which is better for everybody. Reagan called it trickle‑down economics, I think? It works perfectly! /s
Wow, it’s probably trickling along at a snail’s pace 🤷🏼♂️
RE: Fact #42 (Mana Ashida’s Totoro-San Nickname) – I think Mexico should make a documentary on him and title it “My Neighbor Del Toro.”
There’s a new documentary on Netflix about Del Toro—he’s such a humble guy, and it could have just as easily been called the title you mentioned!
I was totally into Sangre del Toro. It was awesome!
I always figured he was Spanish, just because of Pan’s Labyrinth.
Del Toro as a last name just feels like it’d belong to an old Spanish knight or something, lol.
RE: Fact #43 (Lego Patent Expires, Clones Proliferate) – Their instructions are top‑notch, no doubt! They’re the most accurate toy you’ll find when you check the age labels too.
I built my older sets from the ’80s and ’90s, so kids today don’t realize how lucky they are. When my daughter was five or six she managed to build a big treehouse on her own – something that wouldn’t have been possible 40 years ago. There’s no such thing as an “18+ set” anymore.
The steps are so much simpler now. Back then you’d have to add more than ten pieces at a time and if you missed one you had to backtrack, especially since they didn’t list the new pieces for each step. Now they do, and there’s only about two pieces per step. The Lego manuals themselves have turned into these hefty multi‑volume tomes.
RE: Fact #16 (Gibson Quits Good Will Hunting) – Affleck mentioned to Boston magazine that he and Matt Damon hadn’t seen Braveheart. But the film was a massive hit, so they really had to pretend. He said they met Mel Gibson right after Braveheart had just come out and was super popular. Since they hadn’t watched it, Harvey totally went off, saying, ‘You haven’t seen Braveheart? Fu*king lie! Tell him you loved it!’ Affleck found that pretty funny.
RE: Fact #31 (Oxford Denies Thatcher Honorary Degree) – Good old Maggie Thatcher, the milk‑snatcher.
It’s especially funny considering she used to work as a food scientist.
Did that happen before she started her middle‑manager job in hell, or was it after?
RE: Fact #30 (Westermarck Effect Stops Childhood Attraction) – The evidence shows that kids who grew up apart for a long time are more likely to say they had sex with each other.
Yeah, that’s what they call genetic sexual attraction. We’ve actually seen it happen with parents and their biological kids who got put into adoption.
People usually find folks who look a bit like them more attractive, so meeting your brother or sister—who’ll naturally resemble you—makes that attraction feel even stronger. That can become an issue with things like sperm donors and closed adoptions where siblings are kept apart. If those kids end up living near each other, there’s a chance they might run into one another and risk accidental inbreeding.
The gay community is hilarious sometimes. Usually it’s hard for a guy and a woman to look that similar, but two gay folks who share the same beauty standards can end up looking shockingly alike.
They actually did a study on this too. Turns out folks who connect through dating apps end up looking more alike because they’re basically picking partners within their own “league.” On the other hand, people who meet organically—like at work—tend to look different from each other because they start off as friends.
RE: Fact #5 (Columbus Refuses New Continent Reality) – by the time he died everyone pretty much knew they were dealing with a new continent he just really wanted to be the one to find the new sea route he called the islands the west indies and then after he died they named the new world america after some other guy who figured out it was a separate landmass
dude couldve had a whole continent named after him if he wasnt so co*k-headed
RE: Fact #15 (ABBA Borrows Name From Cannery) – Just for some background, ABBA is an acronym for their names. Even so, they still had to get permission from a fish canning company that also used the name.
What’s pretty interesting is that no one has ever officially confirmed which specific member’s name matches each letter in that sequence.
Oh, it’s clearly Anni, Benny, Benny, Anni. They really were quite insistent.
The A’s actually represent Anni-Frid and Agnetha.
RE: Fact #29 (Elcano Finishes Magellan’s Circumnavigation) – In Spain you never call the voyage just “Magellan.” It’s always called the expedition of “Magallanes y Elcano.” The navy’s training ship is the Juan Sebastián Elcano, and in his hometown of Guetaria there’s a huge monument that names all 18 sailors who first circled the globe. So at least over here, Elcano is super famous—maybe even more than Magellan himself. And to be precise about your title: those 18 were the ones who finished with Elcano, but they weren’t the only ones. Some got captured by the Portuguese in Cabo Verde and came back to Spain weeks later, completing the trip too.
I found out about Elcano because in South America you’ll see all sorts of random things named after him, so he seems pretty well known over there too.
In Spain at least, people know Elcano a lot, and he’s probably more famous there than Magellan himself. That isn’t surprising at all because Elcano was Spanish, unlike Magellan.
RE: Fact #12 (Terence Crawford’s Untouched Scorecards) – That’s a seriously incredible career. Holy sh*t, it was amazing.
Yeah, he really got a raw deal when it came to public recognition. I mean, an undefeated, undisputed champ with three belts? He absolutely should have been a household name, even for people who don’t follow boxing, especially being an English-speaking American. It’s wild how little attention he got from casual fans until he fought Canelo. And then, after that incredible performance, he just retired! He could have probably grabbed a fourth belt within a year or two, if other fighters hadn’t run into some trouble outside the ring.
He’s super rich though, honestly. He’s got a really sharp business mind and made a ton of money in real estate, plus a bunch of other successful ventures. While he’s not a household name, pretty much every boxing fan knows him and respects him a lot. I actually think he ended up with the best of both situations. He’s a legend and really well-known where it counts, he has enough cash and properties to make all seven of his kids and the whole family incredibly wealthy, but he’s also way less likely to get recognized or bothered when he’s out in public.
RE: Fact #1 (Eminem Adopts Alaina And Nathan) – He had such a rough upbringing with his own dad, so he chose to be an awesome father, not just to his kids but to a lot of others too.
His mom, even though she stuck around, was a heavy addict, which is why he ended up taking in his half-sibling. He also took in his ex’s other daughter because she was (and still is) struggling with addiction. And then his ex’s sister’s kid, who unfortunately also had severe addiction issues and later passed away. When I was a teenager, I was really into him, and it just always stayed with me how much he showed up for these kids. Even when his music was shocking everyone and he was getting super famous, he made sure to always be there for them.
From what I can tell, Marshall seems like a really good dude. He struggled with addiction too, but he got sober and, as far as I know, he’s kept it that way. His songs used to stir up a lot of controversy, but that doesn’t really happen anymore. He just totally owns who he is, no apologies. I really look up to him for that.
He once said something like, “I totally get it, I wouldn’t let Hailie listen to my stuff either.”
I think Kim’s sister actually passed away some years ago.
RE: Fact #40 (George Washington Becomes American Fabius) – The Fabian Strategy is basically about not fighting a stronger foe head‑on – that’s solid advice. The Art of War says it too: when we’re ten to one, surround the enemy; five to one, attack; twice as many, split our forces. If we’re evenly matched, give ‘em a battle; if we’re just a little weaker, stay away; if we’re way outmatched in every way, run.
Another key part of Washington’s plan was keeping enough troops out there to fight on good terms. He pulled it off in Boston, but not in New York. The British had to keep a presence near New Jersey just to hold back the Continental army, and that spread thin their forces north and south. In the end those gaps caused disasters in both regions.
This point really matters, and it shows the gap between Washington’s plan and what a modern guerrilla war looks like. He was hunting for one big pitched battle—just the sort of fight where he could tilt conditions in his favor against the British.
I love The Art of War because it’s this highly respected book that gives clear advice—like don’t fight fair and set your enemy on fire, and they just hate that.
The art of war gets a lot of misreadings. The real point of Sun Tzu’s book is to stop fighting altogether. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” he says, and that sums it up: battle is just a failure in strategy. Real tactics are psychological, disruptive, deceptive—intimidation, breaking alliances, controlling the battlefield, giving the foe an escape route—all aimed at erasing their will to fight.
War is uncertain; bigger forces don’t always win, and you can’t force a war to end when you want it to. That’s why avoiding combat as much as possible is key. Holding positions and projecting power are the best ways to shatter the enemy’s confidence and destroy their resolve. Many think the book teaches how to crush an opponent, but Sun Tzu shows that true mastery lies in quickly stripping a foe of will and resources, capturing them with little or no violence by trickery and tactics. The goal is finding the shortest path to victory, not fighting.
RE: Fact #21 (Neil Armstrong Moon Call Myth) – Honestly, you’d probably start praying to any deity out there once you learn the moon’s actually haunted.
I actually thought the spooky stuff was happening on Mars.
Growing up in Dubai, that was definitely a story going around there too! Luckily, we had grown-ups who helped us think things through critically. But we totally couldn’t use that same logic for tales about Marilyn Manson having a rib removed just so he could… well, you know. That gossip got way more attention than anything about Neil Armstrong, honestly.
Wow, that story truly spread everywhere, huh. We also believed he’d bitten off a bat’s head, but turns out that one was real, and it was Ozzy Osbourne, haha!
RE: Fact #7 (Northumbria Caffeine Decimal Point Disaster) – A regular cup of coffee has about 80 milligrams of caffeine, which is .080 grams. So, just hit me with 400 cups of coffee today, boss, seriously.
What I really don’t get is, 30 grams is such a lot of powder. Didn’t anyone stop to think that two tablespoons of powder isn’t the same as like five cups of coffee?
I would totally sh*t my spine and nervous system right out of my ass like a bazooka.
I think anyone responsible for a study should watch Office Space. It would show them just how important a decimal point is before doing any math that impacts people.
RE: Fact #6 (Dolly Parton’s My People Fund) – To many folks in that general region, Dolly Parton’s practically a living saint.
Being a resident nearby, I can confirm that. If only more local people would follow her lead, this state would truly be improved. Tennessee isn’t terrible, it’s mostly laid back, but its politics definitely need a lot of fixing.
It’s ironic how Tennessee’s population loves to preach Christian values, yet they voted to make homelessness a felony.
Honestly, her positive vibe spreads way beyond just that area.
Yeah, she really seems to just flourish by being genuinely kind.
It’s active even outside the US, too. Her Imagination Library program operates in Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Australia.
RE: Fact #34 (Jamaica’s Black Green Gold Flag) – Good on them. We love a little originality. Just in case anyone was wondering: black represents its people and strength; green stands for its lush lands, and gold symbolizes its natural resources and sunshine.
The “X” just means getting colonized by Scotland. 🙁
RE: Fact #2 (Tu Youyou’s Ancient Malaria Breakthrough) – Another thing she’s really known for is how hard it is to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ with her name.
RE: Fact #31 (Oxford Denies Thatcher Honorary Degree) – Frankie Boyle, the king of Scottish comedy, summed up Margaret Thatcher’s state funeral in a single line: “With three million you could give every Scot a shovel and dig a hole so deep that we could hand her over to Satan himself.”
RE: Fact #23 (Why Polar Bears Avoid Antarctica) – Learned today that Australia is pretty much a ‘what if we didn’t plan this out well’ display of invasive species. We’re talking rabbits, cane toads, foxes, camels, even freaking carp.
Seems like it’s just about every kind of animal Englishmen enjoyed hunting for fun.
It was probably a mistake bringing over all those Englishmen too.
RE: Fact #17 (Titanic’s Thirty Disappeared Survivors) – not surprised, some people probably wanted to ditch the media attention and survivor status, so they changed names or used aliases, and some just got lost in the system, maybe due to old records being destroyed or clerical errors
my chemistry teacher was talking about a tragedy caused by a chemical security system failure, and he said dont take the death toll at face value, then he was like sometimes people wanna disappear and start fresh, maybe they even hope a tragedy happens so they can be presumed dead
way easier to do back in the day, like 1912, than it is now
i wonder how people start over after faking their own death, like how do you get a new identity, do you use your old birth certificate and hope no one notices
RE: Fact #7 (Northumbria Caffeine Decimal Point Disaster) – Fu*k, I really wonder what that caffeine high felt like before their heart just couldn’t take it anymore.
Time just slows down, and you can totally save your friends from a mansion fire (“If I could save time in the bottle” plays in the background).
When I’ve had too much caffeine, I’ve gotten nauseous, short of breath, and had tremors. I’m pretty sure I was never even close to a tenth of what they had.
And don’t forget that feeling of impending doom, like there’s a killer coming for you and you just know it.
Yeah, I messed with caffeine pills back in college when I was 18. Being a kid, I took way too much. I genuinely thought I was going to die for a while. My heartbeat was insane, I was vomiting, shaking, and struggling to breathe. There was also this massive wave of ‘I’m going to die’ thoughts, which probably came from the symptoms, but I know some drugs definitely cause a kind of ‘dread’ feeling past a certain dose.
Thirty thousand milligrams must have felt absolutely horrible, and super quickly too. A regular Red Bull has 160 mg. A typical espresso shot is around 60-75 mg. They basically consumed the equivalent of 400 strong espresso shots. Poor kids.
RE: Fact #30 (Westermarck Effect Stops Childhood Attraction) – That’s exactly why it didn’t make a lick of sense that Deb was into Dexter.
RE: Fact #43 (Lego Patent Expires, Clones Proliferate) – Check out why Nespresso Vertuo came about – it was partly to offer a “big cup” machine for the U.S., but also because the parent ran out of pods for the original, so anyone can make them now.
Why do most pharma companies keep tweaking their drugs? The original patents expire fast, so they roll out new patented variants to stay ahead. Insulin itself has been off the market for decades, but most of the specific versions prescribed in the US are still under patent.
Well, kinda. The thing is the new version has to be noticeably better—whether that’s fewer side‑effects, higher efficacy, easier use, or a different pharmacokinetic profile that opens up new ways to use it. There are plenty of cases where similar but improved drugs never got approved; think about cisplatin analogs. Pharma is a business, and patents are the lifeblood for making money. That’s why we’ve seen lots of insulin variants patented over the last few decades—glucose‑responsive insulins with slow release, oral formulations, you name it. And insulin isn’t just one single peptide; different organisms produce slightly different versions. So yeah, small tweaks in structure can make a big difference in how a drug works in people.
RE: Fact #15 (ABBA Borrows Name From Cannery) – “Gimme, gimme, gimme a can after midnight!”
“Won’t somebody help me open this can before the day starts?”
RE: Fact #11 (Bots Overtake Humans Online Traffic) – That whole ‘dead internet’ thing? It really feels like it’s getting more real every single day.
Every day, I hate it more and more. Now with all this AI-generated junk, it seriously feels like we need a new internet. One that either completely bans that kind of stuff or at least labels it clearly. That would really help.
It’s tricky to moderate something when there’s no clear way to tell it apart from the real thing. Plus, you have to think about how much it would cost to hire people just to make those calls. And honestly, those ‘AI detectors’ out there? They’re not doing a great job at all.
My personal theory is that once AI really gets super good, there’s gonna be so much fake stuff about absolutely everything you can imagine. Nobody will trust anything on the internet as real, and how we use it will just change forever. I’ve already stopped sharing videos with my friends because I’m genuinely scared I’ll send them some AI video and end up looking totally dumb. The internet, what we’re used to, it’s just dying. And it’s happening fast.
RE: Fact #6 (Dolly Parton’s My People Fund) – Seriously, someone ought to give her the Nobel Peace Prize.
RE: Fact #29 (Elcano Finishes Magellan’s Circumnavigation) – Another neat tidbit is that when the crew finally returned to familiar waters and landed in Cape Verde, they saw the ship’s logs were dated wrong. They kept a spot‑on log, but of course they’d lost a day by sailing west. That date mismatch wasn’t sorted out until after the voyage was over. I think it’s pretty cool that they built the ship and set off on this adventure without even having time zones to worry about.
Did you know that Lapu‑Lapu is actually considered a national hero in the Philippines? You can spot statues of him all over the country, and there’s even a major holiday dedicated to him.
they even named a fish after him.
The best part was when they realized they’d been eating meat on Fridays and celebrating Easter on a Monday. I didn’t know why, but it cracked me up—apparently they hadn’t noticed. If anyone wants to hear the whole story, Over the Edge of the World is a GREAT book.
I used to think Catholics only gave up meat during Lent all the way through, but that’s only been true for a while now.
RE: Fact #44 (Buddy System Saves WWI Feet) – Keeping an eye on a friend is good for them and good for us too. If there are two of us out here, we’re relying on having both people ready to fight. When the enemy charges and we’re already down half our strength—because you’re sick and can’t hold your post—I’ll have to go solo. Then we lose the battle and I get killed along with you. That’s not how it should play out. We need to stay strong, even if that means powdering your socks.
It’s a pretty wild situation. A soldier’s body gets used to damage, pain, abuse… you’ve got to keep track in your mind of what signals to ignore and what ones to pay attention to.
RE: Fact #45 (Cartel Bounty On Sombra Dog) – I’ll crack jokes about pretty much everything on factrepublic, but putting a cocaine‑sniffing dog’s life at risk? That’s the line I can’t cross.
RE: Fact #48 (Nursing Tops U.S. Women’s Jobs) – It’s the ultimate bootstrapping move to climb the social ladder. Nursing isn’t that high of an education requirement, so it’s easier to break into. You can work any hours you need, which means childcare can be shared with a partner or other family members while everyone is working. And if you want more money, overtime is always available and the job’s very stable. I can’t think of another career that could lift someone out of poverty, especially for a single parent.
RE: Fact #28 (Vice President Sworn In Cuba) – I got that line from an episode of *The Critic* where Jay’s dad is bragging about being the perfect vice‑presidential pick, and right after he pulls on a mask he says, “Now let’s rob this bank.”
RE: Fact #18 (28 Years Later Prosthetic Nudity) – It’s likely way less weird to just put on a prosthetic d*ck that already has all the special effects ready to go. Think about it: otherwise, some poor actor would have to sit there while a makeup artist adds bruises and stuff to their actual junk. That’d be super awkward for everyone involved, the artist included.
I still haven’t watched the movie, but this makes two different comments talking about bruising and marks on the co*k. Seriously, how much time did they actually show this thing? Were there super close-up shots? Does it really help the plot that much?
I actually just searched for a montage of all the scenes from 28 Years Later, since I hadn’t watched it either. And wow, it definitely gets a ton of screen time and it’s enormous. It’s like a Pringles can just hanging there.
Totally, I hadn’t seen anyone mention this yet, but you’re absolutely right! That would get incredibly awkward, especially considering all the time they spend filming.
If you had to deal with that every single day for like, 28 years, you’d probably just get used to the whole thing.
I seem to remember an interview with the main actor where he talked about how freezing it was out there, and apparently, the fake one helped them keep the shots looking the same.
RE: Fact #21 (Neil Armstrong Moon Call Myth) – I’m seriously cracking up just reading the headline, picturing Neil Armstrong hearing a call to prayer, and what he’d do, up there on the moon. This is like peak Monty Python sh*t right here, haha.
Thanks! I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a hallucination, or if folks believed he literally heard the call from Earth.
My guess is the idea was that God was out in space, and just wanted to show off a little to Mr. Armstrong. Like, ‘Bet you didn’t expect that, Neil!’ followed by ‘ahhhhhwoooowalalalalalawala’.
It’d be like, ‘Hey Houston, which direction is Mecca from up here if I wanted to kneel down? Oh, and Buzz, he’s become Shinto, or claims he has. He’s mostly just doing huge leaps and acting like he’s got a samurai sword’.
I grew up in a Muslim family and heard this B.S. tale countless times. Nobody ever had any actual proof of Neil Armstrong converting when they told it. Then there’s the whole bit about Mohammad splitting the moon in half as a miracle, and a clear line on it ever since saying ‘science just can’t explain it’.
The story about Mohammad splitting the moon in half as a miracle, with the line ‘science can’t explain it’ that’s been circling forever? That sounds like a really drawn-out ‘she turned me into a newt! … I got better’ joke.
Seriously, if that were true, Neil Armstrong would be talking about it constantly in interviews, so it would be easy to find. And you can’t say he wanted it private, because then how would any of us even know about it?
RE: Fact #26 (Invisible Nick Kills Five Aboard) – Everyone in the industry knew that using sharp blades on rotors was a bad idea, but they didn’t get around to standardizing safe tools until this accident.
It usually takes a big mishap before people actually switch things up.
All those safety rules are basically etched in blood.
RE: Fact #50 (Dyslexic Pete Conrad Reaches Moon) – Whoa, that might have been a tiny shout for Neil, but it’s a big deal for me! Those were his first words after stepping all the way off the lander onto the Moon. Conrad was noticeably shorter than most of his astronaut buddies. The “Whoopie!” was kind of a joke to push back against claims that astronauts’ talks were scripted or had to get NASA green‑lit.
I remember when I was a kid being told outright that Armstrong had to say his “one small step” line and that it’d been planned for weeks. He didn’t have a choice. NASA wanted something poetic and philosophical so the world would see them in a good light. For whatever reason, I never questioned it; I just accepted it as fact. Reading your comment made me realize I’d never even thought to question it.
RE: Fact #41 (Electric Chair’s Horrific First Execution) – The electric chair came about in the 1880s when a dentist named Alfred Southwick from Buffalo, New York, tried to create what he thought was a kinder way to hang people. He spent years tinkering with it and even tested it on animals—calves and a horse—before finally putting it to work on a human. In 1890 at Auburn Prison in New York, the first person ever executed by electricity was William Kemmler. He’d been found guilty of beating his common‑law wife to death with a hatchet. The execution went terribly wrong; they had to give him a second, higher voltage shock. The whole thing shocked (literally and figuratively) the public and sparked a huge debate about using electric power for capital punishment.
It actually took three jolts to kill him, and his body was probably dug up by accident when a homeowner doing some renovations at their house stumbled upon a mass prison grave in the yard back in Auburn.
It’s hilarious that in the 1880s there was this dentist who just said, “hmm, how can we kill people even faster?” I love it.
The guy who invented the guillotine was actually a doctor. He wanted a way to do executions that hurt less.
The guillotine might sound kind of “humane” for an execution, but seriously why would anyone think burning someone to death is better than a proper long‑drop hanging that’s instant? Why not just bring the guillotine back instead? I can’t see how chopping off a head is more shocking to people than watching someone get set on fire like a Christmas tree.
It’s all about making it seem humane to everyone watching, not actually painless or fast for the person being killed. Think of the guillotine versus a lethal injection – the injection can be pretty brutal in reality, but most people don’t really know that.
RE: Fact #49 (Helena Valero Between Yanomami Worlds) – After being rejected by her family and ending up living in poverty at a mission, Valero decided to go back to life with the Yanomami and stayed with them until she died in 2002. It doesn’t look like returning was her first choice.
I think the Yanomami actually have a word for it—when you accidentally kill your wife while disciplining her. It’s basically an accidental death from beating her to the point of death, which is apparently common enough in their culture that they’ve named it. Being a woman there would be tough.
In western culture, people call a sleeveless under‑shirt a “wife‑beater.”
When Yanomami tribes clash and raid each other’s villages, the women often end up raped, beaten, and then brought back to the shabono to be adopted by the attackers’ community. Wives can get beat a lot just to keep them docile and loyal to their husbands. A lot of the violence comes from sexual jealousy. The beatings involve clubs, sticks, machetes, or other blunt or sharp things. They also burn their bodies with a branding stick quite often—this is supposed to show a man’s power or dominance over his wife.
RE: Fact #25 (1978 Marquette Case Unleashes Usury) – Even if it’s only 18%, that’s still insanely high interest. Nothing really changes. You’re screwed either way if you’re paying credit‑card interest. Don’t do it—simple as that.
Got a few things I’m curious about. For unsecured credit lines, what rate would actually be better? And if we capped those rates lower, would that mean more people get credit cards, the same number, or fewer?
Less of them. With capped interest rates, banks could lose cash on risky borrowers because they might not pay back. So basically only folks with top‑tier credit scores would actually qualify for credit cards.
RE: Fact #24 (Coppola’s Megalopolis Box Office Flop) – Guess he totally missed ‘The Producers.’ The big rule from that film is, ‘Don’t ever put your own money into the show!’
RE: Fact #5 (Columbus Refuses New Continent Reality) – he probably knew what was up but all the rewards he got were based on him finding a route to india so it was in his best interest to stick with that story even if it wasn’t true. His family sued the crown after he died for a cut of the profits from america and it turned into this crazy long legal battle that lasted for centuries
That’s actually really realistic and interesting
after reading about what happened to him it seems like the crown just didnt want to pay up and tried to trash his rep for the rest of his life
what was the deal with the lawsuit
so basically it got settled and his son got paid like 30 years later but then it got reopened a bunch of times by his other family members and nothing really came of it
its like that quote says its hard to get someone to see things differently when they’ve got a lot to gain from not seeing it that way
RE: Fact #23 (Why Polar Bears Avoid Antarctica) – Yeah, bringing animals or plants into places they don’t naturally belong is usually a bad call. Australia has so many instances of this happening.
Even worse when it’s an apex predator.
Funny thing is, we didn’t just get stuck with our own invasive stuff and pests, we also talked California into thinking eucalyptus trees were fantastic. They are, mostly, but there were some drawbacks no one really knew about back then. Now, way down the line, everyone’s figuring out that eucalyptus trees catch fire super easily. That’s a big reason why California and Australia always seem to have these crazy bushfires, or ‘el diablos’.
Happened in North America too, I’m looking at you, rats and mice!
RE: Fact #18 (28 Years Later Prosthetic Nudity) – Most productions usually go with prosthetics, so it’s pretty normal. Any d*ck you see on screen probably isn’t the real thing belonging to the actor.
RE: Fact #40 (George Washington Becomes American Fabius) – So the Romans thought Fabius was a coward, pushed for another big fight with Hannibal, and then they blew up again at Cannae.
It’s worth pointing out that Washington went to the Fabian strategy after his troops got totally wrecked by the British at the Battle of Long Island – the biggest fight in the war. In the first major clash after the Declaration of Independence, the American army basically melted when the British flanked them and lost 1,300 men captured or killed while the Brits only had about 100 casualties. Then the British took New York City and kept it for the rest of the conflict. We don’t talk about this a lot in history classes, but it’s a key part of the ARW story.
RE: Fact #1 (Eminem Adopts Alaina And Nathan) – From what I hear, all those kids are actually doing really well now.
RE: Fact #1 (Eminem Adopts Alaina And Nathan) – You can say whatever you want about him, but he’s genuinely an amazing dad.
The way you’re putting it almost makes it sound like he’s a bad person or did something terrible.
He might have treated his ex-wife poorly, but even with all their problems, she still calls him an amazing father.
Yeah, I mean, if you were a woman or gay back in the 2000s, you probably had some really strong opinions about all that.
As someone who’s a fan of Eminem, I know he totally admits his relationship with Kim, his daughter’s mom, was really rough. He’s got a bunch of songs where he paints her in a bad light, but then also a lot where he says he wasn’t good to her either. Honestly, I think he’s just human and he’s definitely made mistakes like anyone else. But the good things he’s done far outweigh the bad. He worked his way out of poverty and his main goal is to make sure his family never has to go through the hardships he did when he was young.