Some facts catch you off guard because they reveal a hidden side of something familiar. This list moves from strange history and unusual animal behavior to surprising science, movie trivia, political twists, and real events that sound almost impossible at first. Here are 50 facts you probably never expected, but will definitely remember.
1 Donald Glover Improvised Community Punchlines
While writing scripts for the TV series Community, the writers sometimes ended scenes with the note, “And then Donald says something funny.” Donald Glover would then improvise a joke instead of following a finished scripted line. Series creator Dan Harmon said Glover would often riff a line funnier than anything the writers had planned.
2. In 2003, Eminem planned to travel to the West Coast, but some Crips members allegedly demanded payment before they would back off. Eminem responded by asking the Samoan rap group Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. for protection. The group agreed to help him, but they wanted one thing in return: an Eminem feature on their album.
3. A man in Colombia who was living with HIV developed tumors that looked nothing like any cancer doctors had previously encountered. As his condition worsened, researchers discovered that the abnormal cells did not come from the man himself. Instead, they originated from a parasitic tapeworm whose own cancerous cells had spread into his body. Doctors concluded that his severely weakened immune system, impaired by HIV, allowed the tapeworm cancer cells to survive and grow, making it the first known case of a person developing cancer that originated in a parasite.
4. On November 18, 1978, members of the Peoples Temple basketball team were away from Jonestown, Guyana, playing a game in Georgetown when the mass murder-suicide unfolded. As more than 900 followers of cult leader Jim Jones died at the settlement, the team remained one of the few groups of Temple members outside the compound. According to survivors, Jones radioed the players and urged them to commit what he called “revolutionary suicide.” The team refused.
5. Researchers have documented a phenomenon known as the “Fever Effect,” in which some autistic people show temporary improvements in their symptoms when they develop a fever. Parents and caregivers have reported increased communication, social interaction, and responsiveness during periods of elevated body temperature.
6 JCM Farming Sued Balloon Companies
In California, a highly secretive company called JCM Farming owns an 80-acre olive farm surrounded by unusually high walls and guarded by armed security personnel. The property attracted attention from hot-air balloon operators who regularly flew over the area and questioned why an olive farm required such extensive security. In 2011, JCM Farming filed lawsuits against several balloon pilots and ballooning companies, arguing that the flights invaded the privacy of people on the property. The legal battle proved costly, and reports indicate that several balloon operators went out of business as a result.
7. Missing Exit 193 for Yeehaw Junction on Florida’s Turnpike can lead to one of the longest highway detours in the United States. The interchange is located in a remote area of central Florida, where access points are scarce. Drivers who accidentally pass the exit must continue to the next opportunity to turn around, resulting in a detour of about 96 miles before they can return. This is the longest such detour anywhere in the U.S. highway system.
8. According to Jewish tradition, Moses declared that debts should be canceled every seven years as part of the Shmita, or Sabbath year. The practice was established in ancient Israel and required creditors to release certain outstanding debts at the end of the seven-year cycle. Shmita also called for agricultural land to lie fallow during that year, creating a broader system of economic and social renewal. The debt-release provision was intended to prevent long-term poverty and keep financial burdens from accumulating indefinitely.
9. In 2023, a 21-year-old New Zealand man named Aiden Sagala drank from a can of Canadian “Honey Bear House Beer” that actually contained liquid methamphetamine and died several days later. Investigators traced the can to a massive smuggling operation that hid methamphetamine inside beer cans and other beverage containers. The investigation ultimately led to the seizure of about 700 kilograms of methamphetamine, the largest meth bust in New Zealand history.
10. In 1943, American playwright Eugene O’Neill disowned his 18-year-old daughter, Oona O’Neill, after she married 54-year-old actor Charlie Chaplin. O’Neill strongly opposed the marriage and cut off contact with his daughter shortly afterward. The estrangement lasted for the rest of his life. He never saw Oona again and never met any of the eight children she had with Chaplin.
11 Christina’s Corner Saved Movie Rituals
After a video rental store in Pocatello, Idaho, closed its doors, a woman named Christina Bennington, who has Down syndrome and is mostly nonverbal, lost a routine she had followed for years. Christina loved renting movies, and her family worried about how the closure would affect her. To help, a nearby convenience store created a video rental section called “Christina’s Corner” and stocked it with hundreds of DVDs. The new section allowed Christina to continue her cherished movie-rental ritual.
12. In 1989, a 4-year-old Chinese boy named Li Jingwei was kidnapped by a neighbor who lured him away by promising to show him cars, a rare sight in his rural village. Li never forgot the layout of his home village, even after growing up far from his birth family. At age 37, he drew a map from memory and posted it online, hoping someone would recognize the place. The map helped authorities identify the village and reunite Li with his family decades after his abduction.
13. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not significantly updated its sunscreen regulations since 1999 (as of June 2026), even as sunscreen technology has advanced in other parts of the world. As a result, many newer UV-filter ingredients used internationally remain unavailable in the United States. Of the 16 active sunscreen ingredients currently marketed in the U.S., the FDA considers only two, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, to be generally recognized as safe and effective.
14. In 1860, French inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville created what is now considered the oldest known recording of a human voice. His invention, the phonautograph, could capture sound waves as visual tracings on paper, but it had no method of playing them back as audio. As a result, Scott never heard the recording he made, which included the French song “Au Clair de la Lune.” Only in 2008, 148 years later, did researchers digitally convert the tracings into sound, allowing people to hear the recording for the first time.
15. On September 11, 2001, The Onion did not publish its scheduled print newspaper. The staff also skipped the following issue, and employees took a week-long break as they struggled with whether satire had any place after the tragedy. Some staffers reportedly threatened to quit if the publication released an issue about the attacks. The Onion eventually returned with a September 26, 2001, issue that addressed 9/11 through dark satire.
16 Mary Ann Franco Regained Sight
In 1993, a woman named Mary Ann Franco lost her vision after a severe car accident and also suffered a stroke. Twenty-three years later, she tripped over tiles in her Florida home, fell, and needed surgery on her spine. When Franco woke up after the operation, she could fully see again. Doctors could not fully explain if the fall or the surgery restored her vision.
17. In 2024, archaeologists studying ancient remains in Spain identified the skeleton of a 6-year-old Neanderthal child who had Down syndrome. Researchers reached the conclusion after analyzing a small bone from the inner ear and finding abnormalities associated with the condition. The child lived more than 100,000 years ago and would likely have required significant care because of related health problems.
18. After trying to conceive for 20 years, a couple endured multiple IVF attempts and surgeries without success. The husband had azoospermia, a condition in which sperm cells are extremely difficult or impossible to find in semen samples using conventional methods. Researchers used a new AI-guided robotic system that scanned about 2.5 million microscopic images from a single sample and identified the only two viable sperm cells hidden within it. Doctors used those cells for fertility treatment, successfully initiating a pregnancy.
19. Mount Erebus, an active volcano in Antarctica, releases tiny crystals of gold into the atmosphere every day. Scientists studying the volcano discovered that gases rising from its persistent lava lake carry microscopic particles of crystallized gold into the air. The wind can carry these extremely small particles, which measure less than a fraction of a millimeter, for hundreds of miles. Researchers estimate that Mount Erebus ejects enough gold each day to be worth thousands of dollars.
20. Aphids are among the most destructive agricultural pests in the world, largely because of their extraordinary reproductive abilities. Many aphid species can reproduce asexually through live birth, allowing females to produce offspring without mating. Their gestation period can be as short as about a week, and they also exhibit “telescoping generations,” in which developing nymphs already contain embryos of the next generation.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Pittsburgh Fought To Keep H
In 1891, the U.S. government ruled that cities ending in “-burgh” should drop the final “h,” turning Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, into “Pittsburg” in federal usage. Local officials and residents resisted the change and continued using the traditional spelling with the “h.” For 20 years, federal institutions used “Pittsburg” while the city kept writing “Pittsburgh.” In 1911, after political pressure, the U.S. government officially restored the Pittsburgh spelling.
22. About 2,000 years ago, a South Indian traveler named Cikai Korran visited Egypt’s famous Valley of the Kings and left his mark behind. Archaeologists have identified eight inscriptions attributed to him across five different tombs, including versions of the message, “Cikai Korran came here and saw.” The graffiti was written in Tamil-Brahmi script, an early writing system used in southern India.
23. The Breakthrough Starshot project proposed sending gram-sized robotic spacecraft to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri. Instead of using conventional rockets, the concept called for a massive Earth-based laser array to propel tiny light sails to roughly 20 percent of the speed of light. At that speed, the miniature probes could theoretically cross the 4.37-light-year gap to Alpha Centauri in about 20 years.
24. German Jewish woman Stella Goldschlag, also known as Stella Kübler after marriage, collaborated with the Gestapo during World War II. After initially being arrested and pressured by the Nazis, she worked as a so-called “catcher,” helping identify and locate Jews who were hiding in Berlin. Historians estimate that her actions contributed to the arrests of between 600 and 3,000 people. Goldschlag survived the war, but her role remained deeply controversial, and she died by suicide in 1994 at the age of 72.
25. American boxing promoter Don King killed two people before he became one of the sport’s most famous power brokers. The first killing was ruled justifiable homicide after the man had tried to rob King, so King served no prison time. In 1966, King killed an employee named Sam Garrett by stomping him after a dispute over $600. A court convicted him of second-degree murder, later reduced the conviction to non-negligent manslaughter, and King served less than four years in prison.
RE: Fact #35 (Bull Sharks Occupied Golf Course) – Just to add to this, the Brisbane river is still full of bull sharks. They love swimming upstream, and there’s a popular theory that they’re all descendants of the ones trapped in that lake who managed to escape during the 2011 floods.
RE: Fact #9 (Honey Bear Beer Meth Bust) – We had similar incidents in the Netherlands and Germany where liquid meth hidden in champagne bottles hit store shelves. A dozen people died, and sadly, nothing really came of it.
There was a story here in the US where a border agent caught a teenager trying to smuggle meth in a water bottle. The kid denied it, so the agent told him, “Okay, then drink it.” The kid died.
Wait, did he figure he’d rather die than go to prison? I mean, it’s not like the sentence is infinite.
RE: Fact #8 (Shmita Required Seven-Year Debt Forgiveness) – It’s worth noting that this didn’t apply to debt with foreigners, so it seems like it was more of a community or local society practice.
That’s why Jewish people got so involved in banking. Christians weren’t allowed to lend to other Christians, so they ended up getting loans from Jewish lenders.
You were allowed to lend, but you couldn’t charge interest. Jewish law only prohibited charging interest to other Jewish people.
RE: Fact #47 (Shut Up Little Man Tapes) – If you’ve seen Tim Robinson’s ‘The Chair Company, ‘ I’m almost certain the ‘Wayzee Waynes’ tapes are a reference to these recordings. They have the exact same vibe, and those tapes used to get airplay on Detroit radio back in the early 2000s when Tim was living there.
RE: Fact #15 (The Onion Skipped September 11) – Yeah, that was just how things were then. Even South Park held off on making any jokes about the attacks for two months.
Younger people might not realize this, but there was a period where all fun and entertainment just stopped. It wasn’t just about avoiding sensitive topics, everything was canceled. I remember when Conan O’Brien finally came back, he had to have a serious talk with the audience about how the show had to eventually move on and get back to being funny.
And it was such a weird year for anything that involved action or destruction. Seeing the ads for “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” back then felt so awkward.
They even paused baseball for nearly a week. Then Mike Piazza had that incredible moment with his home run that felt like a huge emotional release for everyone.
Our local station went back to regular stuff late that night. I was actually angry about it, but my wife made the point that we couldn’t just stare at the news coverage of Ground Zero forever. At some point, people were going to need a distraction.
RE: Fact #46 (Syncytin Placenta Gene Came Viral) – Wait, if the baby needs the placenta, how did they manage before that? Were they just floating around until they got a viral upgrade and decided to keep it?
Maybe that’s how we made the jump from laying eggs to internal incubation? I’m just guessing, though.
RE: Fact #9 (Honey Bear Beer Meth Bust) – This reminds me of how a German supermarket warehouse accidentally received massive amounts of cocaine instead of bananas three times in a single year.
RE: Fact #40 (Alexander Hamilton Backed Enslaved Soldiers) – That quote was a response to other Patriots who thought they were too stupid to help, and he did push for them to be freed as soon as they enlisted.
He also pushed for them to be deported back to Africa immediately after.
RE: Fact #27 (Canadians Love Kraft Dinner More) – I thought that was just a joke from South Park since Terrance and Phillip were always eating it. After I moved to Toronto, I realized it’s a childhood staple for everyone. People were shocked I’d only heard of it on the show.
It’s only branded as “Kraft Dinner” in Canada, so that’s not surprising. As a Canadian, I spent most of my life assuming that’s what it was called everywhere.
We even have a song about it: “If I Had a Million Dollars” by the Barenaked Ladies.
I was at a Costco in Canada once and saw a half-kilogram jar of the actual KD cheese powder for sale. I felt so betrayed, I’ve never seen that in the US.
RE: Fact #10 (Eugene O’Neill Disowned Oona Chaplin) – I checked Wikipedia, and Eugene was only six months older than Charlie, so it makes sense why he wasn’t thrilled about the relationship. That said, he barely spent time with Oona even though he had 50/50 custody and even tried to sabotage her acting career after her debut.
RE: Fact #21 (Pittsburgh Fought To Keep H) – The government must have rolled back that decision at some point, considering Plattsburgh, NY exists. There’s a road sign near Ausable Chasm that spells it “Plattsburg, ” but I always just assumed that was a typo rather than an official government mandate.
RE: Fact #48 (Coelacanth Returned From Extinction) – My favorite part of the story is that when the first one turned up as bycatch, scientists immediately rushed to the area to talk to the local fishermen. When they asked if anyone had ever seen these fish before, the locals just basically said they taste like crap.
RE: Fact #17 (Neanderthal Child Had Down Syndrome) – Jean M. Auel was criticized for her “anthropomorphism” back in the 70s when she wrote about Neanderthals raising a Cro-Magnon child and interbreeding, but it turns out she was right. She treated them as human because they actually were.
That’s cool, but her writing “throbbing nodule” was the real masterpiece of those books.
Oh god, the sex scenes were definitely the worst part, even as a teenager. The later books really dropped off in quality too, but the first two are still some of my favorites despite all the weird, forced erotica.
It always bothers me when people think modern life is what defines being human. Humans have been doing the same things since the beginning, making art, falling in love, cracking jokes, or worrying about whether everyone else is just faking it.
We’re all basically the same: we want to walk around, use tools, look after our own, and occasionally start a fight.
RE: Fact #23 (Breakthrough Starshot Targets Alpha Centauri) – We should send a ton of them. Have them self-assemble into a Von Neumann probe, then let that probe replicate until it has the factory capacity to churn out even more micro Starshot probes. Then, map the galaxy and profit.
Be careful. Do you want infinite paperclips? Because that’s exactly how you get infinite paperclips.
RE: Fact #49 (Legless Lizards Evolved Twenty-Five Times) – The worm or snake body shape has to be the most common evolutionary path. Look at earthworms, nematodes, eels, lampreys, hagfish, and caecilians. Tubes are just everywhere.
Even mammals have a bit of that going on; ferrets are basically just tubes with fur.
RE: Fact #48 (Coelacanth Returned From Extinction) – It really makes me think about what else might still be out there that we’ve assumed went extinct.
The only other example that comes to mind is the Lord Howe Island stick insect. People thought they were gone by 1920, but a small colony turned up in 2001 and they’ve been brought back from the brink since then.
RE: Fact #49 (Legless Lizards Evolved Twenty-Five Times) – Carcinization is overrated. The real winners are the snake/worm body plan and the tree shape.
RE: Fact #25 (Don King’s Two Homicides) – This reminds me of when I found out Rick James had kidnapped two people back in the 90s.
RE: Fact #21 (Pittsburgh Fought To Keep H) – So 1891 must have been a pretty quiet year if that’s what the government was focused on.
Eh, not really. Governments often busy themselves with petty nonsense while actual major events are unfolding. Sometimes that busywork is just a distraction. By that logic, would it be a ‘good year’ if the President had the free time to host a UFC match on the White House lawn?
RE: Fact #25 (Don King’s Two Homicides) – He’s actually still around at 94, still working as a boxing promoter, though he hasn’t really kept up with the times or managed to pivot to social media.
RE: Fact #30 (Dinosaurs Suffered Cancer Too) – Gary Larson totally called this back in the day.
You have to admit, dinosaurs are pretty awesome. They really don’t care about anything!
They just need a backwards hat and a couple of skateboards to complete the look.
Gary actually helped name the [Thagomizer] found on those tails. It didn’t have an official name when his comic strip came out, but since so many paleontologists were fans, they eventually made it [official].
RE: Fact #15 (The Onion Skipped September 11) – They actually cancelled Volume 7, issue 33 and 34. Issue 35 had that headline about the war, but they ended up ditching other ideas like the one about Quadragon officials.
RE: Fact #19 (Mount Erebus Erupts Gold Dust) – Mount Erebus isn’t the only one doing this. Volcanoes in Hawaii seem to be putting out gold too, though I’m not sure if the amounts are comparable.
Most of our gold actually comes from volcanic activity, though usually it happens when gold-rich water flows through cracks or lava tubes and leaves behind quartz veins.
I work in exploration at a gold mine, and volcanic activity is huge for most deposits, mostly as a heat source. Usually, the magma itself isn’t the direct source of the gold; it’s more about the hydrothermal processes, superheated water moving minerals, which really need the high temperatures and pressures only found in volcanic areas. That said, there are plenty of major deposits that don’t need volcanoes at all. Orogenic deposits form when intense pressure remobilizes gold into quartz veins. Some geologists argue Carlin-type deposits fit that category, but I’m staying out of that. I’ve seen massive academic fights over it, and for the sake of my own sanity, I don’t get involved.
RE: Fact #48 (Coelacanth Returned From Extinction) – One of my favorite movie Easter eggs is the coelacanth in the background of Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Since the movie is set in 1914, decades before the first one was officially discovered, it implies the lead adventurer was just so good at exploring that he’d already found some and kept them as pets.
I love that movie so much. Between that and Road to El Dorado, those were constants in my house growing up.
Hey, look, I made a bridge. It only took me like, what? Ten seconds? Eleven, tops.
RE: Fact #36 (Sacculina Carcini Feminizes Male Crabs) – > The part remaining inside, the interna, develops tendrils which spread throughout the crab. They take over the stomach, intestines, and nervous system to absorb nourishment and enable the parasite to control the behavior of its host. Why do parasites have to be so intense?
Evolutionarily, parasites that operate this way just end up reproducing more successfully, so there will always be more of them.
RE: Fact #26 (Australia’s Unpaid Witch Doctor Curse) – Witch doctors had their village burned by angry fans during the 2023 African Cup of Nations. Host nation Ivory Coast played poorly in the group stage and barely squeaked through. The village shamans allegedly cursed the team for not being paid after their previous blessing. Once the village was burned, they promised to lift the curse, and Ivory Coast started winning with some bizarre, accidental goals. Locals helped rebuild the village, and the government even provided it with electricity after Ivory Coast won the tournament.
RE: Fact #28 (Hulk Hogan Choked Richard Belzer) – “There were rumors that Belzer received $5 million, but in a 2008 interview on Howard Stern he said that the number was a lot closer to $400, 000.” That’s a huge difference. I wonder what the actual amount was.
RE: Fact #14 (Édouard Scott Never Heard Recording) – I remember when they played that recording for the French parliament. I think they got the pitch wrong, so it ended up sounding like some creepy ghost voice.
It definitely still sounds ghostly. I wouldn’t have even guessed it was speech if I didn’t know, it just sounds like wind. Still, it is pretty cool that we can even hear it at all.
RE: Fact #28 (Hulk Hogan Choked Richard Belzer) – I’ve run into both of them in person, and honestly, neither left a good impression. I saw Richard Belzer on a street in Manhattan, and when I blurted out, “You’re Richard Belzer!” he just told me to “f”* off.” Rude, but I get it. Later, when I was in the Boy Scouts, I saw Hulk Hogan at a boat show in Florida and ran over for a hug. One of his security guys shoved me to the ground, and Hogan just kept walking. I was about 12 and in full uniform. Complete jerk move. I definitely cracked a smile when I heard he passed away.
It would be hilarious if that first guy was just some random person who looks like Belzer and is totally fed up with people bothering him about it.
RE: Fact #7 (Yeehaw Junction’s Massive Missed Exit) – Years back, there was a similar mess on I-95 South. If you missed the US 192 exit, you were forced to drive all the way to Vero Beach, which is about 40 miles south. They’ve added a ton of new exits since those days, though.
Yeah, but at least in that situation, you ended up in Vero instead of West Melbourne and could hang out for a while. If you miss the Yeehaw exit, you’re stuck paying tolls until you’re off the turnpike and have to double back. That’s triple torture: you were trying to get off, you got stuck on the worst highway in the state, and you have to pay for the mistake.
I once made a wrong turn onto a toll road in Houston. I could turn around right away, but they still made me pay. This was back when they had attendants in booths taking cash, and I had to break a $20 just to pay the 50-cent toll. I was furious.
RE: Fact #5 (Fever Effect Improves Autism Symptoms) – I’m not sure if I’m autistic, but I had bad social anxiety when I was younger. I noticed that when I was sick with a fever or hungover, it became way easier to interact with people. My theory is that since I was tired and weak, I didn’t have the energy to overthink things or second-guess myself, which let me speak more freely.
That’s crazy. I have a stutter, and I’ve noticed I speak much more fluently when I’m sick, super stressed, or sleep-deprived. I used to think I was crazy for feeling like I speak best when I’m at my most miserable.
As an autistic person who also has a stutter, my stutter usually gets worse when my brain is racing because I’m second- or third-guessing the order of my words while I’m trying to say them.
I have a similar hypothesis. I run four miles on mornings when I have to do a presentation at work, because when I’m tired, I don’t have the energy to overthink it.
I have a similar strategy, only I just keep running until all my responsibilities are far behind me.
My public speaking teacher actually recommended that. The idea is that the anxiety of presenting gives you an adrenaline spike, a fight-or-flight response, but since you’re just standing there, you have all that excess energy with nowhere to go. Burning off energy beforehand brings you back down to a normal baseline. He also suggested avoiding coffee before a presentation. I’ve used that principle for other kinds of stress too; it definitely helps.
I’m autistic and do live comedy sometimes. I actually make sure to deprive myself of sleep and food on show days because, for some reason, I’m much funnier and more sociable when I’m completely exhausted.
RE: Fact #20 (Aphids Reproduce Through Telescoping Generations) – I managed to grow some morning glory vines until they were waist-high, and I was so hyped to see them flowering. Then I noticed a few bugs, and within a few days, the plants were absolutely covered from top to bottom. A few days later, the vines were totally dead. I hate aphids.
RE: Fact #35 (Bull Sharks Occupied Golf Course) – That’s one urban legend that turned out to be completely true.
But how does a golf course pond actually provide enough food to keep bull sharks alive?
It’s a shame, but one was killed by illegal fishing, and they think others might have met the same fate.
They aren’t actually sure what happened to the others. Illegal fishing is just a theory, but since they vanished around 2013 during a period of massive flooding, it’s possible they just made their way back to the ocean.
RE: Fact #43 (Xbox Losses Became Xbox Billions) – I really enjoyed my original Xbox. I spent so much time playing games like KOTOR and Morrowind, and I loved that I could rip my own CDs to make custom soundtracks. Sliding down the mountain in Amped while listening to Disturbed is a core memory for me.
RE: Fact #29 (Record Numbers Living With Parents) – I got kicked out at 18 without any warning. I came home and the locks were changed. I didn’t realize it was illegal at the time. My parent took every cent I had saved and hid more money of mine that was in a special account in my name. I worked my way through college, but I couldn’t get financial aid until I took a year off and had my friend’s parents write letters explaining my situation. This country isn’t built for people to start from zero at 18. I’ve moved 15 times in 17 years and traveled over two thousand miles just trying to get by. I’m just tired, boss.
RE: Fact #8 (Shmita Required Seven-Year Debt Forgiveness) – A Chapter 13 bankruptcy stays on your credit report for seven years. Coincidence? Absolutely.
RE: Fact #41 (Swim Diapers Allow Urine Through) – A little bit of pee is easy enough for pool filtration to handle. Poop, however, is not, which is why those diapers are designed the way they are. If your baby has a stomach bug, keep them out of the pool; you will ruin it for everyone else.
The public pools I visit usually have signs telling you to stay out if you have had diarrhea in the last 14 days.
RE: Fact #37 (Wisconsin Canoes Predate Egyptian Pyramids) – Maybe they just left them there for convenience so they wouldn’t have to carry them. That seems way more logical and follows Occam’s razor.
RE: Fact #7 (Yeehaw Junction’s Massive Missed Exit) – Because of a closed exit in Slovenia, I once had to drive through Austria and then into Italy just to get back to my original destination.
RE: Fact #12 (Li Jingwei’s Memory Map Reunion) – I grew up in China during that era, and the fear of child trafficking was everywhere, especially if you were a boy. My parents were constantly warning me about it whenever I went outside. He is incredibly lucky his village wasn’t completely rebuilt; I can still remember my walk to school as a kid, but in the city where I grew up, everything has been so heavily redeveloped that it is basically gone.
It is hard to stomach calling them “adoptive parents” by the end of the story. They bought a stolen child. That is trafficking, plain and simple.
A lot of people end up adopting kids they are told are orphans, only to find out the truth much later. They pay the standard fees and have no idea about the dark side of the industry. Adoption and trafficking can become blurred lines really quickly, even when the people doing the adopting think they are doing a good thing.
RE: Fact #5 (Fever Effect Improves Autism Symptoms) – Alcohol seems to quiet autism symptoms too, probably by slowing down brain activity. Many people on the spectrum mention it makes them feel neurotypical rather than just buzzed or impaired. Maybe the fever effect works in a similar way.
Weed and alcohol help my autistic symptoms so much; it is the closest thing to a cure I have ever found.
Weed just makes me hyper-aware of how autistic I am, which ends up making me hate myself.
I struggled with alcohol in my 20s and only stopped after an injury from a fall led to me being diagnosed with ADHD and autism years later. It is unfortunately common for people with these conditions to self-medicate because it temporarily takes the edge off.
I used to binge drink heavily in my 20s as a form of self-medication because it was the only thing that worked better than antidepressants to quiet my mind. The relief would even last for days afterward. I felt like I was losing it because there was no info explaining why at the time, but about 15 years later, I finally learned I have ADHD and things started clicking.
It is pretty much standard practice now to screen for ADHD when someone enters inpatient care for substance dependence since the connection is so consistent.
Alcohol actually makes my autistic partner even more autistic. They start infodumping about Anne Rice to random people at the club.
I love this. Meeting your partner at a club would be a highlight for me.
RE: Fact #12 (Li Jingwei’s Memory Map Reunion) – It is incredible that he was able to reunite with his family after all this time. Being kidnapped as a young child and losing your identity is heartbreaking, but the fact that his childhood memories and that map were enough to guide him home is truly amazing.
To understand why this happened, you have to look at the one-child policy in China. It created a desperate demand for sons, and because rural record-keeping was so poor, it was surprisingly easy for people to illegally “acquire” boys and pass them off as their own.
The desperation caused by that policy, mixed with the intense cultural pressure to have a male heir, is just awful. My uncle actually had two daughters, so the family was pushing for me to be given up to him just so he would have a boy to carry on the name. It is wild to think about. Ironically, my own father’s village stayed safe from the worst of the famine specifically because government services were so bad at tracking the population that they were largely left alone.
RE: Fact #9 (Honey Bear Beer Meth Bust) – The same thing happened here in Sweden. A kid was paid to move a sealed bottle of pure liquid amphetamine labeled as Dutch beer. He was stopped by police while walking through a park. Since he was underage, they confiscated the bottle, but instead of pouring it out, they just left it by a trash can behind the police station lobby desk. A cleaner picked it up and gave it to a friend, who then gave it to a woman as a birthday present. She took a swig and died in the bathroom.
That bottle’s journey is wild. It sounds like one of those show episodes where they track the path of a dollar bill. I think Family Guy did something like that.
RE: Fact #33 (John Denver’s Unvisited Country Roads) – They actually wrote that song while driving down Clopper Road in Maryland, but West Virginia just sounded better for the melody.
The song is actually about western Virginia, since none of the landmarks mentioned are located in the state of West Virginia.
Musicians used to do this all the time. Gladys Knight’s ‘Midnight Train to Georgia’ was originally Jim Weatherly’s ‘Midnight Plane to Houston’, it just doesn’t hit the same.
RE: Fact #16 (Mary Ann Franco Regained Sight) – Basically just “percussive maintenance.” It’s the same reason hitting your computer or car sometimes gets it working again.
I had this spot in my back that was tight and bothering me for over a year while I was at school. The night before I was heading home to see my doctor, I tripped on some stairs and landed right on the spot where the pain was coming from. I cancelled my appointment since I figured the doctor couldn’t assess the old issue with a new injury on top of it, but the pain just never came back. I’m thankful because I really doubt my doctor would have been willing to hit me that hard, even if it might have helped.
RE: Fact #25 (Don King’s Two Homicides) – Mike Tyson had such a rough upbringing. He never knew his biological father, and his mother was known to be promiscuous, possibly a sex worker. The man he thought of as his father was a pimp. By 13, he’d been arrested 38 times, fell in with gangs, and worked as an enforcer. He was also sexually assaulted at some point. His record landed him in juvenile detention, where he started boxing. Eventually, he met Cus D’Amato, an old-school trainer who took him in. Cus was strict but fair and helped get Tyson on a better path. When Tyson’s mother passed away, Cus adopted him at 16 and truly looked out for him. In that environment, Tyson thrived, stayed out of trouble, and moved up the ranks. Just a year before Tyson became the youngest world champ ever, Cus passed away. Tyson went from having no one looking out for him to being incredibly rich and famous, and then he met Don King.
RE: Fact #11 (Christina’s Corner Saved Movie Rituals) – When I lived in Pocatello, I tried to rent from that store, but you needed an Idaho license. You could tell just by walking in that it was a real staple of the town. Plus, there was a great pizza place right next door.
A pizza place is honestly the perfect business to have next to a video rental shop. Who doesn’t have fond memories of grabbing a movie and a pizza to take home for the night?
Now that you mention it, most of the longest-running rental shops in my town were always right by pizza spots. The ones that weren’t usually closed faster. It might just be a coincidence, but it’s a curious pattern.
The last video store in my hometown was a Family Video that had a Marco’s Pizza inside. You’d pay for your movies and pizza at the same register and just grab your food through a window. I was pretty bummed when I went back to visit my parents and saw it had closed down.
RE: Fact #10 (Eugene O’Neill Disowned Oona Chaplin) – Here’s another one: Oona was in a relationship with an up-and-coming writer she eventually dumped, despite his intense obsession with her. That guy turned into a total recluse and poured all his bitterness into the protagonist of his next novel. That book was The Catcher in the Rye, and the writer was J.D. Salinger.
RE: Fact #24 (Stella Goldschlag Hunted Berlin Jews) – Some of the individual survival stories from the war are just terrifying. It reads like a slow slide into hell, especially in Germany, Poland, and Russia, the Eastern Front, basically. People like Kübler, who might have been normal before, reached a point where they had to toss aside everything that made them human just to stay alive. Even the fate of her own husband and his family is an unimaginable tragedy. That she was the only one left and couldn’t save them, even after doing such horrific things for the Nazis, is heart-wrenching. She caused so much suffering, and she deserved worse, but I still feel a deep sense of empathy for the situation. It’s an awful tragedy.
In times like that, you have to wonder what you would have done in her place. She tried to escape multiple times, she was tortured, and her family was being threatened. She felt like she had no choice but to betray others. Only the absolute heroes would choose death, but even then, they’d hesitate when their own loved ones were in the crosshairs. It’s a sad tragedy.
It’s like what happened in Rwanda. People who refused to take part in the genocide were killed, and the perpetrators made sure others saw that if they didn’t comply, they and their families would be next. So, they committed genocide.
You should check out Rudolf Vrba next. He escaped Auschwitz and wrote a report to warn the world about what was actually happening.
RE: Fact #15 (The Onion Skipped September 11) – They definitely made a comeback with a banger of an issue a few weeks later.
And that reaction meme was iconic. It’s wild to think it was created less than a month after the attacks.
Calling that a “reaction meme” is annoying because that wasn’t really a thing back then. It was just a graphic they put on their site.
RE: Fact #44 (Maximilian Spoke Nahuatl In Mexico) – For centuries, Maximilian and Lázaro Cárdenas were actually the only Mexican leaders who bothered to hold direct audiences with Indigenous people to hear their concerns.
He didn’t initially care about the position, but after he was dismissed as viceroy, the offer from Mexican monarchists to rule became much more tempting.
If I recall correctly, they fabricated the level of popular support for a monarchy in Mexico just to get him interested, even going as far as staging a rigged plebiscite to legitimize his power.
Cárdenas was actually Mestizo, and even though he lived in a native village for a bit, he didn’t speak Purépecha and always stuck to Spanish.
RE: Fact #3 (Tapeworm Cancer In HIV Patient) – Between the HIV and the tapeworm cancer, that has to be one of the worst ways to go I’ve ever heard of.
Bone cancer is probably worse.
In terms of bone diseases, I think FOP is worse than bone cancer. It’s the condition where your body essentially turns into bone.
RE: Fact #26 (Australia’s Unpaid Witch Doctor Curse) – They hired a new witch doctor in 2004 to lift the curse, and Australia has qualified for every World Cup since.
I think leaving the OFC, where winners had to beat a real team in a knockout game just to qualify, probably had more to do with it.
I can’t believe the witch doctor managed to arrange that. Fascinating magic.
Plus, they conveniently ignored that Australia actually made it to the next World Cup in 1974 before missing out for the next 32 years.
The ‘witch doctor’ they hired was actually just part of a comedy TV show. It wasn’t organized by the team or the government, though I’m sure they would’ve agreed for a laugh if asked.
It was for the SBS show John Safran vs God. He actually brought former Soccerroo Johnny Warren along with him.
RE: Fact #34 (Monaco Hosts Most Formula Drivers) – I’ve heard, though I can’t confirm, that F1’s desire to add more races is becoming a problem for drivers, since they need to stay in Monaco for 183 days a year to keep their residency status.
That’s ironic. A lot of New Yorkers deal with the exact opposite issue, trying to live in the city while staying under the threshold so they can avoid the 3.8% tax.
RE: Fact #46 (Syncytin Placenta Gene Came Viral) – We actually have other retroviral genes that create proteins used during gestation to protect cells from other viruses. There’s also this wild hypothesis that DNA and the nucleus itself might be viral remnants. Since DNA is basically just a stable way to store genetic info, almost like a library, some think viruses used it to hide their genomes, and then it just got incorporated into our cellular machinery.
RE: Fact #22 (Cikai Korran Graffitied Egyptian Tombs) – I missed the ‘2000 years ago’ part at first and just thought, ‘What a jerk, ‘ while also thinking that doesn’t sound like a South Indian name at all.
I mean, he was a jerk, even if it was 2000 years ago. Being ancient doesn’t give you a free pass to vandalize things.
It’s definitely a Tamil name, it’s just not in fashion anymore, sort of like ‘Alexmenos’ in its own context.
RE: Fact #13 (FDA Sunscreen Rules Stalled Since) – I feel like I have two choices: use sunscreen and hope these ingredients are safe, even though we lack long-term data on the newer ones, or just get sunburned, which I know for a fact is miserable and increases my cancer risk.
There is a third option: stick to mineral sunscreens like zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. You might look a bit ghostly, but they do the job.
Exactly. Whatever risks might be in sunscreen, they are definitely better than the health consequences of getting burned.
RE: Fact #34 (Monaco Hosts Most Formula Drivers) – It all boils down to the fact that there’s no income tax. It really is always about the money.
RE: Fact #32 (Queen Anne’s Seventeen Pregnancies) – She likely suffered from an autoimmune condition linked to antiphospholipid syndrome, which is a common reason for recurrent miscarriages.
RE: Fact #50 (Neuschwanstein Castle Hid Modern Technology) – Fun fact: the German word Schloss refers to a representative residence for a sovereign, whereas a Burg is an actual castle. The name Schloss Neuschwanstein tells you right away that it is a palace, not a fort.
RE: Fact #22 (Cikai Korran Graffitied Egyptian Tombs) – Wait until you find out about the Greek guy from around 2100 years ago who converted to a sect of Hinduism, became a devotee of Vishnu, and had a pillar built in his honor. The ancient world was surprisingly connected.
The first recorded Buddhist apologia is actually about a Greek king in Afghanistan converting to Buddhism. It was written in Sri Lanka.
RE: Fact #42 (Commodus Assassin Gave Warning Speech) – Byzantine emperors created the Varangian Guard specifically to avoid the constant threat of palace coups and assassinations. Because they had access to imperial libraries filled with centuries of Roman history, they were well aware of how easily they could be betrayed from within. Instead of trusting their own subjects, they hired warriors from the far north. It’s wild to imagine 11th-century Constantinople patrolled by giant Norse vikings in full imperial gear, but that was the legacy Rome settled on after a millennium of experience.
RE: Fact #28 (Hulk Hogan Choked Richard Belzer) – Hogan definitely held a grudge. In the movie No Holds Barred, he attacks a character designed to look like Belzer, who gets so scared he poops his pants. The original script was scrapped, and Hogan and Vince McMahon reportedly stayed up for two days in a hotel room writing the replacement, presumably fueled by a lot of cocaine.
RE: Fact #45 (Nicotine Inspired Schizophrenia Treatments) – I used to work at a psych hospital where the only store on campus was a small kiosk. When management decided that a shop inside a hospital shouldn’t sell cigarettes, it created a real problem for how to handle the patients with schizophrenia. We used to use the smoking breaks as a way to get them out for a walk.
I worked in a similar setting in the U.K. years ago, and the staff in secure units were really stressed about the upcoming indoor smoking ban. We didn’t have enough people to escort everyone outside every time they wanted a cigarette. I remember the concern being that quitting would mess with how they metabolized their meds, but I might be misremembering the specifics.
You’re right about the drug interactions, especially with meds like Clozapine and olanzapine. Switching to inhalers or vapes wouldn’t even solve it, since the interaction comes from the other chemicals produced by burning tobacco, not just the nicotine itself. (Source: I’m a pharmacist).
RE: Fact #43 (Xbox Losses Became Xbox Billions) – Isn’t that just a classic ‘loss leader’ strategy? My wife has a marketing degree and explained that companies often sell hardware at a loss just to pull customers into their ecosystem. They take the hit on the console because they know they’ll make it all back on the game sales.
True, but the Xbox was losing money even after factoring in software sales. It’s pretty rare for a console maker to weather that kind of failure and stick with it for the next generation like Microsoft did with the 360.
RE: Fact #34 (Monaco Hosts Most Formula Drivers) – That’s because they’re millionaires who spend most of the year traveling, so they set their permanent residence in Monaco to avoid income tax.
Do they not have to pay income tax in the countries where they actually race? I thought that was the standard for US sports.
Dealing with US taxes when you’re a non-citizen working there is a massive headache, and it’s even worse if you’re a US citizen living abroad.
Not to mention their travel, food, and lodging are usually covered by their racing team. Basically, these drivers just make money without having to spend it.
RE: Fact #17 (Neanderthal Child Had Down Syndrome) – They also found remains of a young boy with Down syndrome at the Poulnabrone tomb in Ireland, buried 5, 000 years ago. It’s clear from the way he was buried that he was treated with care and respect. It’s really moving to know that people that long ago valued those with disabilities.
I know Down syndrome comes with real challenges, but every person I’ve known with it has been incredibly happy and kind. I’m sure that was the case back then, too.
History is full of examples showing how groups took care of their sick or vulnerable members. It’s a core part of what makes us human. Empathy is what helped us survive, and caring for others is just a natural extension of that. It’s a shame that modern society sometimes seems to lose sight of that.
It’s not just humans, either. There’s a 14, 000-year-old burial of a puppy with canine distemper that likely would have died without human intervention. Even if the dog wasn’t intentionally sacrificed, the fact that it lived long enough to be buried alongside people proves it was valued and cared for.
RE: Fact #27 (Canadians Love Kraft Dinner More) – Of course. Even if we had a million dollars here in Canada, we wouldn’t have to eat Kraft Dinner, but we still would, just with really expensive ketchup.
RE: Fact #4 (Jonestown Basketball Team Refused Suicide) – Former Rep. Jackie Speier was one of the roughly 20 survivors. She was on a congressional fact-finding trip to Jonestown and was shot, but she made it out.
Leo Ryan is a major “what if” in history. He was very popular in San Francisco and likely would have gone far in government. His death left a seat open that Nancy Pelosi eventually won. It’s hard to imagine her reaching Congress and becoming Speaker if he had lived. Regardless of her politics, she is one of the most accomplished representatives in US history.
I think I’d rather take a gunshot than drink poison. It’s a quicker death, and at least you might have a chance of surviving.
RE: Fact #47 (Shut Up Little Man Tapes) – There’s a documentary about this called ‘Shut Up, Little Man!’ At one point, there was talk about turning the tapes into a film, but they ran into a mess trying to figure out who actually owned the rights to the audio.
It feels pretty gross to secretly record someone’s fights, sell the audio, and then claim you’re entitled to the profits. That’s like bootlegging a concert and then arguing that you own the rights to the performance.
That’s exactly what happened. The guys who originally put the tapes out ended up suing each other until a lawyer basically told them both that neither of them had a claim to the audio. It’s a good reminder that lawyers can sometimes be more ethical than the clients they’re defending.
It’s a bit different since it’s not a public event, and if you’re recording from your own home, you could argue they were ‘invading’ your space. Plus, California is a two-party consent state, so the legal side of that would be a nightmare.
RE: Fact #1 (Donald Glover Improvised Community Punchlines) – They did the same thing with the Janitor on Scrubs. The scripts would often just say, “Janitor: Whatever Neil says.”
RE: Fact #42 (Commodus Assassin Gave Warning Speech) – Later on, his wife tried to poison him, and when that failed, his wrestling instructor wrestled him to death.
RE: Fact #42 (Commodus Assassin Gave Warning Speech) – “When you have to shoot, shoot! Don’t talk!” – Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez
RE: Fact #38 (Prometheus Tree Cut For Research) – It is a sad story, but the grad student really did not do much wrong. No one knew it was the oldest tree; they just knew it was an old one. Donald Currey tried using a borer to get a sample but couldn’t, so he asked the Forest Service for permission to cut it down to check the rings. Currey made a solid argument, and the Forest Service confirmed the tree was not considered notable. It was only after it was down that the tree’s age was discovered. It actually took several years for any real controversy to start. Criticism eventually centered on whether using bristlecone pines was necessary. He was studying the Little Ice Age, which started roughly 500 to 700 years ago, so a 4, 000-year-old tree wasn’t strictly needed. That said, the Little Ice Age was a newer concept in the 60s, and he was testing a theory that the cooling started way earlier than thought. That turned out to be wrong, but it wasn’t a radical idea at the time. At least he recognized the mistake and started lobbying to protect other bristlecone pines in the area. He went on to have a long academic career, though he never quite escaped being known as the guy who cut down the oldest tree.
RE: Fact #40 (Alexander Hamilton Backed Enslaved Soldiers) – I wonder if that was a response to Dunmore’s Proclamation, where the British promised freedom to any enslaved person from the rebelling colonies who joined their army.
The British actually freed the ones who enlisted after the war. Americans mostly just lied and sent them back to the fields.
RE: Fact #39 (Manuel Noriega Sued Call OfDuty) – Imagine having your kids tell you they just killed you in a video game.
He wasn’t killed in the game; he was just a shifty side character, kind of like in real life.
Imagine being a drug lord and dictator and somehow not expecting to be the bad guy.
RE: Fact #20 (Aphids Reproduce Through Telescoping Generations) – To make it worse, ants actually ‘ranch’ aphids. They protect them from predators like ladybugs and, in return, harvest the sweet excretions the aphids produce.
RE: Fact #6 (JCM Farming Sued Balloon Companies) – An olive farm doesn’t need a moat, guard towers, and layers of walls. Given what we know about places like Epstein’s ranch, someone should really investigate what is happening there.
I live on a street with plenty of olive groves and can confirm that none of them have moats or high fences.
RE: Fact #40 (Alexander Hamilton Backed Enslaved Soldiers) – Habit of subordination was also a major reason why military recruiters went after 18-20 year olds so hard. At that age, they have spent their whole lives taking orders from parents and teachers and have not experienced real independence, which makes them easier to train. Edit: This was based on a psychology class I took years ago. It seems the military has changed its recruiting tactics since I learned about that “get them young and impressionable” theory.
RE: Fact #16 (Mary Ann Franco Regained Sight) – Back when I worked at an emergency vet clinic, an elderly cavalier came in seizing after getting into a poisonous toad. She’d been deaf for years, but after the seizure passed, she could hear perfectly fine. None of the vets had a clue how it happened.
She clearly tripped so hard on the toad toxins that she developed synesthesia.
RE: Fact #10 (Eugene O’Neill Disowned Oona Chaplin) – Looking at their history, Oona definitely seems like she had some deep-rooted daddy issues.
Reading this, it makes me think she might have been relieved. “I’m not visiting you!” “Oh no, my absentee father who abandoned us won’t be in my life? How devastating…”
Considering she inherited the family home only after both her brothers died from addiction and suicide, I think they all did. He sounds like a piece of work.
RE: Fact #35 (Bull Sharks Occupied Golf Course) – Bull shark biology is wild. It is fascinating how they can handle both fresh and saltwater thanks to that rectal gland.
They can end up surprisingly far inland, which explains why you sometimes see those weird shark sightings on maps.
If I remember right, they have even been spotted as far north as Illinois in the Mississippi.
RE: Fact #31 (Going To The People Movement) – The wealthy have always had a weird obsession with romanticizing the lives of peasants. It’s never enough for them to actually give up their fortunes and live that life themselves, but they’re always down to play dress-up and pretend.
People seem fascinated by the idea of the rich and poor swapping places, which explains why we’re still talking about what those Russian students did all those years ago.
Usually, you hear about some wealthy person ‘retiring’ to the country to farm, but in reality, they’re just managing an estate while doing a little light cosplay, like milking one cow or tending a tiny garden patch. Diocletian is the classic example; he retired to be a cabbage farmer, but his place was basically a fortified palace.
RE: Fact #50 (Neuschwanstein Castle Hid Modern Technology) – That is because it wasn’t actually medieval. It was essentially the 19th-century version of cosplay. While we might buy Lord of the Rings robes for a renaissance fair, the King of Bavaria had the money and the eccentricity to build a massive fake castle just to play out his fantasies.
It was not even a finished fake castle; I believe only a third of the interior was ever done. Ludwig II was already dreaming about his next, even bigger castle.
What a madman. I wish he had lived long enough to actually see it through.
Well, the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna actually has fake Roman ruins.
Almost everywhere had fake Roman ruins up until the early or mid 20th century.