1 Golf Courses Raise Parkinson’s Risk
In 2025 a study by Mayo Clinic found that people living within one mile of a golf course had 126% higher odds of a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis than people living more than six miles away. The authors suggested that pesticides used on golf courses may play a role, especially in areas with vulnerable groundwater.
2. When “The Blues Brothers” was released in 1980, executives who controlled more than half the theaters in the country reportedly refused to book it because of its number of Black actors. Director John Landis later said one exhibitor, a man named Ted Mann, told him he would book the movie in Compton but not in Westwood because he did not want Black audiences there. The film opened in only 594 theaters, far below the 1,200 to 1,500 theaters common for major releases at the time. Despite that, it still became the 10th highest-grossing domestic film of 1980.
3. Perth Zoo was placed under lockdown in 2017 after two orangutans momentarily broke free from their cage. A 5-year-old male orangutan fell over a barrier and landed in a garden bed outside the exhibit. His mother then dropped into the area, retrieved him, moved onto the visitor boardwalk, and voluntarily returned with him to the exhibit. Zoo staff cleared nearby visitors as standard procedure, and the whole incident ended in about 15 minutes.
4. French newborns cry with a rising melody, while German newborns cry with a falling melody, matching the intonation patterns of their native languages. Researchers found that babies begin picking up and imitating their mother’s speech rhythm during the last trimester of pregnancy.
5. In 2021, 11-year-old Laney Perdue became the sole survivor of a Michigan plane crash after her father, Mike Perdue, wrapped her in a tight bear hug as the plane went down. When rescuers found her alive, many of her injuries were on one side of her body, while the side protected by her father had been shielded. The commuter plane had been flying to Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan, and the crash killed the pilot and two other passengers.
6 Komodo Dragon Mauled Phil Bronstein
In 2001, actress Sharon Stone arranged a private visit to the Los Angeles Zoo’s Komodo dragon pen for her then-husband, investigative journalist and editor Phil Bronstein, who had always wanted to see one up close. A zookeeper invited Bronstein into the cage, where the lizard began licking his white shoes before he removed them on the keeper’s advice. When Bronstein moved to take a photo, the Komodo dragon lunged, bit his foot, and jerked back and forth as it tried to eat it. Bronstein survived and did not press charges, but Stone later said the top half of his foot was gone.
7. Horses have no muscles in their lower legs, so each hoof helps push blood back upward like a “second heart.” When a horse cannot move, blood can pool in the hoof and damage tissue from the bottom up. That circulation problem is one major reason serious leg injuries can become fatal for horses.
8. In 1999, Mexia Supermarket in Fort Worth, Texas, suddenly closed, and the owners walked away with unsold food still inside. After the electricity went off, perishable food rotted for months in the Texas heat, drawing flies, cockroaches, and rats while neighbors complained about the stench. The Fort Worth Health Department declared the building a health hazard, and workers in hazmat suits spent about two weeks removing the spoiled food and sanitizing the store.
9. In 1875, former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln was institutionalized at Bellevue Place in Batavia, Illinois, after her only surviving son, Robert Todd Lincoln, initiated proceedings against her. She then smuggled letters to her lawyer James B. Bradwell, his wife Myra Bradwell, and other sympathizers to fight her confinement. The pressure worked, and Mary left the sanitarium after about three months, later moving into the care of her sister in Springfield, Illinois.
10. In 1915, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild solved Albert Einstein’s field equations while serving on the World War I Eastern Front and dying of disease. His solution described what would later be understood as a black hole, long before the term was coined. Schwarzschild wrote to Einstein, “The war treated me kindly enough to allow me to take this walk in the land of your ideas.” He died only months later.
11 Jack Keyes Ended Beer Record
In 1989, “Guinness World Records” stopped monitoring the record for the most beer drunk in one hour. At the time, the record belonged to 23-year-old Jack Keyes, who reportedly drank 36 pints in one hour in Northern Ireland in 1969. The category ended with his extreme total still standing in the book’s history.
12. As recently as 1794, most people in France did not speak fluent French, and only about 11% of the population used it fluently. Instead, many people spoke regional languages such as Occitan, Breton, Alsatian, and others tied to local identity. French became the majority language later as the state pushed heavy assimilation efforts across the country.
13. Coca-Cola once made “MagiCans” that secretly held cash prizes instead of soda, but the company had to stop people from spotting winners by weight. To disguise them, Coca-Cola filled part of the cans with foul-smelling chlorinated liquid. The promotion lasted only three weeks before it was canceled after some people accidentally drank the liquid.
14. Newborns can distinguish the sounds used across the world’s languages, including about 600 consonants and 200 vowels. During the first year, their brains start tuning themselves to the sounds they hear most in their native language. By their first birthday, they lose sensitivity to many unused sounds, which helps explain why adult language learners often keep a foreign accent.
15. Iodized salt is one of the world’s most cost-effective public health interventions, costing about $0.05 per person per year. It prevents iodine deficiency, the leading preventable cause of intellectual disabilities, which affects roughly 2 billion people worldwide. The same simple fortification helped eliminate endemic goiter in countries such as the United States and Switzerland.
16 Idris Elba Hid English Accent
While auditioning for “The Wire,” British actor Idris Elba hid his English accent from series creator David Simon to prove he was “American enough” for the role. Elba maintained his act throughout several auditions, but Simon discovered the truth during his fourth audition. By then, Elba had already impressed him enough to win the part of Stringer Bell.
17. In 2018, Senegalese-American singer Akon announced “Akon City,” a planned community in Senegal that he described as being a “real-life Wakanda.” The project was supposed to use blockchain and cryptocurrency technology, with construction beginning in 2023. By 2025, the site reportedly sat abandoned.
18. Since 1993, Sri Lankan sports teams have been linked to 47 incidents of athletes disappearing during overseas trips. The most famous case came in 2004, when a 23-man “national handball team” traveled to Germany and vanished. Officials later discovered that Sri Lanka did not even have a national handball federation.
19. Researchers have documented 34 cases (as of 2026) of wild orcas offering food to humans, including fish, birds, and stingrays. The whales approached people with prey and appeared to share it, giving researchers a rare look at how orcas may test social behavior outside their own species. Scientists still do not know exactly why they do it.
20. During World War II, Germany’s nuclear researchers never seriously pursued building nuclear weapons and doubted whether such weapons were even possible. After Germany surrendered, physicist Werner Heisenberg and other scientists were secretly recorded while under house arrest at Farm Hall in England. When they heard about the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, they reacted with shock.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Petain Met De Gaulle Silently
During the Battle of France in 1940, French marshal Philippe Petain found himself dining in the same Bordeaux restaurant as French officer Charles de Gaulle, just one month before Petain became leader of the Vichy regime. The meeting carried weight because de Gaulle had once served under Petain, who had been his early military mentor, but by then they had split over France’s future. Petain supported seeking an armistice after Germany’s invasion, while de Gaulle wanted France to continue the fight from abroad. While in the restaurant, De Gaulle came over and shook Petain’s hand in silence, and the two men never met again.
22. In 1651, Tibetan Buddhist lama Ngawang Namgyal, the first unifier of Bhutan, died after building the country into a unified state. To prevent a dynastic struggle and a return to warlord rule, the authorities hid his death and kept issuing orders in his name. From 1651 to 1705, they claimed he had entered an extended silent retreat, turning 54 years of political cover-up into a religious explanation.
23. A dog named Joy was the only member of Nicholas II’s household to survive the Romanov family’s execution in 1918. The Bolsheviks killed the former Tsar, his wife, their five children, four retainers, and two other dogs, but spared Joy because he did not bark. Joy was later rescued and taken to England, where he lived out the rest of his life.
24. Only a fraction of British physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton’s surviving written output focused on science and math. Of the roughly 10 million words he left behind, about half dealt with religion, about 1 million words covered alchemy, and roughly 3 million words focused on science and math. The papers showed that the man remembered for gravity and calculus spent much of his private writing on biblical interpretation, prophecy, and alchemical studies.
25. Some white blood cells fight infections by bursting themselves open and casting their own DNA like a net. These traps, called neutrophil extracellular traps, can catch and help kill invading pathogens. The cell dies in the process, turning its own genetic material into a last-ditch weapon.
RE: Fact #20 (German Scientists Missed Atomic Bomb) – Heisenberg actually botched his calculations and thought a fission bomb needed about a ton of enriched uranium. Since that wasn’t realistic to produce, the Nazis didn’t make the weapon a priority. Turns out the actual critical mass was way less than 100 pounds.
The Russians were on a similar path for a while. They figured enriching that much uranium would take years, until they got intel that the British believed the gaseous diffusion method was actually viable.
Have you ever looked into any of the wartime writings from Igor Kurchatov about what the Germans were doing with their nuclear program?
The British and their Tube Alloys program really don’t get enough credit for that.
RE: Fact #10 (Karl Schwarzschild Solved Black Holes) – It always amazes me that his name translates to “black shield, ” and he not only predicted black holes but also the Schwarzschild radius, the event horizon distance, which is named for him. So, the “black shield radius” is literally named after a guy whose name means “black shield.”
Isaac Asimov wrote a great essay about when Galileo looked through his telescope and saw Jupiter’s moons, only for them to “disappear” a few months later, leading him to joke about Zeus swallowing his children. Asimov discussed how people used this to claim ancient Greeks might have had forgotten telescopes. He then compared this to the history of the planet Vulcan. People noticed Saturn’s orbit didn’t match Newton’s predictions, which led to the discovery of Uranus. When they noticed similar issues with Mercury’s orbit, they hypothesized a planet near the sun and named it Vulcan after the Roman god. In mythology, Vulcan was tossed from the heavens by Jupiter. To top it off, Zeus/Jupiter was swallowed by his father and described as a “stone” in his stomach. So, what happened to Vulcan? Einstein’s theory of relativity updated Newton’s math and accounted for Mercury’s orbit, effectively “tossing” Vulcan from the heavens. And for the final irony, “Einstein” in German means “a stone.”
It was actually Kronos who ate his children, not Zeus. Also, Galileo’s telescope wasn’t powerful enough to show Saturn’s rings clearly; he thought they were two extra planets on the sides of the main one until they shifted to an edge-on position and seemed to vanish.
RE: Fact #29 (Park Sung-Hyun Lost Eleven Days) – You’d think time would slow down when you’re trapped, but she somehow had the opposite experience.
Maybe it felt like minutes when she drifted off, but she was actually basically hibernating for days at a time.
It’s like when you wake up, close your eyes for a few more minutes, and then realize two hours have gone by.
Her body knew the best way to survive was to wait it out, and I’m glad her brain went along with that plan.
RE: Fact #27 (Jimmy Swaggart Changed Scandal Defense) – Well, the guy certainly had range.
RE: Fact #4 (French Babies Cry Rising Melodies) – Bad news for any old kings who thought they could figure out the original human language by raising kids in total isolation.
RE: Fact #31 (Dipsy Has African Descent Canon) – Tinky Winky is a gay icon. I bet he goes by T-Winky now, though 😂😂😂
When I was a kid, I got in trouble because my friend’s mom heard me say Tinky Winky was gay. She treated me like I was a terrible person for it. I was so confused because I didn’t see why being gay was an insult. It still bothers me nearly 30 years later.
My dad always made jokes about Tinky Winky being gay and carrying that little purse. He was his favorite character, but mine was Po.
RE: Fact #40 (Mice Disabled German Stalingrad Tanks) – This is what total mobilization in the Soviet Union looked like. Even the field mice were doing their part for the motherland.
Lmfao, love this. I have no love for communism or Stalin, but the way Soviet society stepped up during WWII is genuinely inspiring. They didn’t have much of a choice, but when a brutal enemy invades to ethnically cleanse your people, your options vanish pretty quickly. Rest in peace to everyone who fought against fascism, regardless of their nationality.
Except for their dogs, who were basically German double agents betraying the Soviets at the worst possible times.
RE: Fact #24 (Newton Wrote Mostly Religious Papers) – He also put in a lot of effort as Master of the Mint, where he actively reformed how currency was produced and went after counterfeiters personally.
Which is funny, because that role was supposed to be strictly ceremonial and he wasn’t expected to do much of anything. He really took his role as a “bullshit job” way too seriously.
Yeah, he went to great lengths to get counterfeiters hanged. It honestly surprises me how passionately he pursued those capital offenses.
RE: Fact #49 (Rich Dad’s Poor Dad Wasn’t) – Kiyosaki is a huge conman. He wrote that book while he was involved with Amway as a way to trick people into thinking MLMs aren’t scams. Honestly, he’s a terrible businessman who only made his money from selling the book.
RE: Fact #2 (Blues Brothers Beat Theater Racism) – They wrecked 103 cars for that movie. Universal actually had to set up a dedicated body shop just to keep fixing the vehicles for reshoots.
That’s amazing. I haven’t actually seen the film yet, but now I really want to check it out.
You can definitely feel the scale of the destruction in the film. Even though it’s a comedy based on an SNL sketch, it feels like it had the budget of a modern superhero blockbuster. Whether or not you enjoy the style, it’s a great look at how different filmmaking was back then compared to now.
It’s a classic for a reason. The music is great and the story is totally bonkers. Once you finish it, look at the cast list, getting Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Frank Oz, and Carrie Fisher in one movie is just wild.
It’s definitely worth a watch and a lot of fun. Plus, there are some fantastic cameos.
RE: Fact #33 (Lions Once Roamed Ancient Greece) – Lions pop up constantly in Greek myths. Remember, one of Heracles’ 12 tasks was killing the Nemean Lion.
There’s a really ancient lion statue on the Greek island of Kea that’s likely around 4, 000 years old, though experts don’t always agree on the exact date.
Mesopotamian kings had to kill a lion as a rite of passage to prove they could protect their people. By the time of the Assyrian rise in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, lions were nearly extinct there, so they passed laws making it a royal privilege only. They’d actually capture them and keep them penned so the future king could ‘fight’ and kill one at his coronation.
It’s wild that ancient societies were essentially managing endangered species lists. The reasons were messed up, but it’s still impressive they had the foresight.
RE: Fact #42 (Charlie Day’s Rats Won Pacific) – Imagine accidentally landing a role in Pacific Rim just because you were emotionally processing your pest control issues.
Imagine accidentally auditioning for Pappy McPoyle by getting cast in Pacific Rim.
“Accidentally”? Guillermo spent his whole career just to get himself in place for that part.
The extended McPoyle family is incredible. I love the scene where Mac and Dennis head to the Eagles open tryout and the whole family rolls up in their RV. “What is that a jar of?”
RE: Fact #48 (Erasmus Darwin Rhymed Evolution First) – Charles Darwin didn’t discover that evolution happens, as that was already a known concept. He was the one who finally figured out how it actually works.
RE: Fact #20 (German Scientists Missed Atomic Bomb) – I always heard they were focused on using heavy water for their nuclear research.
It’s debated whether they purposefully held back on making weapons for the regime. When Heisenberg visited Bohr in Copenhagen, it’s not clear what they actually talked about. Heisenberg claimed he offered to stop nuclear research, while Bohr claimed Heisenberg threatened him with a German bomb that was already in the works. Either way, it’s clear the Germans knew about the potential.
They were definitely looking into the potential, but they missed some key parts of nuclear theory, which led them to believe it was impossible to pull off.
Yeah, they even had production facilities for heavy water in occupied Norway, which ended up being the target of that famous SAS commando raid.
They had a program, but it was nowhere near the scale of what the U.S. put into it. It seems like the Germans viewed it as a long-term goal rather than something feasible in the immediate future. I remember reading that Heisenberg’s back-of-the-envelope calculations were off, which really hurt their progress.
At its peak, the Manhattan Project took up about 1% of the entire U.S. economy. It was an absolutely massive undertaking.
RE: Fact #22 (Bhutan Hid Founder’s Death Secret) – It feels like the Taliban are doing that exact same thing with their supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada.
RE: Fact #12 (France Barely Spoke French Once) – The state basically wiped out local cultures and banned kids from using their native tongues. It was common for children to be shamed or physically punished if they were caught speaking anything other than French.
RE: Fact #2 (Blues Brothers Beat Theater Racism) – It’s wild that four years later, Beverly Hills Cop ended up becoming the highest-grossing film of the year.
RE: Fact #5 (Laney Perdue Survived Father’s Hug) – There was a similar case back in August 1987. Four-year-old Cecelia Cichan was the only survivor of Northwest Airlines Flight 255. Her mother shielded her with her own body while still strapped in, and a stuffed animal helped cushion the impact. Sadly, the rest of her immediate family perished.
My son survived a bad car wreck when he was five, partly because he was wearing his toy army helmet. A drunk driver hit my mom’s car at high speed. The backseat was crushed, but the ER doctor said the helmet stopped glass from causing worse injuries to his head. He still had a broken jaw and needed several surgeries, but he survived. That story about the girl’s stuffed animal really hit home.
And your other kid? Were they alright?
I absolutely hate drunk drivers and anyone who thinks they’re fine to get behind the wheel while impaired.
Cases like this remind me of Juliane Koepcke from the 70s. I read about her when I was twelve, and the detail about her dealing with a botfly infestation in her wounds while waiting for rescue is something I’ve never forgotten.
In her case, her parents’ survival knowledge about the jungle is what actually helped her make it back to civilization. It’s an incredible story.
RE: Fact #34 (Skydiving Parachutes Have Backup Brain) – My experience is just static line jumps from military planes. It’s totally different. I’m always nervous before the jump, but the training takes over, ‘If I’m drifting left, turn to the left, ‘ ‘If I’m at treetop level, lower my gear, ‘ ‘Feet and knees together, follow the landing procedure.’ Once I land, I just get dragged 50 feet and check to make sure I still have my wallet, phone, and keys.
RE: Fact #14 (Newborns Hear Every Language First) – The reason for this is efficiency. At birth, it’s helpful to be able to hear every sound, but as the brain matures, it drops the distinctions it doesn’t need to save energy. A kid in Japan doesn’t need to hear the difference between French sounds, so the brain just deletes that ability. I really think parents could use this to their advantage by playing foreign language audio to their infants to keep those neural pathways open, making it much easier for them to learn those languages later. I don’t think it’s been proven yet, but there’s similar research that makes me think it’s possible.
Growing up in a bilingual Canadian family was a massive advantage for me. I don’t really have an accent in either language.
That makes total sense! I was born in Romania and raised in Belgium, so I find Latin-based languages come really naturally to me. I took two years of Spanish about a decade ago, and I can still hold a basic conversation, understand songs, and watch movies in the language without much trouble.
RE: Fact #2 (Blues Brothers Beat Theater Racism) – One of my college professors actually called it the greatest crusade movie of all time.
I like to pitch it as a remake of The Sound of Music. It has everything: nuns, Nazis, people sneaking out of their own concert, and surrogate parents introducing kids to music.
RE: Fact #29 (Park Sung-Hyun Lost Eleven Days) – I watched a deep-dive on this disaster. It was just one act of negligence after another until the mall was basically a Jenga tower, and then they made it even more dangerous with those rooftop units. It was totally avoidable and shows how corrupt people can get when there’s no real oversight.
I’ve looked into this before. I’m an engineer, though not a civil one, and the number of changes made to the design is mind-bogglingly bad. Every single change seems incredibly risky, even at a glance. It’s ridiculous that the guy only got about 10 years for criminal negligence after ignoring visible cracks in the floor. Ten centimeters of cracking, and they just told everyone it was fine.
These disasters are always made so much worse by the decisions people make. It reminds me of the Paraguayan supermarket fire where the owner had the exits sealed so people couldn’t leave without paying. Hundreds died, and he only got a light sentence initially before a riot forced a retrial.
Aren’t you mixing that up with the Ycuá Bolaños supermarket fire in Paraguay? I’m from Argentina and I don’t recall any such scandal there.
RE: Fact #1 (Golf Courses Raise Parkinson’s Risk) – My ex, who was in grad school for speech-language pathology, mentioned that a lot of research shows higher rates of childhood leukemia near Christmas tree farms. That’s a huge industry around where we went to school in the NC mountains. To clarify, this is in Watauga and Ashe Counties. It’s almost certainly connected to pesticide and fertilizer runoff ending up in the aquifers that supply well water to the valley homes. The farms cover entire mountainsides, and the runoff hits every valley below. Since the aquifers are really shallow, it doesn’t take much to contaminate the water supply.
RE: Fact #48 (Erasmus Darwin Rhymed Evolution First) – Plenty of educated people realized evolution was a thing by Darwin’s era, mostly because dinosaur bones made it impossible to ignore. There were already different ideas about how it worked, but Darwin’s big contribution was proposing natural selection as the mechanism. His theory actually sat on the shelf for a generation. We didn’t understand genetics back then to explain how traits are passed on, plus everyone assumed the Earth was only 100 million years old, not nearly enough time for natural selection to drive change. Darwin’s work only really took off in the 1920s once those other scientific fields caught up.
RE: Fact #6 (Komodo Dragon Mauled Phil Bronstein) – I can’t believe the zookeeper was so irresponsible. Telling him to take his shoes off near a Komodo dragon was a terrible call.
The lizard’s tongue was darting toward his shoes, and the zookeeper actually said, “I’m sure he thinks it’s the white rats we feed him. You’d probably be better off without your shoes.” That transcript is wild.
RE: Fact #35 (Rivercane Once Covered American South) – Ohio used to have an incredible biome called the Great Black Swamp. Like so many amazing areas in the US, we lost it to development.
RE: Fact #19 (Orcas Offer Humans Their Food) – It’s wild how they can be such ruthless apex predators in the water, but then turn into absolute bros when it comes to humans.
I was thinking about this the other day. Imagine how we’d view the animal kingdom if everything else out there was as simple as a fish. Orcas and other marine mammals must get so lonely; it has to feel like just emptiness and dullards outside of your own pod.
At least orcas have other dolphins to interact with, and they’re actually pretty smart too.
RE: Fact #15 (Iodized Salt Prevents Brain Damage) – Switzerland was basically the capital of cretinism and goiter before iodized salt came along. Mark Twain even joked about it back in the day, saying he’d seen the main highlights of the country: Mont Blanc and the local goiters.
That’s hilarious. It sounds like a shady law firm advertisement. “Suffering from iodine deficiency? Call the Law Offices of Cretinism and Goiter, we’ll get you the iodine you’re owed!”
RE: Fact #18 (Sri Lankan Handball Team Vanished) – Hey guys, is it just me, or is there something suspicious about the Sri Lankan national Quidditch team too? 🤔
Yeah, no kidding. The Quodpot team, though? That one is totally real.
RE: Fact #5 (Laney Perdue Survived Father’s Hug) – Think of all the public figures lost in small plane crashes: JFK Jr., Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, Aaliyah, and so on. Even if the statistical risk is low, I avoid small planes whenever I can. Some of these accidents happen because these flights don’t have the same safety oversight as commercial airlines.
RE: Fact #45 (Juana Maria Lived Alone Eighteen) – I never would have guessed in a million years that the Island of the Blue Dolphins was off the coast of California, where I’ve lived my entire life.
I’ve fished off San Nicolas Island once, and it is a very, very long boat ride. It’s absolutely teeming with big native fish, so I assume that was their main food source. I’ve never heard of that book, but it sounds interesting.
RE: Fact #26 (Metacomet’s Head Haunted Plymouth) – And that is apparently where the Thanksgiving tradition of killing a family member and putting their head on a spike originated.
RE: Fact #13 (Coca-Cola MagiCans Poisoned Promotion) – They could have just sealed the cash in plastic and filled the rest with actual Coke. I’m clearly overqualified for their management team at this point. Who’s hiring?
Imagine if someone actually choked on the prize inside. Then you’ve got massive lawsuits and you’re getting fired regardless of your logic.
RE: Fact #9 (Mary Todd Lincoln Smuggled Letters) – Things like this used to happen when you only needed two people to commit someone to an institution. My family has a story about this exact thing happening between two siblings who had a falling out with their mother. It was a small town, and when her character witnesses arrived, the judge brought the two siblings into his chambers and told them they were one step away from being thrown in jail themselves.
RE: Fact #19 (Orcas Offer Humans Their Food) – I remember going to Sea World when I was a kid and watching an orca fumble a beach ball demonstration, so it landed in the crowd. Someone in the audience tossed it back, and after the trainer fed the whale some fish, the orca literally chucked one of the fish right back at that person.
RE: Fact #31 (Dipsy Has African Descent Canon) – The idea of Teletubbies having family trees is weird. I always thought they were just their own individual things.
RE: Fact #38 (Deadpool Rules R-Rated Box Office) – “We were only beaten by Passion of the Christ. Domestically, not overseas, where there’s no such thing as religion.” That might be my second favorite joke in Deadpool 2. My favorite is definitely the whole Black Tom Cassidy bit, good god.
“What’s your super power, cultural appropriation?” gets me every time.
RE: Fact #46 (Caesars Waitresses Greeted As Slaves) – The word “ciao” actually comes from “s-ciào vostro, ” which literally means “I’m your slave, ” so I guess they were being historically accurate.
People still say “at your service, ” which shares the same roots. “Serve” and “server” both stem from the Latin word “servus, ” meaning slave.
That is one of the terms the Venetian language gave the world. Venetians also created the first casino, the Ridotto, which was the first legal state-operated public gambling hall. It was open for nearly a century, from the 1680s to the 1770s, and was used for social clubs as well.
RE: Fact #14 (Newborns Hear Every Language First) – I’ve got a question for the experts. I didn’t grow up speaking Korean, but I heard it around me enough as a kid that I understood the sounds. When I finally took Korean classes as an adult, the pronunciation came really easily to me. Based on what this says, does my early exposure mean I held onto those neural connections, even if it wasn’t an everyday thing?
Check out my other comment, but there’s research specifically on Korean that suggests being exposed to it early on gives you a huge advantage when you try to learn it later.
Exactly. You’re what people call a heritage speaker. Even if you didn’t become fluent as a child, your early exposure gives you a significant head start with vocabulary and pronunciation compared to someone starting from scratch.
RE: Fact #36 (Narathu’s Filthy Murder Sparked Revenge) – I always get chills whenever I visit the Dhammayangyi Temple in Bagan. It is haunting to think it was built by Narathu just to atone for killing his own father and brother.
RE: Fact #46 (Caesars Waitresses Greeted As Slaves) – That is still a common greeting in Southern Germany, Austria, and Tyrol. “Servus” literally translates to “I’m your slave” from Latin.
RE: Fact #13 (Coca-Cola MagiCans Poisoned Promotion) – I really hope the person responsible for the brilliant idea of adding toxic-smelling chemicals to a soda can got fired.
RE: Fact #25 (White Blood Cells Cast DNA) – It’s believed that when this process isn’t regulated properly, it contributes to the blood clotting and lung damage seen in severe COVID-19 cases.
How can I get to the cells responsible for this and start regulating them? :/
RE: Fact #38 (Deadpool Rules R-Rated Box Office) – It is wild how a movie that nobody wanted to back became such a massive success in the R-rated space. It really helped pave the way for more R-rated films.
That is because studio executives have zero creativity or passion for cinema. Big superhero movies are expensive, so they treat them as high-risk. It is great to see a passion project knock it out of the park, though.
The suits lack passion and they never trust the people who actually have it. They will happily dump billions into the next big thing as long as someone with a business degree hypes it up, rather than trusting an actual artist.
RE: Fact #7 (Horse Hooves Pump Blood Upward) – Horses are so fragile. A simple stomach ache could mean a $20, 000 vet bill with a 50/50 chance of survival. They also chew rocks to grind down their teeth since they never stop growing. On the bright side, they don’t really choke easily because their breathing and swallowing tubes are separate, even if something gets stuck, they can still breathe. I honestly don’t know how they made it through medieval warfare.
RE: Fact #14 (Newborns Hear Every Language First) – If a newborn was constantly exposed to basically every language during their first year, could they grow up to be a native-level speaker in all of them?
Maybe not every single language, but my friend’s partner grew up hearing four languages and lived in several countries by age ten. They are fluent in all of them, but they speak with this unique, untraceable global accent that blends French, Japanese, English, and Spanish. They also find it incredibly easy to pick up new languages.
That would probably just confuse the kid and potentially set them back. It would be a fascinating experiment once they got older, though.
If you’ve ever seen kids learning two languages at home while also navigating the local language at school, they definitely get confused at first. It’s pretty cute, and they eventually become fluent in all of them. I’ve talked to language teachers who say it can occasionally affect their advanced writing skills in the early years, though.
RE: Fact #17 (Akon City Became Abandoned Dream) – You missed the best part: the crypto they were going to use for the city was actually called Akoin.
It started out at 15 cents and plummeted to less than a penny in just a few years.
RE: Fact #9 (Mary Todd Lincoln Smuggled Letters) – Sufjan Stevens has a track on his 2005 album, Illinois, called “A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons.”
RE: Fact #43 (Germany’s War Goals Grew Quickly) – This is exactly how my Civilization games always go. “I’m a science-focused nation that feels safe and happy with my resources!” “Wait, someone is trying to declare war? Armies, get ready to defend!” “We did it! Their army is gone! …and their cities are wide open… Might as well keep this march going all the way to world domination… after all, I’ve got an edge from being a science-focused nation…”
Me in Crusader Kings 2 after taking my brother’s land and tossing him in the dungeon because he wouldn’t vote for my heir: “Look what you made me do!” Then I claim the lands, vote for the heir I’ve been training, and hand the territory to them while hoping they understand the self-interest involved. I usually end up making my brother a baron somewhere later on.
RE: Fact #30 (Rupert Murdoch Was Red Rupert) – He really did seize the means of production, just for his own bank account.
RE: Fact #35 (Rivercane Once Covered American South) – I had no idea about this until a farmer working to revitalize these species and change up American agriculture told me! Historically, Indigenous peoples actually used controlled fires and other methods to maintain these rivercane ecosystems and stop the forests from taking over the grasslands.
RE: Fact #16 (Idris Elba Hid English Accent) – Stringer Bell was an incredible character. It’s hard to picture anyone else in that role.
RE: Fact #31 (Dipsy Has African Descent Canon) – Po is Asian. People thought the language she spoke was just gibberish, but it was actually Cantonese. It caused a huge stir because people heard her talking doll saying what they thought was a homophobic slur, when she was actually saying “fai-dit” (hurry up) on her scooter.
I remember that controversy. My girlfriend rushed out to buy one of the dolls before they pulled them from store shelves.
Dipsy is played by a Jamaican actor, and I recall his “bup-a-tum” catchphrase being based on a reggae beat.
I speak Cantonese. I was in the kitchen when the show was on, and I had to stop what I was doing because I was shocked to hear one of them speaking my language.
Nah. That was telepathy, a sign you’re turning into a Teletubby yourself.
RE: Fact #45 (Juana Maria Lived Alone Eighteen) – On a clear day, I can see San Nicolas Island from my house. It’s way out there. I can’t imagine being there alone for 18 years, looking toward the mainland the whole time and wondering what happened to everyone I ever knew.
RE: Fact #17 (Akon City Became Abandoned Dream) – Color me shocked. I just assumed any massive infrastructure project based on a superhero movie and crypto was a guaranteed winner.
That’s because they didn’t include enough buzzwords. Throw “AI” into the pitch and it becomes impossible to fail.
Just make sure you don’t forget to ask for “zero mistakes, ” “total coverage of edge cases, ” and “no hallucinations.”
Especially when the person in charge has a career as a musician! Most people think you need actual leadership skills, project management experience, or a background in civil engineering to run a city-building project, but apparently, being able to sing a hit song is all you really need.
RE: Fact #7 (Horse Hooves Pump Blood Upward) – I saw a fact a while back about all the things that can go wrong with a horse just based on their anatomy. After reading it, I couldn’t understand how they ever survived as a species.
It’s pretty simple. Horses are optimized for exactly one thing: going incredibly fast. Their whole anatomy is built around speed at the expense of almost everything else.
Horses are built to go fast, but unlike a lot of other herbivores, they’re also built to keep it up for a long time. They have real endurance, similar to pursuit predators. That’s a big part of why they were so useful for domestication.
My friend had to get rid of her horse because too much green grass in the pasture caused it to founder. It’s crazy how eating too much grass can make their hooves go lame. Horses are so strange.
Broken bones are usually a death sentence for wild animals. You can’t exactly set a bone, put it in a cast, and rest for a month in the wild. Even if you survive the infection, you won’t last long as a predator or prey with a limp. It’s just brutal out there for every animal.
RE: Fact #12 (France Barely Spoke French Once) – It was pretty much the same deal in Italy through the mid-20th century. They really pushed to make standard Italian the only language for government business, schooling, and official documents to effectively erase regional dialects.
Those regional languages are still hanging on, even if everyone gets taught “standard” Italian in school now. The standard version is basically just Tuscan, and the push for Italian unification was pretty messy. A lot of people in the south felt forced into adopting a northern language against their will, which is still a sore spot for many.
I’m pretty sure Spaniards call their language “castellano” rather than “Español” specifically because there are so many distinct regional languages across Spain.
RE: Fact #25 (White Blood Cells Cast DNA) – The immune system has absolutely no chill and some totally unhinged backup plans for everything.
RE: Fact #44 (Kumul Khanate Outlived Mongol Empire) – His entire lineage is listed on his Wikipedia page: > His lineage to Chagatai Khan son of Genghis Khan is as follows: Qinwang Jasagh Shah Maqsud Khan son of Sehzade Ahmad Khanson of Hezhuo Qinwang Duolo Junwang Shah Bashir Khan son of Junwang Pinji Jasagh Duoluo Beile Shah Ardashir Khan son of Junwang Pinji Jasagh Duoluo Beile Shah Ishaq Khan son of Jasagh Zhenguo Gong Junwang Pinji Duoluo Beile Shah Yusuf Khan son of Jasagh Darhan Zhenguo Gong Gushan Beizi Shah Emin Khan son of Jasagh Darhan Shah Gapur Beg Khan son of Jasagh Darhan Shah Abdullah Beg Khan son of Emir Muhammad Shah-i-Beg Tarkhan son of Sultan Ahmad Pulat Khan son of Sultan Timur Khan son of Shah Shuja Al-Din Ahmad Khan son of Sultan Muhammad Khan son of Sultan Abdul Rashid Khan son of Sultan Said Khan son of Sultan Ahmad Alaq Khan son of Sultan Yunus Khan son of Sultan Uwais Khan son of Sher Ali Oglan Khan Khuu son of Muhammad Khan son of Khizr Khwaja Khan son of Tughlugh Timur Khan son of Esen Buqa Khan son of Duwa Khan son of Ghiyath Al-Din Baraq Khan son of Yesuntoa Khan Khuu son of Mutukan Khan Khuu son of Chagatai Khagan son of Temujin Chinggis Khagan. I know there might not be a better way to display this, but there is something hilarious about seeing a massive run-on sentence like this on Wikipedia.
It reminds me of reading Herodotus, where he sometimes lists the ancestors of a notable person, starting off with a standard list only to end with something like “son of Hercules, son of Zeus.”
Technically, the British Royal Family, the Windsors, can trace their ancestry back to Odin through the Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex and the Wuffinga dynasty.
What is even more interesting is that Wikipedia tracks 11 generations of that family from the start of the Kumul Khanate until the final descendant passed away in a Chinese prison. 11 happens to be a significant number in Mongol mythology. Genghis Khan was said to be the 11th generation descendant of Alan Gua, who was impregnated by a ray of light, and she herself was the 11th generation descendant of a white wolf and red deer.
RE: Fact #50 (Gallaudet Eleven Beat Motion Sickness) – I wonder if there’s a sliding scale for this, since I have hearing loss but still get motion sickness sometimes. It’s a funny mental image, though, the researchers dying on the deck while those guys were having a blast.
Just having hearing loss isn’t enough. You basically need that inner ear connection to be totally severed so it can’t send those signals about acceleration to your brain.
RE: Fact #7 (Horse Hooves Pump Blood Upward) – This is part of why prosthetics usually aren’t a practical solution for a horse with a missing limb.
Yeah, people weren’t just being cruel when a horse broke its leg. Throughout history, putting them down was often the most merciful option.
It still is, in most cases, right? You’d need some incredibly high-end care to handle a recovery.
RE: Fact #13 (Coca-Cola MagiCans Poisoned Promotion) – The problem wasn’t just the smell; the liquid was in a separate compartment, but those seals would fail, causing it to leak into the drink.
Why couldn’t they just use more soda, or even plain water, to add the weight? Putting toxic, foul-smelling chemicals in a product meant for consumption seems like a massive oversight.
RE: Fact #15 (Iodized Salt Prevents Brain Damage) – I was just mentioning to my neighbor how rare goiters are these days. Growing up in the 80s, I swear I saw someone with a visible goiter almost every month. It makes sense now that I know why.
There was actually a “very special episode” of Home Improvement where Randy got a goiter. My mom had to explain what it was, but I’ve never actually seen one in real life. Same goes for quicksand.
I’m 30 and I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly seen anyone with a goiter. Shoutout to iodized salt.
I saw plenty of goiters in Thailand. People there get most of their salt from fish sauce, which doesn’t contain iodine.
RE: Fact #18 (Sri Lankan Handball Team Vanished) – >The most infamous case was in 2004, when all 23 members of a self-described Sri Lankan “national handball team” disappeared during a tournament in Bavaria, and were last witnessed by taxi drivers who dropped them off in Munich. Sri Lanka did not have an official national handball team; the men had tricked the German embassy in Sri Lanka into issuing them German travel visas, possibly by submitting forged documents as proof they were an official team. Consequently, Sri Lankan athletes stopped being issued German travel visas, no matter what sport they played.
There’s actually a movie about this that was huge in Sri Lanka. The premise is absolutely hilarious.
You left out the funniest part: they stayed in a hotel in Wittislingen and played several games, losing every single one. Their opponents said they clearly had no idea how to actually play handball.
I respect the hustle. Might as well get a few games of handball in before you go off the grid.
RE: Fact #6 (Komodo Dragon Mauled Phil Bronstein) – The only way I’d go near a Komodo dragon is if it were locked down like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park during transport. Phil Bronstein seems to have recovered well, though he needed surgery to reattach tendons and a heavy dose of antibiotics for the bacteria.
RE: Fact #45 (Juana Maria Lived Alone Eighteen) – “Just seven weeks after arriving on the mainland, Juana Maria died of [dysentery] in [Garey, California].” If there is a god, I want them to know that this is not funny.
“Juana Maria was reportedly fascinated and ecstatic upon arrival, marveling at the sight of horses, along with European clothing and food. … Nidever claimed that her fondness for green corn, vegetables, and fresh fruit, after years of little nutrient-laden food, caused the severe and ultimately fatal illness.” I imagine she was just eating so much more food than she was used to. That must have been amazing. It is sad she passed away so soon after that.
Best description I’ve ever heard about dysentery: “This sh*t isn’t funny.”
RE: Fact #21 (Petain Met De Gaulle Silently) – De Gaulle visited General John Pershing at his home in 1944. When Pershing asked how his old friend Marshal Petain was doing, De Gaulle replied in French, “The last time I saw him, he was doing well.”
Was he struggling with memory or something? He had to have known about Petain’s situation.
Churchill thought he was starting to go senile at that point. He was 84 when they met, which was the same age Petain was when he became head of the Vichy Government.
You have to consider that all news back then came through radios or newspapers. Maybe his local paper never really covered Vichy France or Petain at all.
RE: Fact #22 (Bhutan Hid Founder’s Death Secret) – Don’t worry, everyone, the supreme leader just went to live on a farm in the mountains.
If I had a nickel for every time a head-of-state lama had their death hidden for decades, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.
RE: Fact #3 (Perth Orangutan Retrieved Her Son) – Near me, there’s a safari park with an island for some monkeys. The keepers explained that they’re highly social and matriarchal, so the group won’t leave unless the alpha female does, and she likes it there. They could easily leave since there’s only a narrow moat, but they just choose not to. I’m sure the Fish and Wildlife department has thoughts on it, but it’s not my monkeys, so I’m just glad they’re happy.
People often compare zoos to prisons, but that’s outdated. Modern zoos provide a stress-free environment where animals are well-fed, protected from predators, and often sleep better than in the wild. If an animal has what it needs, it usually has no reason to leave.
It really depends on the animal. You can modernize a city zoo, but you can’t change the fact that animals like elephants need massive amounts of space. Maybe the solution is not having them in city zoos at all, though seeing them in person definitely helps build the empathy needed for conservation programs.
I bet the Fish and Wildlife guy sees the news about monkeys escaping and just thinks, ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys.’
RE: Fact #23 (Joy Survived Romanov Family Execution) – Joy belonged to Alexei Nikolaevich, the Tsar’s youngest son. He was constantly in official photos with Alexei, as they were basically inseparable. When the imperial family went into exile, they brought their dogs: Ortipo, Jimmy, and Joy. When the Bolsheviks decided to kill the family, they gathered them and their staff in a basement and executed them. Jimmy was being held by Anastasia and died with her, and his body was found in a pit later. Ortipo was bayoneted by a guard for howling too much. Joy was quiet, which likely saved him. A guard, Anatoly Yakimov, remembered: “The door from the hallway to the rooms where the royal family lived was still closed, but there was no one in the rooms. It was clear: not a sound was heard from there. Before, when the royal family lived there, one could always hear life in their rooms: voices, footsteps. At this time, however, there was no life there. In the hall, near the door to the rooms where the royal family lived, their little dog stood all the time, waiting to be let into the rooms. I remember well, I also thought at the time: you wait in vain.” Joy escaped during the clean-up. He was found by the White Army and adopted by Colonel Pavel Rodzianko. Rodzianko later wrote: “The Czechs, having captured Yekaterinburg, found a poor half-starved animal running around the courtyard of the Ipatiev House. It seemed that the dog was always looking for his owner, and his absence so saddened and depressed him that he barely touched food, even when he was tenderly cared for.” He brought Joy to England. There was a rumor King George V took him in, but that wasn’t true. Rodzianko did tell the king about him, though. Rodzianko said: “I have described the cold empty rooms and bloody cellar of the Ipatiev House, my fruitless search in the cemetery and the grim journey through the Siberian forest to find a handful of ashes. After lunch His Majesty showed me the pictures, and I told him about Joy, who runs through my garden. Joy seems quite happy, but looking into those light brown eyes, I often wonder what he remembers.” Joy died in the mid-1920s. Rodzianko wrote: “Every time I pass my garden at Windsor, I think of the small dog’s tomb in the bushes with the ironical inscription ‘Here lies Joy’. To me, that little stone marks the end of an empire and a way of life.”
A way of life, sure, just not a good one. For those who aren’t familiar, look into how the tsar handled World War I, peaceful protests, and forced labor. It goes without saying that what happened to the children and the dogs was horrific.
Can we have some fun history sometimes? It doesn’t all have to be about liquidating families and bayoneting dogs first thing in the morning. Let me have my coffee in peace.
RE: Fact #44 (Kumul Khanate Outlived Mongol Empire) – I’ve always found it interesting that the Crimean Khanate was a remnant of the Mongols in Europe that managed to last until 1783.
RE: Fact #9 (Mary Todd Lincoln Smuggled Letters) – How could he do that to his own mother? What was even involved in that process?
He was a rising politician, and she was an embarrassment. The final straw seems to have been when she started asking hotel or restaurant staff to show her the tallest man they had so she could hug him. Or at least, that’s what Robert told people. Basically, she was too vocal and open about mourning her husband and the children they’d lost. Since Robert was the head of the family after his father died, he had the legal authority to commit her. Once her friends and his enemies in Washington caught wind of it, she was released, but they never really reconciled.
Keep in mind that three of her four kids died before reaching adulthood. Then she watched her husband get shot. She was dealing with severe depression, for good reason. After leaving the White House, she was depressed, broke, and had to sell her clothes. It was the perfect storm for deep depression, and there were no real medications back then.
As far as “crazy behavior” goes, asking for hugs from tall people doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world, it just makes me feel sad for her. From everything I’ve heard, she seemed pretty harmless.
RE: Fact #5 (Laney Perdue Survived Father’s Hug) – The first time I flew solo I was twelve. My mom was incredibly worried about a potential crash over the ocean. I thought it was silly because I figured there wasn’t much she could actually do if it happened, but she said, “Probably nothing, but I would be with you.” I didn’t get it at the time.
There have been two times in my life where I truly thought I was going to die, and both times I just wanted my mom. Reading your comment hits hard because I’m sending my youngest on a solo trip soon, and I’ve had that exact same thought. I know they’ll be fine, but still.
RE: Fact #49 (Rich Dad’s Poor Dad Wasn’t) – That book is total garbage. The whole thing boils down to ‘save and invest’ vs ‘spend.’ Just saved you 15 bucks.
RE: Fact #11 (Jack Keyes Ended Beer Record) – Beyond the alcohol poisoning risk, how is it even physically possible for a human stomach to hold 36 pints in just one hour? That seems impossible.
RE: Fact #24 (Newton Wrote Mostly Religious Papers) – Yeah, some of that stuff is wild. A lot of it is surprisingly easy to read, even if you aren’t an academic. It’s a great rabbit hole if you have a few years to spare.
RE: Fact #34 (Skydiving Parachutes Have Backup Brain) – I was jumping with a couple of guys once and opened my chute a few thousand feet above them. I was under my canopy watching them when one of them started doing some fast, spiraling turns. He must have hit the altitude limit for his AAD during those turns, because his reserve popped out right next to his main. That’s a major malfunction because they can tangle, so he did the right thing: he cut his main and rode the reserve down safely. It was terrifying to watch, but his training clearly kicked in. The worst part was having to go trek through the woods to find his main parachute afterward.
RE: Fact #11 (Jack Keyes Ended Beer Record) – Everyone knows Wade Boggs is the true record holder. Rest in peace.
I didn’t know him, so I looked it up. 107 beers in a single day, that averages out to about four and a half beers every single hour for 24 hours straight. I enjoy a drink as much as anyone, but that’s just mind-blowing.
RE: Fact #32 (Nigeria Drinks Stronger Guinness Beer) – I grew up in the Caribbean, and at 18, I worked as an electrician on construction sites. My coworkers were all black Caribbean men, and I was just this scrawny pale ginger kid. To make friends, I brought two six-packs of the 7.5% Guinness for lunch on a Friday. They took the beers, but instead of drinking them, they set them out in the sun. I was confused, but they told me they preferred their Guinness hot. They let them bake in the sun for two hours before drinking them, apparently, that’s just how they like it in the Caribbean.
That kind of makes sense, considering it has those chocolate and coffee notes. It’s basically like having a mocha that also gets you buzzed.
Lower temperatures make stouts taste more bitter. Since they’re roasted, you usually don’t want them as cold as a lager; they get sweeter as they warm up.
RE: Fact #37 (Blue Whales Defy Cancer Math) – I thought they figured out that their cell replication was just much more efficient than ours.
It is not really about efficiency. They just have way more built-in safety features to stabilize their DNA.
Splice that into me, please. I do not care about the side effects, krill probably tastes great anyway.
RE: Fact #8 (Mexia Supermarket Became Biohazard Nightmare) – No one took responsibility. The owners defaulted on their loans, declared bankruptcy, and just walked away. They assumed the bank would take the property, but the bank argued they didn’t have legal ownership yet. The power ended up getting cut because the bills weren’t being paid.
RE: Fact #15 (Iodized Salt Prevents Brain Damage) – It drives me crazy how hard it is to find plain iodized salt in stores lately. At my local Whole Foods, there are six or seven varieties of non-iodized salt but only one single iodized option. I really don’t get why it’s so scarce.
Just check a standard grocery store and you’ll see plenty of it. Whole Foods mostly caters to that specific “natural” niche.
RE: Fact #3 (Perth Orangutan Retrieved Her Son) – Captivity might not be ideal, but it must be a decent zoo if the primates feel settled enough that they don’t actually want to leave.
In San Diego, we had a male orangutan who kept breaking out of his enclosure to stalk the other exhibits or throw rocks at a male rival he didn’t like. He always went back on his own, though, it was like he just wanted to prove he could. One of the females is always playing peek-a-boo with guests, too. They’re super chill. Some Indonesian tribes even believe orangutans can talk but choose not to so they don’t get forced into manual labor, which I’m starting to believe.
RE: Fact #47 (Wilfrid Laurier Rode Streetcars Daily) – In a similar vein, former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who was worth over $100 million, also used public transport regularly. He was in the conservative party but was viewed as so centrist that his time in office was largely ineffective because his own ministers didn’t back his approach.
RE: Fact #37 (Blue Whales Defy Cancer Math) – This might get buried, but we actually understand this better thanks to a study on Bowhead whales. They evolved specialized enzymes for DNA repair. This research compares their biology directly to humans and other mammals.
RE: Fact #43 (Germany’s War Goals Grew Quickly) – I’d always assumed their plan was to blitz through Belgium, capture Paris, and then pivot to fight the Russians. They clearly didn’t anticipate the heavy blockade or the intense resistance from the Belgians and French, which caused them to get bogged down and triggered one of the worst conflicts in history.
RE: Fact #26 (Metacomet’s Head Haunted Plymouth) – The lesson here is to never let Puritans into your community. They were cast out of England for a reason.
RE: Fact #4 (French Babies Cry Rising Melodies) – They’re memorizing speech sounds in the womb… but how can they actually imitate those patterns before they’re even born?
RE: Fact #6 (Komodo Dragon Mauled Phil Bronstein) – Sharon Stone described the whole thing in an interview. She said they were told the dragon was mild-mannered, and since the zookeeper seemed so calm, they didn’t realize the danger. When the attack happened, Phil stayed incredibly calm, pinning the lizard down with his heel to keep it from mauling him further. Sharon managed to pull him out and used a sock as a tourniquet while the animal was still slamming against the cage door. It sounds like a complete nightmare.
Am I bad for laughing at the thought of kids watching this unfold while pressing their faces against the glass? I’d love to hear from someone who actually witnessed that.
Wait, the zookeeper saw it was interested in his white shoes and suggested he take them off… even though his feet were also white?
Yeah, that was a massive miscalculation by the zookeeper.
It’s amazing how Sharon Stone acted so quickly. Even if Phil had experience in war zones, she was the one who jumped in to help and made a tourniquet while everything was falling apart. She seems to really downplay how heroic that was.
RE: Fact #12 (France Barely Spoke French Once) – How far apart were those regional languages from standard French? Could people generally figure each other out, or were they totally unintelligible to one another?
It varies. Breton is like a different world, but many others fall on a spectrum of Latin-based languages. For example, Occitan feels closer to the official French than Catalan does, while Catalan sits somewhere between French and Spanish. If you speak French, you can pick up a lot of Occitan, less of Catalan, and very little Spanish. I speak French and Spanish, and I’ve found that knowing both makes it way easier to bridge the gap and understand Occitan and Catalan.
RE: Fact #30 (Rupert Murdoch Was Red Rupert) – Nothing turns a radical into a conservative faster than getting a degree from Oxford and then buying up newspapers.