Some fact lists stick to one lane. This one does not. Random #447 jumps from strange animal behavior and forgotten history to risky inventions, weird legal battles, pop culture surprises, and discoveries that changed what people thought they knew. These 50 facts come from every corner, and each one has the kind of twist that makes random history, science, and culture feel a little stranger than expected.
1 US Scores Erased Two Decades
US student math and reading scores have dropped so sharply that they erased nearly two decades of progress. In 2022–23, average math scores for 13-year-olds fell to levels not seen since the 1990s, while reading scores for high school seniors later hit their lowest point since NAEP testing began in 1992. The Nation’s Report Card also showed that 13-year-olds lost ground in both math and reading compared with 2020, making the decline part of a broader national slide.
2. If undercooked, a popular mushroom in China can cause “lilliputian hallucinations,” a rare phenomenon involving miniature human or fantasy figures. People across different cultures have reported strangely similar visions, including “tiny, elflike people” climbing under doors, scaling walls, and clinging to furniture. Scientists have linked the reports to hallucinogenic bolete mushrooms, including Lanmaoa asiatica, but they still have not fully identified the active compound behind the effect.
3. American voice actor Casey Kasem, the original voice of Shaggy Rogers in “Scooby-Doo,” was a dedicated vegan and an outspoken critic of factory farming. In the mid-to-late 1990s, he quit voicing Shaggy after the show asked him to voice the character for a Burger King commercial. He returned to the role in 2002, but only after negotiating a condition that Shaggy would become vegetarian again.
4. Gerald Ford’s teenage son Steven Ford once sneaked about 20 friends into the White House for a party and ordered food and drinks, assuming everything was free. The next day, his father called him into the Oval Office and showed him the bill. Steven then learned that the food and drinks came out of the president’s own salary, not some endless White House party fund.
5. Empress Ma, born in 1332, came from a poor background long before she became the first empress of China’s Ming dynasty. During a famine, she secretly stole hot cakes to feed her husband, Zhu Yuanzhang, and hid them against her chest. The cakes burned her, but she still brought them to him, and Zhu later rose from rebel commander to the Hongwu Emperor. After he founded the Ming dynasty in 1368, he made Ma his empress and remained deeply devoted to her even from the throne.
6 Orphaned Negatives Lost Their Positives
Orphaned negatives are words like “disgruntled,” “nonchalant,” and “innocent” whose positive counterparts once existed but vanished from common usage.
7. The Mona Lisa’s long-debated identity and creation date gained a major confirmation in 2005, when a German researcher found a verified handwritten note in the margin of a book. The note stated that Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci was painting a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo in 1503. That small marginal clue helped support the long-standing idea that the world’s most famous portrait showed Lisa, the wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo.
8. Groupon once rejected Google’s $6 billion acquisition offer and chose to go public instead. In 2011, the company debuted with a market cap of about $17.8 billion, turning the daily-deals business into one of the internet’s hottest new bets. But the excitement did not last, and by 2023 Groupon had lost more than 99% of its value since its IPO.
9. Nzou, a female elephant at Zimbabwe’s Imire reserve, shuns other elephants and has led a buffalo herd for decades. She arrived at Imire in the 1970s after people found her orphaned in Zimbabwe’s lowveld, and caretakers placed her with buffalo when she was still young. Over more than 40 years in charge, she killed 14 young male buffalo that challenged her leadership. After several failed attempts to return her to an elephant herd, conservancy managers accepted that her place was with the buffalo.
10. Margot Robbie convinced Martin Scorsese to cast her in “The Wolf of Wall Street” after turning her first audition into a shock moment. During a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio, she improvised and gave him what she later called a “thunderclap of a slap on the face.” The move stunned both DiCaprio and Scorsese at first, but both men burst out laughing afterward, and it helped Robbie land the role.
11 Penn Jillette’s Hot Tub Patent
American magician Penn Jillette and American singer Debbie Harry were once in a hot tub when Harry suggested that the water jets should be angled for a woman’s pleasure. The idea stuck with Jillette, and he later filed a patent for a device called a “hydro-therapeutic stimulator” and named it “Jill-Jet.”
12. China consumes about 46% of the world’s cigarettes, with more than 2.4 trillion sold there every year. No country burns through more cigarettes, and the scale comes partly from China Tobacco, a state-run monopoly that dominates the country’s cigarette market. The company has also resisted stronger tobacco controls for decades.
13. Ostrich farms can struggle to get male ostriches to breed because some males find their human caretakers more attractive than female ostriches. Researchers studying farmed ostriches found that the birds often directed courtship displays toward humans instead of potential mates.
14. The Mistick Krewe of Comus, the oldest active organization affiliated with New Orleans Mardi Gras, has not marched in the parade since 1991 because it refused to let non-white people join. That year, New Orleans passed an ordinance requiring Carnival organizations to certify that they did not discriminate by race, religion, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. Comus chose to withdraw from public parading instead of complying, but it continued holding its private ball.
15. In August 2013, thieves broke into a San Bernardino nonprofit support group for victims and stole several computer towers and monitors. The organization, Sexual Assault Services, helped survivors of sexual violence, which made the burglary especially cruel. The next day, the thieves returned the stolen equipment with an apology note encouraging the group to keep making a difference in people’s lives.
16 Harry Truman Worked His Library
American president Harry S. Truman stayed heavily involved with his presidential library after it opened in Independence, Missouri, in 1957. He worked there 5 or 6 days a week, personally trained staff, and turned visits from schoolchildren into impromptu press conferences. He even answered the telephone and gave directions, treating the library less like a monument and more like a working extension of his public life.
17. Maria Antonia of Austria, born in 1669 into the House of Habsburg, had one of the dynasty’s most extreme family trees. Her inbreeding coefficient reached 0.3053, which was higher than the usual coefficient for a child born to a brother and sister or to a parent and their own child. She became the only surviving child of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and Margaret Theresa of Spain, but she died in 1692 at just 23 years old.
18. In 2007, Thailand legally issued a compulsory license to make cheaper generic versions of Abbott’s HIV drug Kaletra. Abbott responded by withdrawing 7 medicines that it had planned to launch in Thailand, but Thailand held firm, and the move helped expand HIV treatment coverage to hundreds of thousands more patients.
19. The “Spirit effect” described how Spirit Airlines entering a new route could push other carriers to drop their own prices, making flights more affordable for regular Americans. Spirit built that pressure through its ultra-low-cost model, where cheap base fares forced larger airlines to compete instead of simply holding prices high.
20. In the 1950s, American geologist and oceanographic cartographer Marie Tharp identified a giant rift valley running down the Atlantic seafloor. The discovery supported the then-controversial theory of continental drift, but her male colleague dismissed her interpretation as “girl talk” and made her redo the charts. The data still pointed to the same rift, and Tharp’s mapping later helped transform how scientists understood the ocean floor and plate tectonics.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Libraries Scrapped Punishing Late Fees
Many public libraries eliminated late fees after finding that fines discouraged people from returning at all. Instead of pushing overdue books back through penalties, the fees often kept patrons away, especially people who could least afford them.
22. All octopuses are programmed to die after reproducing, as hormones from the optic gland trigger a rapid physical decline. Males usually deteriorate within days or weeks after mating, while females stop eating and spend their final stretch guarding their eggs. Even in ideal conditions, no octopus lives longer than about 5 years, making reproduction the beginning of the end for the entire animal.
23. Hebrew is the only successful large-scale revival of a language that had largely fallen out of everyday use. Between the 2nd and 4th centuries, other languages gradually replaced it as a spoken daily language among Jewish communities. In the late 19th century, revivalists began bringing Hebrew back into regular speech, and it eventually became the modern spoken language of Israel.
24. The Bernie Madoff victim compensation fund recovered almost 94% of victims’ proven losses, a rare outcome after one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in US history. In December 2024, the US Justice Department announced the fund’s 10th and final distribution, sending more than $131 million to victims around the world. In total, the Madoff Victim Fund paid over $4.3 billion to 40,930 victims in 127 countries, bringing their recovery to 93.71% of fraud losses.
25. The “100 people surveyed” on “Family Feud” are reached through random phone surveys, and they do not know they are giving answers for a game show. The callers ask ordinary survey questions, and the show uses the collected responses to create the answer board that contestants attempt to guess.
RE: Fact #45 (American Ginseng Tempted Mountain Poachers) – I assume it’s popular in China because it’s an international version of something used daily, or is there actually a significant difference between Appalachian ginseng and the Chinese variety?
It’s like comparing wine from California and France, California is fruitier, while French is earthier. In Chinese medicine, American ginseng has “cool” energy and is used for focus, whereas Chinese ginseng has “warm” energy and acts as a mood booster. It is the same plant, but the different soil and climate mean enthusiasts claim they have different properties. Just like wine, the people who really care can tell the difference, but others wouldn’t notice.
Yeah, apparently American ginseng is considered “cold” while Asian ginseng is “hot” when used for medicine, whatever that means.
It’s about balancing yin and yang. If you have too much yang or not enough yin, Asian ginseng won’t help because it’s “hot, ” so you’d need American ginseng for its “cool” yin energy. There are probably nutritional differences, too.
RE: Fact #31 (Men Abandoned Colorful Fashion) – The end of the fop and dandy era was a sad turning point for men’s fashion. I’m hoping the style at Burning Man might help bring that variety back.
You have that backwards. Historically, the dandies were the ones pushing back against the ornate, colorful clothing of their era, unlike the fops. Their movement actually led to the shift mentioned in the fact.
RE: Fact #2 (Chinese Mushroom Sparks Tiny Hallucinations) – Lanmaoa asiatica is pretty tough to track down unless you’re at specific Asian food or mushroom markets. Scientists haven’t pinned down the active chemical yet, but it definitely isn’t psilocybin.
If they haven’t identified the compound, is it even regulated? The law usually loves to be specific about what substances we can or can’t eat.
It’s not regulated, and it’s not exactly a recreational drug. It takes 12 to 24 hours to kick in and can last for days, often landing people in the hospital. It doesn’t sound like a good time, and from what I gather, people actively avoid it. Just because something causes hallucinations doesn’t mean it’s fun; feeling like garbage ruins any potential ‘cool’ visuals. That said, it would be fascinating if scientists could eventually isolate the compound to create a new type of psychedelic.
These aren’t hallucinations. They’re glimpses into reality. That’s why the accounts are so consistent across different cultures and people.
So if two people were standing next to each other, would they both see the same little figures?
RE: Fact #50 (US Nuclear Stockpile Shrunk Dramatically) – When 10% of the original arsenal can cause just as much, if not more, devastation, who really needs the other 90%?
The risk of people trying to steal a nuke is exactly why we need to get these dismantled as fast as possible.
RE: Fact #11 (Penn Jillette’s Hot Tub Patent) – Just hanging out in a hot tub with Debbie Harry is an achievement in itself.
As a guy with a full calf tattoo of Debbie Harry, I totally agree.
He has some hilarious stories about her, and she always seems incredibly cool. My favorite was when she tried to rip her shirt open on stage, but realized too late how hard that actually is without it being prepared beforehand. Watching her struggle with the shirt in slow motion was one of the sexiest things he ever saw. I really miss Penn Radio.
RE: Fact #10 (Margot Robbie’s Audition Slap) – I tried that in a meeting five years ago and have been out of work ever since.
RE: Fact #20 (Marie Tharp Mapped Seafloor Rift) – It’s true, whenever we get together, all we do is chat about tectonic plates, rift valleys, and the Great Unconformity while we do our nails.
We’re always talking about the state of the magma chamber, or how the shield volcanoes are feeling a bit sensitive lately, and of course, those crampy slip faults.
Women are always giggling about rifts and trenches. They should grow up and let the men do the actual work of building skyscrapers.
I KNEW there was a reason you all go to the bathroom together! Secret geology debates, I knew it!
RE: Fact #42 (Minnesota Infantry’s Gettysburg Sacrifice) – Technically, they were also the first soldiers called to defend the Union. The Minnesota Governor was actually meeting with President Lincoln right when the news arrived that the South had attacked Fort Sumter.
RE: Fact #29 (NYC Mesh Built Free Internet) – Crucially, this is totally legal. There isn’t much the big internet service providers can do about it since the routers are privately owned. Every new person who joins just boosts the network’s range and capacity.
Their own site admits they rely on at least two big tech companies for bandwidth donations. The peer-to-peer network wouldn’t be nearly as useful without full internet access.
Man, I remember Quakecon in the early 2000s, and I was completely blown away by the 10+ petabytes on that network. It felt like it had everything, back when downloading a CD took forever. I asked my friend what the most ridiculous thing he could think of was that might be on there. We searched for “pterodactyl porn” and… well, it was definitely there.
RE: Fact #7 (Mona Lisa Margin Note Discovery) – An edition of Cicero from 1477 has a margin note from the Florentine official Agostino Vespucci, where he compares Leonardo da Vinci to the classical painter Apelles and mentions that Leonardo was working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. The note is from October 1503, which gives us a precise date for the painting and confirms Vasari’s 1550 claim that it’s a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo.
Wait, so we already had the names “Mona Lisa” and “La Gioconda” and it took us 550 years to put it together that she was Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of the guy who commissioned the portrait?
RE: Fact #23 (Hebrew Returned As Spoken Language) – I remember reading that the revival was controversial. Since Hebrew is the language of the Torah, some religious Jews felt it was disrespectful to use it for daily conversation, fearing it would lead to cursing or sinful language.
That’s likely why some Hasidic groups still stick with Yiddish.
There are still Jewish groups that use Yiddish for daily life and keep Hebrew reserved for study and prayer.
RE: Fact #35 (Pigs Beat Humans On Leanness) – I feel like any animal with 16% body fat would be leaner than most people.
RE: Fact #16 (Harry Truman Worked His Library) – When I was in community college in Central Missouri during the mid-70s, a classmate mentioned a fourth-grade field trip they took to the Truman Library. As the docent was prepping the group, an elderly man with a cane walked up and asked, “May I lead this group around?” The docent replied, “Yes, of course, Mr. President.” This would have been around 1965.
RE: Fact #20 (Marie Tharp Mapped Seafloor Rift) – You missed the part where he did a bunch of research to try and disprove her, realized she was actually right, and then published the findings under his own name to take all the credit.
“That’s just how it goes, now drop the talk and get me some coffee, I’ve got to head to Korea.”
RE: Fact #3 (Casey Kasem Quit Over Burgers) – He also quit the Transformers cartoon because they featured a stereotypical Middle Eastern country called Carbombya.
I hadn’t heard that, but honestly, I’m both not surprised and completely shocked.
RE: Fact #26 (Scurvy Cases Hit Autistic People) – If anyone reading this struggles with eating fruits or vegetables, do yourself a favor and pick up some vitamin C supplements. Scurvy is a miserable condition that’s totally preventable these days.
RE: Fact #7 (Mona Lisa Margin Note Discovery) – Here in Spain, we have called her La Gioconda forever. I am not sure why people are acting surprised by this.
RE: Fact #42 (Minnesota Infantry’s Gettysburg Sacrifice) – They were outnumbered 6 to 1 and still charged with bayonets and won. Then they fought in the center on the third day, too. It is wild that we don’t hear enough about the fighting on the other flank during the second day; there was intense action on both sides.
RE: Fact #44 (Khaleesi Name Outlived Thrones) – “Hi, I’m here for my appointment. My name is Kelly.” “I don’t have a Kelly on my list…” “…it’s… probably under… Khaleesi…….”
RE: Fact #28 (Wasaburo Oishi’s Esperanto Jet Streams) – The theory was basically confirmed by those Japanese balloon bombs that made it to the West Coast. A B-29 pilot actually noticed it first, he was tracking a target, asked for his airspeed, and when told it was 400mph, he realized the plane was basically hovering in place.
Exactly. The B-29s proved the jet stream existed because they were the only planes hitting that altitude in such large numbers that the reports couldn’t be ignored. When hundreds of them reported hitting a wall of wind on the same mission, the Army Air Force realized there was a new natural phenomenon they had to account for.
RE: Fact #23 (Hebrew Returned As Spoken Language) – I think the Czech language had a similar revival, though it wasn’t completely extinct, just revitalized.
Same goes for Māori in New Zealand.
Manx might count, though it wasn’t a full revival. It was brought back from total extinction, which is different from just being suppressed. Basque was heavily suppressed and made a comeback, but it never actually died out entirely.
RE: Fact #39 (Stephen Mulhern’s Repeated Magic Suspension) – I love the idea that the Magic Circle doesn’t understand how television reruns work. They’re probably thinking, “He’s taunting us! This sorcery can’t go unpunished, ban him again!”
It sounds like they lack object permanence and actually think their members are doing real magic.
The thought that the leadership might genuinely believe in real magic is hilarious.
RE: Fact #44 (Khaleesi Name Outlived Thrones) – My niece is dating a guy who was born to teen parents a couple of decades ago. They just had another set of kids and named their youngest Daenerys Khaleesi about four years after the show ended. I was speechless. I couldn’t believe it.
RE: Fact #37 (Asparagus Grows Toxic Red Berries) – I live right next to a huge asparagus patch. Once the season ends, the farmer lets them grow wild to seed. By late summer, it turns into something out of an alien forest, those tops spread out like thick, green spiderwebs and the stalks get incredibly tough.
It’s not really about letting them seed; asparagus grows from an underground crown. You can take a few spears, but you have to let the rest fern out so the crown stays healthy and doesn’t die off.
Plus, there’s a strict calendar for harvesting. You can’t touch them at all the first year. After that, you can harvest for an extra week each year, but you should cap it at about 6 to 8 weeks total.
RE: Fact #26 (Scurvy Cases Hit Autistic People) – Look, just because Bachelor Chow from Futurama is my ideal meal doesn’t mean I’m autistic. I mean, I am, but that’s beside the point.
I always pictured that stuff as a complete meal replacement, so I figured it had all the necessary nutrients, vitamin C included.
That’s exactly why it’s appealing. I don’t want to stress over vitamins; I just want to eat my kibble and be done with it.
Searching for real-life Bachelor Chow is how I found Huel. It worked fine for long-distance cycling, but I couldn’t handle more than three shakes a day and ended up losing too much weight. A homeless surfer named Craig eventually gave me some Dinty Moore beef stew, and after three weeks of shakes, it tasted like a gourmet meal.
RE: Fact #4 (Steven Ford’s White House Bill) – Did he really sneak them in? The Secret Service almost certainly knew what was going on.
The Secret Service is only there for security, not to police behavior. I assume his dad didn’t know, but the agents were definitely watching to make sure no one was a threat.
Imagine trying to do typical teen stuff like getting weed while hanging out with your security detail. ‘Don’t worry, guys, they’re there to protect me, they don’t snitch!’
Sure, but that’s like saying you snuck 20 people into a club even though they all cleared security at the door. Maybe the owner was out of the loop, but it’s not exactly a secret operation.
I watched a documentary about the relationship between Secret Service agents and presidential children. Sinbad was in it, actually.
RE: Fact #36 (Sober Addicts Get ADA Protection) – You can definitely use FMLA and short-term disability for rehab or addiction treatment. Of course, you’ll be labeled as such, and in the US, they can always find another reason to terminate you. Once that information is out there, there’s no going back.
RE: Fact #46 (Cimabue Painting Saved From Trash) – The woman who owned the painting died just two days after the sale, leaving her three heirs to inherit the estate. Thanks, Mom. Bye, Mom.
Imagine how much they would have saved on capital gains taxes if she’d had the decency to pass away before the sale.
“Look, Mom, we need that step-up in cost basis, so I’m going to have to ask you to drink this.”
RE: Fact #27 (Tim Horton’s Fatal Impaired Crash) – It was 1974, and tons of people were against seatbelts back then. Ontario didn’t even make them mandatory until 1976. I’m not sure he would have lived regardless, but he definitely wouldn’t have been thrown from the car.
It’s wild how much people resisted safety changes. I was watching a clip from when they first passed impaired driving laws, and these old British guys were genuinely shocked that they couldn’t just go to the pub, pound a few pints, and drive home.
I still hear older relatives peddling that wives’ tale about seatbelts causing more harm than good in minor crashes. My father-in-law says it constantly, so when we first started dating, my wife wouldn’t even wear hers. It’s like the WWI helmet argument, injuries went up, but only because more people were actually surviving.
RE: Fact #9 (Nzou Elephant Ruled Buffalo Herd) – Damn, sounds like a lot of buffalo died trying to address the elephant in the room.
This reminds me of those SCP stories where an entity hangs out in a room and kills anyone who mentions it, so everyone just has to pretend it isn’t there until it decides to leave.
They eventually started moving the bulls out of her herd once they reached a certain size to stop the deaths. Each one was a major financial loss since those bulls are valuable disease-free stock they use for breeding and sales.
RE: Fact #24 (Madoff Fund Recovered Victim Losses) – Others have mentioned this, but while the original investment was recovered, the fake gains were what really wrecked people’s retirements. Imagine expecting to retire on an account that you thought had been growing for years, only to find out it was all a lie. You reach retirement age with nothing, and it happened right when the Great Recession hit.
RE: Fact #43 (Beatles Played Half-Empty Farewell) – I spoke to a woman who saw them live twice. She said it was impossible to hear the music and the band obviously couldn’t hear each other, since they kept stopping songs to discuss the tempo. Plus, it was raining jelly beans because John Lennon mentioned they were his favorite candy. She thought it was terrible. I saw Paul perform at Candlestick in his seventies, and he even joked mid-show that it was going much better than the last time. Everyone agrees their live shows were kind of a mess, but it wasn’t really anyone’s fault, we just hadn’t figured out how to do stadium concerts back then.
RE: Fact #21 (Libraries Scrapped Punishing Late Fees) – It’s a rare win for equality to see that kind of change.
I used to work for city government and always found that librarians were genuinely ahead of the curve when it came to accessibility. It’s great to see.
My sister-in-law actually switched from being a teacher to a school librarian in Texas for that exact reason.
RE: Fact #50 (US Nuclear Stockpile Shrunk Dramatically) – “Imagine a room filled with gasoline, and there are two enemies inside. One has nine thousand matches, and the other has seven thousand. Each of them is obsessed with who is ahead or who is stronger. Well, that’s exactly the spot we’re in.” , Carl Sagan
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” , Carl Sagan
You can just use the current universe, Carl, you don’t need a fresh one for every pie. If you can’t build it from scratch, pre-made works just fine.
That’s great news, Carl! We finally managed to get one of those enemies down to 3, 700 matches.
RE: Fact #15 (San Bernardino Burglars Returned Computers) – This reminds me of the carjacker who stole a car, realized there was a sleeping baby in the back, brought the car back, and then yelled at the parent.
If that’s the story I’m thinking of, he gave the baby back but still drove off with the car after chewing out the parent.
He actually scolded the mother for leaving the child behind and even threatened to call the police on her.
Actually, reports said the woman did nothing wrong and was within sight and sound of the child. Regardless, leaving a child in a car is a bad move. What if the mother had been hurt in the store? No one would have even known the baby was in there until it was too late.
What’s even funnier is that he didn’t actually return the car. He dropped off the baby, lectured the parent, and drove off with the car anyway.
RE: Fact #20 (Marie Tharp Mapped Seafloor Rift) – It feels strange that when I was studying basic plate tectonics in grade school back in 1973, it was still considered a relatively new and cutting-edge theory.
RE: Fact #23 (Hebrew Returned As Spoken Language) – It was largely driven by the fact that the founders came from so many different places. Looking at it from a Scottish or Irish perspective, I see why they needed a common language to build a nation. Whether they were from New York, Paris, or Warsaw, they needed a shared tongue, and that necessity really fueled the language’s success.
RE: Fact #3 (Casey Kasem Quit Over Burgers) – Paul McCartney only agreed to appear on The Simpsons if Lisa remained a vegetarian after the episode aired. He even made a joke about how playing a Beatles song backwards gives you a recipe for lentil soup, and they actually put a backwards recording of a recipe in the end credits.
I think he also rejected Weird Al’s request to release Chicken Pot Pie, even though I’m pretty sure parody is legally protected anyway.
Yeah, Paul said no to the parody, but Weird Al has always made a point to ask artists beforehand.
Exactly. Weird Al doesn’t technically need permission for his parodies, but he asks as a courtesy. That respect earns him more ‘yes’ answers and keeps him out of legal trouble.
RE: Fact #47 (Prince Rejected Ruby Rhod Costumes) – Tucker’s take on Ruby Rhod was so iconic that I can’t imagine anyone else in the part. There haven’t been many characters like that since.
Exactly. He nailed it. Even if you only watch it once, lines like “Korben, my man, ” “It’s hot, hot, HOT!, ” “Bzzzzzt!, ” and “Supergreen” just stay stuck in your head.
We quote the “Are you green?”/”Supergreen” lines constantly. Also “Aziz! Light!” and “Gimme the cash!” It’s just such a quotable movie.
RE: Fact #28 (Wasaburo Oishi’s Esperanto Jet Streams) – The irony is that Esperanto was intended to be a universal language that everyone could speak.
I remember a workshop about Esperanto at the library back in middle school. I thought it was confusing and really hoped I wouldn’t have to learn a whole new language.
RE: Fact #7 (Mona Lisa Margin Note Discovery) – She probably had no idea she would wind up being one of the most famous women in history.
The painting didn’t hit legendary status until it was swiped from the Louvre in 1911. The media turned it into such a spectacle that even Pablo Picasso was dragged in as a suspect. It was finally recovered two years later from the apartment of Vincenzo Peruggia, a handyman the museum hired to build a display case for it. He grew obsessed with the piece and just decided to take it home. By 1914, it was a massive global tourist draw, with people flocking to Paris just to catch a glimpse.
It is a tiny painting. It makes sense that stealing it wouldn’t be all that difficult.
She didn’t. Ironically, Da Vinci kept that painting for himself for the rest of his life.
The Mona Lisa was never supposed to be a big deal. It only caught traction when Napoleon hung it in his bedroom, and it really exploded into fame after it was stolen in 1911. It morphed from just a painting into a full-blown cultural myth over the last century. If you asked Da Vinci, he would have just called it one of many random portraits he painted. He would probably be pretty annoyed to know that this is the one piece everyone associates with him.
RE: Fact #21 (Libraries Scrapped Punishing Late Fees) – The book Freakonomics mentions a daycare that started charging fees when parents arrived late to pick up their kids. It backfired because parents started showing up late more often, treating the fee like a service charge they were fine with paying.
It makes sense in a weird way. If you charge a fee, you’re unintentionally signaling that you’re happy to keep watching their kid after hours for a price. It sounds like parents just want extended daycare hours and are willing to pay for that convenience.
Exactly, it removed the guilt and turned it into a business transaction. They probably should have just set up a strict policy instead of using financial penalties.
Oof. Unfortunately, a lot of their analysis is nonsense. I especially disliked their take on how much power the president actually has over your life, they basically concluded it’s not much.
RE: Fact #6 (Orphaned Negatives Lost Their Positives) – One of the best pieces of writing ever plays on this concept: How I Met My Wife by Jack Winter It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do. Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion. So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads and tails of. I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated, as if this were something I was great shakes at, and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings. Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d’oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself. She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savoury character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. ‘What a perfect nomer, ‘ I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.
RE: Fact #19 (Spirit Airlines Forced Cheaper Fares) – I’m not familiar with American airlines, so I’ll just assume Spirit is a fantastic, well-managed, and highly profitable company. I’m not taking any questions on this.
It’s wild, but they actually haven’t had a single fatal crash in their 34 years of operation.
With budget carriers like Ryanair, using a single aircraft type helps with parts availability and standardized crew training, which saves money and improves safety. Spirit mostly flying the A320 and A321 seems to follow that same model.
Budget airlines everywhere have to maintain perfect safety records because that’s their only real selling point. If they don’t have fancy seats or amenities, they have to at least be safe. Once you start charging more for premium classes, you’re competing on service and comfort.
RE: Fact #8 (Groupon’s Google Deal Disaster) – They went downhill when they stopped being a way for people to find cool local businesses and just turned into a marketplace for selling cheap junk.
RE: Fact #4 (Steven Ford’s White House Bill) – The Obamas shared how they hosted a fancy dinner for some friends right after they moved in, but when they saw the bill, they decided they weren’t going to do that again.
RE: Fact #17 (Maria Antonia’s Habsburg Inbreeding Peak) – To put that in perspective, she only had six great-grandparents because two of them were also her grandparents. It sounds confusing, but that’s Habsburg genealogy for you.
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that sentence.
Uncles married their nieces in that family all the time. The husband’s parents were the wife’s grandparents.
In a typical family tree, you have four grandparents and eight great-grandparents. Since one pair of her great-grandparents was repeated, she only had six unique ones. Plus, two of her great-grandparents were also her grandparents, meaning she only had two unique ancestors at that level. She ended up with eight unique biological grandparents and great-grandparents instead of the usual twelve.
RE: Fact #47 (Prince Rejected Ruby Rhod Costumes) – He definitely had that flamboyant style, but I just can’t picture him playing that role or bringing any of that specific kind of humor to it.
Not to be disrespectful, but he was a pretty bad actor. Purple Rain was his peak, honestly. Under the Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge were just a masterclass in how not to act, even if the soundtracks were great.
The character basically became a mix of Prince and RuPaul once Tucker got his hands on it, and it was so much better that way.
RE: Fact #12 (China’s Trillion-Cigarette Tobacco Monopoly) – Interesting how the numbers work out there.
I guess they don’t have to stress about supporting a massive elderly population when smoking-related cancer takes them out early.
For context, the government owns China Tobacco outright and holds 97% of the market. China actually makes more revenue from tobacco than Saudi Arabia does from oil.
RE: Fact #8 (Groupon’s Google Deal Disaster) – They caused huge cash flow headaches for vendors by keeping their money locked up for months. People would finish a job and then have to wait forever to actually get paid.
They also had a habit of making up coupons the vendors never authorized and running ads for them in locations outside the vendor’s actual service area.
I recall a story in Germany about a pedicurist who used the platform to advertise her new practice. Groupon was supposed to limit it to 50 sales, but they ended up selling 500 to 800 vouchers. The pedicurist couldn’t handle the rush, and customers were furious that they couldn’t get an appointment for months. Groupon basically dodged all responsibility for the mess.
That happened to me too. I received a pair of aviator glasses and a flight lesson as a 40th birthday gift through them. When I called the flight school, they said they couldn’t honor it because the platform had sold ten times the number of vouchers they authorized, and the school didn’t have the staff or planes to keep up.
RE: Fact #22 (Octopus Reproduction Triggers Death Spiral) – This isn’t a joke, their short lifespan is probably why they haven’t taken over the ocean like we took over the land. They’re super intelligent, but it’s hard to build math or complex systems when your entire generation only lasts a few years.
Plus, they don’t communicate with each other well. It’s tough to develop technology when every single member of the species basically has to reinvent the wheel from scratch.
RE: Fact #2 (Chinese Mushroom Sparks Tiny Hallucinations) – I’ve heard of this. It’s theorized that these experiences are why gnomes and elves are so heavily associated with mushrooms in places where they are legal, and that these hallucinations might have inspired many old folktales.
Lilliputian hallucinations can be triggered by plenty of things, not just these specific mushrooms.
RE: Fact #5 (Empress Ma’s Burning Cake Sacrifice) – That didn’t stop him from having a massive harem of Korean and Mongolian concubines, though, and he fathered 26 sons and 16 daughters with them.
RE: Fact #17 (Maria Antonia’s Habsburg Inbreeding Peak) – It’s worth noting that she didn’t really suffer from major health issues because of it. She got incredibly lucky.
She was like Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, thinking he was indestructible because he had every single disease at once.
RE: Fact #34 (Lydia Angyiou Fought Polar Bear) – I wonder if the bear just got confused by seeing a human flailing around, since that’s so different from how the animals it usually hunts move. So maybe the best advice if you ever face a polar bear is just to go completely bat-sh*t crazy.
RE: Fact #2 (Chinese Mushroom Sparks Tiny Hallucinations) – What if these mushrooms actually let people peek behind the magical veil?
You could test this by giving it to two people and seeing if they report the same visuals simultaneously. A shared hallucination isn’t really a thing.
Solid research design. Let us know if you ever get results.
The Inuit in the Arctic have legends about little people that only some can see, and they live nowhere near these mushrooms.
The Inuit also have a shamanic tradition involving the consumption of urine from reindeer or people who have eaten those mushrooms.
I’m not saying you’re necessarily right, but I think the idea deserves more consideration. Saying ‘it’s just a drug’ never really satisfied me. It doesn’t explain the specific experiences or how multiple people can report seeing the same things. What exactly are these entities?
I agree that this could be opening a door of perception we can’t normally reach. On the other hand, it might just be like tapping your knee to get a reflex, except it’s your brain reacting to a compound instead of a tendon. I’m not sure we can distinguish between a supernatural experience and a biological reflex.
RE: Fact #48 (Turkey Point Saved American Crocodiles) – Warm water from power plants is great for manatees in the winter, though it does create a bit of a crisis when those plants eventually shut down.
I used to hang out in Crystal River and Homosassa, and hundreds of them would crowd into the warm springs when the temperature dropped. There was a nuclear plant nearby back then, and I wonder if they’re all flocking to the springs even more now that it’s closed.
RE: Fact #35 (Pigs Beat Humans On Leanness) – We raise pigs and cows for meat, not fat, so they’re mostly muscle. They aren’t ‘fit’ in the way a guy at the gym is, though, if they were working out that much, the meat would actually be too tough and taste worse. They’re just stocky animals that haven’t really done much exercise.
RE: Fact #42 (Minnesota Infantry’s Gettysburg Sacrifice) – That is true for the raw numbers, but if you look at the percentage of the unit lost, a different group holds that record. A Company, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Infantry Division landed at Omaha on D-Day with about 150 men. Within 10 minutes, only a third were still standing, and by the end of the day, only seven weren’t casualties. Every single officer and sergeant was killed. That is 96 percent of their strength and 100 percent of their leadership gone.
RE: Fact #49 (Ligers Grow Without Genetic Brakes) – I’ve always thought it would be a cool mechanic to incorporate into a fantasy setting with half-elves.
A group of massive, arthritic elves struggling with gigantism? These aren’t healthy creatures.
RE: Fact #19 (Spirit Airlines Forced Cheaper Fares) – Turns out competition is actually a requirement for a healthy market. Who knew?
RE: Fact #47 (Prince Rejected Ruby Rhod Costumes) – Chris Tucker was so good in that movie; it’s a shame he didn’t do more roles like that.
RE: Fact #49 (Ligers Grow Without Genetic Brakes) – You might wonder why lionesses have those growth-limiting genes, but just like humans with gigantism, ligers deal with real health issues. Organ strain, trouble moving, poor circulation, and they overheat super easily. Most experts agree they wouldn’t survive in the wild because they’re too sluggish and heavy to hunt standard prey. They’d end up as scavengers, but they’d get pushed out by animals like hyenas that can actually use speed and pack strategies.
Lionesses evolved growth-limiting genes because their evolutionary success depends on having several medium-sized cubs rather than risking everything on one giant baby. Conversely, male lions have growth-encouraging genes because their success is tied to having one massive powerhouse of an offspring that can grow up to defend against other males. Also, female ligers might actually stand a chance in the wild. Lionesses are social and will often help other members of the pride even if they can’t hunt. The males, however, would likely starve or die off quickly once they were out on their own. While they’d be more “lion” than a typical male lion, that size becomes a liability without a support system.
Since the mother of a liger is a tiger, they’d be raised as a tiger and wouldn’t have a pride to fall back on.
RE: Fact #43 (Beatles Played Half-Empty Farewell) – People stopped going to their shows because the audience screaming was so loud you couldn’t actually hear the music anymore.
My old music teacher avoided their concerts for that exact reason. I also read that in Japan, where nobody was screaming, they still weren’t very good because they could barely hear each other on stage.
RE: Fact #33 (Irma Grese’s Auschwitz Execution) – The more I read about her, the more disgusting it gets. Seriously, what a nightmare.
It gets even worse. She would mutilate young women with a whip and then watch the camp doctors perform surgeries on her victims without anesthesia. If they screamed, she would just start beating them again. She was a total monster.
If you put all of this in a novel, people would call it unrealistic and cartoonishly evil.
Completely vile. I was trying to warn people because it is deeply repulsive. It is rare to feel good about someone dying young, but this is an exception.
Yeah, this isn’t the banality of evil, this is just a serial killer who was lucky enough to live in a society that didn’t stop her.
RE: Fact #25 (Family Feud’s Secret Phone Surveys) – I feel like I would definitely realize I was answering questions for a game show based on the prompt. “Name something you put in a hole when it’s stiff.” “Uh… Grandma.”
I used to love Family Feud, but I tuned out once half the questions turned into “Name something that’s big and hard and goes in your mouth in bed….” It’s just not funny when it feels that forced.
Glad someone else misses when the questions weren’t just setups for double entendres.
RE: Fact #36 (Sober Addicts Get ADA Protection) – That’s a double-edged sword. I’ve been told it’s a good idea to inform your employer since they can’t fire you for it, but as an alcoholic friend of mine said, ‘it’s just telling your boss that you’re a liability, ‘ and they’ll likely find another reason to let you go anyway.
RE: Fact #40 (Maldives Banned Future Smokers) – I lived with a guy from the Maldives in the early 2000s who was studying to be a pilot. He refused to even be in the same room as our dog. It wasn’t that he was scared of her, but he was terrified someone from home would find out he touched a dog, as his country is strictly Islamic and considers them unclean. Yet, he would go out drinking, smoking, and partying every weekend, and brought home a different woman all the time. It really makes you think.
RE: Fact #25 (Family Feud’s Secret Phone Surveys) – I thought they used cards for the studio audience. I wonder if they changed the process or if I was just wrong?
That’s what I thought too, but using an audience would probably lead to way too many silly answers or cheating.
Cheating isn’t much of a risk with a big crowd, and silly answers are easy enough to filter out as long as you have a big enough sample size.
Yeah, that’s how I always remembered it too, the audience members filled out the answers. Diving down a rabbit hole now… apparently, that was the old way. Early on, they used audience members from other game shows like The Price is Right to fill out survey cards.
RE: Fact #22 (Octopus Reproduction Triggers Death Spiral) – I wonder what kind of evolutionary pressure leads a species to develop a gland like that. I could see a mechanism for temporary hibernation, but forcing a parent to starve to death is intense.
If you only reproduce once, it’s arguably more genetically successful to die immediately so you aren’t competing with your own offspring for food.
RE: Fact #1 (US Scores Erased Two Decades) – A friend of mine teaches 8th grade, and some of the stuff she tells me is honestly pretty alarming for the future.
My friend teaches high school physics, or maybe he’s in administration now, I can’t keep track. But the stories he shares, papers written by AI, kids struggling to read, everyone glued to their phones, and a system where failing students isn’t an option, are just absurd.
It is ridiculous that teachers can’t fail students. It just removes any accountability for poor performance.
My 12-year-old nephew has no clue how to use a computer. He doesn’t even know what a file is.
RE: Fact #41 (Donald Herbert Awoke After Years) – He actually passed away nine months later from pneumonia after dealing with a bunch of infections. He could only speak sporadically and was wheelchair-bound due to muscle atrophy. The full story is a lot less of a “miracle” than the title of this fact implies.
It is honestly heartbreaking. Most people who miraculously wake up after years in a coma never truly recover; they usually have such severe brain damage that communication is impossible. It makes me wonder, if I ended up in a coma for over a year with no real progress, I would rather just have the plug pulled.
True, but if they hadn’t tried that drug cocktail that woke him up with more awareness than before, he wouldn’t have had any extra time with his family at all. I really wanted to include the death details and a timeline in the fact, but there just wasn’t enough space.
RE: Fact #45 (American Ginseng Tempted Mountain Poachers) – In college, I got a citation for weed in Shenandoah National Park. When I went to court, the first case was a father and son who had been caught poaching ginseng on park land. The judge called it the biggest haul in the park’s history. Apparently, Rangers spray paint the roots and replant them so they can identify them if they’re caught later. They got a ton of community service, and I actually got my charge dropped.
It isn’t regular paint; it’s a special invisible marker. The rangers show up at places like farmers’ markets and use a device to make the marker glow.
RE: Fact #5 (Empress Ma’s Burning Cake Sacrifice) – The Hongwu Emperor became incredibly paranoid later in life, and honestly, she was probably the only thing keeping his purges from being even worse.
purging the generals and officials who helped start a dynasty has been standard politics since Liu Bang. These guys had the charisma and street cred to lead a rebellion, so the emperor feared them. That’s why smart guys like Zhang Liang retired early, while others like Han Xin were taken out because of their arrogance.
That’s a bit misleading. He wasn’t exactly insane. People overlook that he was incredibly protective of the peasantry while being harsh toward the nobles and officials. He lived through the collapse of the Yuan dynasty, which was total chaos, and he grew up in extreme poverty. He was terrified that the country would fall back into disorder after he died, so he tried to build a rigid system to prevent it, which, ironically, didn’t last long after his passing.
I feel like if you weren’t paranoid in an imperial Chinese court, you were just naive. One bad interpretation of an omen and you’d be forced to drink poison.
RE: Fact #37 (Asparagus Grows Toxic Red Berries) – I love how asparagus grows, it looks like a giant prank, as if someone is trying to trick you into believing that’s actually how the plant looks.
As a former asparagus farmer, I can tell you that a lot of those photos are misleading. People often just shove store-bought asparagus into the dirt for the sake of a photo. They don’t just grow into massive, man-sized stalks at the end of the season. Yes, they get tall and the females produce berries, but 11 feet is rare and they look totally different than a standard spear. It’s not that weird when you think about it, though, you’re just eating the young shoots. It’s like leaving grass to grow wild; eventually, you get a full, tall plant.
I’ve had an asparagus plant for six years, and people are always surprised when I show them what it is. For most of the year, it’s just a delicate, fern-like plant with little yellow flowers and the occasional berry before it dies back in the fall. The spears definitely get thicker every year. Am I right to assume the asparagus we buy in the store comes from much older, more established plants?
I was actually annoyed when I traveled to Asia and saw a pineapple growing right out of the ground like a head of cabbage. I spent almost 30 years convinced they grew on trees, I think I must have just seen it in an old Yoshi’s Island game and assumed it was real.
RE: Fact #13 (Ostriches Preferred Humans Over Mates) – It isn’t about attraction; ostriches pair bond. In the wild, they don’t interact with other species, so there’s no evolutionary reason to avoid bonding with non-ostriches. When humans raise them and provide food and grooming, the birds’ natural pair-bonding instincts trigger. They essentially fall in love with their caretakers, and the mating attempts are a result of that.
That may be true, but we shouldn’t overlook the rugged charm of your average ostrich farmer.
Combine that with the fact that female ostriches aren’t exactly attractive to humans, and you’ve got a weird situation.
Figures, females always go for the wealthy guys who own property and provide for them, not the random person who just showed up.
It’s about pair bonding and imprinting. It’s easy to mess up birds when they’re young, and on a farm, they’re likely all imprinted on the humans.
RE: Fact #3 (Casey Kasem Quit Over Burgers) – I saw a video about this years ago. Apparently, they reached a compromise where Shaggy would never be explicitly labeled as vegan or vegetarian, but as long as Casey was providing the voice, Shaggy would never be shown eating meat on screen.
That seems like a fair compromise. It didn’t require changing the character to fit Casey’s personal beliefs, and eating meat isn’t exactly core to who Shaggy is. He just wants to eat anything he can find.
I could totally see Shaggy giving up meat. One of his closest friends is a talking dog, and he knows other talking dogs exist, so it wouldn’t be a huge stretch for him to worry about accidentally eating a talking animal. Plus, he’s a pretty chill guy who believes in live and let live. He’s also got some wild theories, so he might even be worried about animals coming back for revenge.
My VHS copy of Creepiest Capers or Spookiest Tales had a little behind-the-scenes parody segment where they specifically mentioned that Shaggy was a vegetarian.
In my movie, the opening scene has me eating a peanut butter, jelly, and sardine sandwich, so I guess we went right ahead and broke that rule immediately. 😅
RE: Fact #50 (US Nuclear Stockpile Shrunk Dramatically) – It’s wild to think that there are actually people out there whose job is to take apart nuclear weapons.
RE: Fact #27 (Tim Horton’s Fatal Impaired Crash) – “Some guys can drink and drive, some guys can’t. What is drunk?” , Ray LaFleur
RE: Fact #18 (Thailand Defied Abbott Over Kaletra) – It seems like the U.S. is the only place still acting like standing up to big pharma is impossible. Plenty of other countries figured out how to handle this years ago.
RE: Fact #1 (US Scores Erased Two Decades) – Sweden is shifting back to using physical books and handwritten notes in classrooms. It is worth noting they aren’t getting rid of tech entirely; the plan is to prioritize traditional methods for foundational learning and bring in laptops and tablets later on to supplement those basics.
I almost feel lucky to live in a part of the country that is poor enough that the kids still use actual books and notebooks. My nieces and nephews still lug around heavy backpacks full of paper, and the schools still keep a dedicated computer lab for tasks that actually need one.
I have a high schooler who really pushed to have an English teacher that uses pen and paper. Back in middle school, he actually asked if we could go to the library to get him a math textbook or buy him one for Christmas. I really hope the U.S. starts moving back toward using physical books and paper more often.
RE: Fact #18 (Thailand Defied Abbott Over Kaletra) – Thailand should just issue compulsory licenses to produce generic versions of those seven medicines Abbott pulled.
RE: Fact #31 (Men Abandoned Colorful Fashion) – We saw another shift in the 80s. Men’s style in the 60s and 70s was so bright, varied, and heavily patterned, but then the 80s made it hip to be square.
RE: Fact #33 (Irma Grese’s Auschwitz Execution) – That is wild. Being under 18 and thinking, ‘I want to get in on these concentration camps.’
It’s even more sinister than that. She was drawn to the job because she realized it was a chance to live out her sexual torture fantasies.
It also kind of undermines the ‘ignorant locals’ talking point that sometimes pops up about these camps. This 17-year-old was informed enough to volunteer specifically to carry out her desires to commit horrors.
RE: Fact #11 (Penn Jillette’s Hot Tub Patent) – So Debbie Harry was sitting in a hot tub with him talking about wanting to feel pleasure, and he just went out and filed a patent? Total nerd.
When he built his house, he actually had a woman visit the construction site and test how far she’d be willing to walk naked just to get some cereal, just to figure out the best layout for the kitchen and bedroom. He must be doing pretty well for himself if he’s worried about stuff like that.
He also installed a urinal in his office so he wouldn’t have to keep walking to the bathroom.
He definitely has game. I caught a Penn & Teller show in NYC years ago and have been a fan ever since.
The guy makes a living by being a charismatic jerk. I’m not surprised.
I had the same thought. It sounds like Debbie Harry was trying to make a move, but instead of picking up on it, he went and turned it into an invention. One of us!
Being in a hot tub with one of the most attractive women around and having her mention she wished the jets were designed for her pleasure is a crazy story. As soon as she said it, I would have been out of the water and calling my lawyer to file a patent for that idea. Looking back, maybe I should have just enjoyed the moment instead.
I bet they were hooking up before, during, or right after she brought that up.
RE: Fact #19 (Spirit Airlines Forced Cheaper Fares) – It’s called competition, but corporations have basically killed that part of the economy through decades of consolidation.
RE: Fact #30 (Caligula’s Little Boot Nickname) – When it comes to Roman history from that time, we’ve got a mix of sources: the serious Tacitus and the gossipy Suetonius, who lived for a good rumor. Since Tacitus’s work on Caligula is lost, we’re stuck with Suetonius, which explains why we have such a sensationalized record of him. Also, dropping the name Gaius makes total sense, Julius and Augustus Caesar were both named Gaius. There were so many guys named Gaius that the nickname helped clear up the confusion.
it felt like every Roman Emperor was named Gaius. Each of them had a minimum of eight names.
With Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus being the bare minimum, people probably wondered if they had anything else to go by.
RE: Fact #39 (Stephen Mulhern’s Repeated Magic Suspension) – This sent me down a rabbit hole. I found out the Magic Circle only admitted men until 1991, but their first female member, Sophie Lloyd, actually got in 18 months earlier by disguising herself as a man named Raymond Lloyd with help from another magician. When she finally revealed her identity, they kicked her out for “deliberate deception.” The irony is unbelievable.
“To join our club, you have to be good at tricking people… Wait, not like that.”
It would be hilarious if she just snuck back in disguised as a different man.
Or even just as a woman, but with a different hair color and some makeup.
RE: Fact #43 (Beatles Played Half-Empty Farewell) – You also have to remember that stadium shows were a relatively new concept and the sound design wasn’t great. I think they used the same PA system for their famous Shea Stadium show. People caught on to how to handle stadium sound pretty quickly, but that didn’t help a band whose final show was only a few years after they broke out.
I know someone who went to their first stadium show in Canada. The venue staff had no clue how to manage a concert and didn’t have enough security. She bought a ticket for the baseball game that happened during the day, just hid in the bathroom reading a book for a few hours, and walked out to watch the show for free once the stage was set.
RE: Fact #27 (Tim Horton’s Fatal Impaired Crash) – He was actually planning to retire from the NHL to focus on the donut shops full-time, but they gave him that fancy sports car as a perk to stick around for one more season.
RE: Fact #9 (Nzou Elephant Ruled Buffalo Herd) – “You have no experience leading an elephant herd. Go get some other leadership experience first, then maybe we can reconsider your application.”