26 Delimar Vera Returned After Kidnapping
In 1997, 10-day-old Delimar Vera was kidnapped from her Philadelphia home by a woman named Carolyn Correa, who deliberately set a fire to cover the abduction and then raised the baby as her own under the name Aaliyah. Authorities believed Delimar had died in the blaze, but six years later, her mother, Luz Cuevas, spotted a young girl at a birthday party who looked strikingly like her. Cuevas pursued DNA testing, which proved in 2004 that the girl was her missing daughter. Correa was arrested and later convicted of kidnapping, arson, and attempted murder, receiving a prison sentence of 9 to 30 years.
27. After watching the 1960 Western The Magnificent Seven, Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa was so impressed by the American remake of his 1954 film Seven Samurai that he sent director John Sturges a ceremonial Japanese sword as a gift.
28. When the 2011 comedy The Worst Movie Ever! opened at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles, it sold just one ticket during its opening weekend and grossed only $11, giving it the lowest recorded theatrical opening at the time. Director Glenn Berggoetz said the disastrous turnout was not a publicity stunt, blaming the film’s midnight-screening schedule and difficulty generating interest in its release.
29. During Queen Ranavalona I’s rule, Madagascar’s population is estimated to have fallen by about 50%, from around 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839. The enormous death toll came amid years of military campaigns, high mortality among people subjected to forced labor, disease, slavery, and harsh traditions of justice under her rule. Ranavalona maintained an army of roughly 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers and repeatedly sent it on campaigns to expand and enforce Merina control across the island.
30. A python owned by Australian drug traffickers running a methamphetamine lab became addicted to crystal meth after prolonged exposure to drug fumes and absorption through its skin. Authorities described the snake as “very aggressive” and placed it in a wildlife care program run by inmates at a minimum-security prison near Sydney. The python spent about seven months in rehabilitation while the drugs gradually left its system. By the end of the program, handlers said it had recovered and become much calmer.
31 Thirty Years’ War Fed Itself
During the Thirty Years’ War, the phrase bellum se ipsum alet, meaning “the war feeds itself,” described a brutal system in which rulers and commanders avoided fully paying or supplying their armies and instead allowed soldiers to take what they needed from occupied territories. Troops requisitioned food, money, livestock, and shelter from ordinary civilians, often using force when communities could not provide enough. The system devastated farming regions, stripped peasants of their food and resources, and helped cause widespread famine, displacement, and death across Central Europe.
32. The first diplomatic contacts between the Russian Tsar and the Chinese emperor in the 17th century were plagued by mutual ignorance and the lack of a common language. A Central Asian envoy in Russian service named Setkul Ablin traveled to Beijing in 1655, 1658, and 1668, but only on his third trip did the Manchu authorities apparently realize that these western visitors represented the same Russians who had been raiding and settling around the Amur River. Early relations were further complicated because Qing officials expected the Russians to follow a tributary diplomatic system that the Russians neither accepted nor fully understood. The language barrier eased only after Russia began sending Latin-speaking Westerners who could communicate through Jesuit missionaries in Beijing.
33. In his rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, American statesman Thomas Jefferson originally wrote “our fellow subjects,” then erased “subjects” while the ink was still wet and wrote “citizens” over it. Scholars had suspected the hidden wording for decades, but Library of Congress scientist Fenella France finally confirmed it using hyperspectral imaging in 2009. It captured a striking moment when Jefferson shifted his language from people under a monarchy to citizens of an emerging nation.
34. Wolves can outperform dogs at following human social cues when both are raised closely alongside humans.
35. The 2015 German thriller Victoria became one of the few feature films shot in a single continuous take, but its budget allowed director Sebastian Schipper only three attempts to capture the entire film that way. The first attempt felt too cautious, while Schipper said the cast went too far in the opposite direction during the second, leaving him with just one chance. Before the final attempt, he gave the cast what he called a furious “hairdryer speech” to push them harder. The third attempt succeeded, producing the roughly 138-minute continuous shot used for the finished film.
36 Whiteclay Beer Sales Fueled Crisis
In 2010, just four beer stores in Whiteclay, Nebraska, sold approximately 4.9 million 12-ounce cans of beer, much of it to members of the nearby Oglala Lakota Tribe living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. That worked out to roughly 13,000 cans every day in a village with only a tiny permanent population. The sales became especially controversial because alcohol was prohibited on the reservation at the time, making Whiteclay a major source of alcohol just across the Nebraska border.
37. Wealthy Romans sometimes employed a slave called a nomenclator, whose job included reminding his master of the names of people he encountered. Nomenclators were especially useful during political campaigns, when they helped politicians greet citizens by name and appear personally familiar with potential supporters.
38. By 1797, the United States was paying nearly one-fifth of its entire federal budget in tribute to the Barbary pirates to protect American merchant ships from capture by them. After independence, American vessels no longer enjoyed British naval protection, leaving crews vulnerable to seizure, enslavement, and ransom demands in the Mediterranean. The enormous cost of tribute and continued attacks eventually helped push the United States toward military action, leading to the First Barbary War in 1801.
39. British author E.L. James began what became “Fifty Shades of Grey” as “Twilight” fanfiction and wrote a significant portion of the early material on her BlackBerry. Originally titled “Master of the Universe,” the story featured versions of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan before James reworked the characters into Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. The rewritten story became the first book in the bestselling “Fifty Shades” trilogy.
40. Before his historic February 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China, US President Richard Nixon spent months learning how to use chopsticks so he would be prepared for official dinner banquets. First Lady Pat Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger also took lessons, and the group continued practicing on the flight to China. The preparation paid off during a televised banquet in Beijing, where cameras prominently showed Nixon confidently eating with chopsticks.
41 Primula Niven Died Playing Sardines
In 1946, 28-year-old Primula Rollo Niven, wife of British actor David Niven, died after suffering a fatal accident while playing a game of sardines, a form of hide-and-seek, at the Beverly Hills home of actors Tyrone Power and Annabella. She opened a door believing it led to a closet, but instead stepped onto a stone staircase leading to the basement and fell, fracturing her skull.
42. Members of the British public can voluntarily donate money directly to HM Treasury without giving a specific reason, with the funds going toward general public spending. In 2005, the total amount donated this way was £5.
43. In 1695, English pirate Henry Every captured the Mughal treasure ship Ganj-i-Sawai and seized an enormous fortune in precious metals and jewels, with modern estimates placing the haul at around £108 million in today’s money. The raid nearly triggered a diplomatic crisis between England and the Mughal Empire, with Emperor Aurangzeb closing East India Company factories and detaining English officials in India. The English government placed a £500 bounty on Every, which the East India Company later doubled to £1,000, launching what has been described as the first global manhunt. Every was never captured, and both his ultimate fate and the whereabouts of his fortune remain unknown.
44. Before Switzerland reformed its marriage law in 1985, a husband could sell the family home or cancel a tenancy agreement without his wife’s approval, manage assets she had brought into the marriage, and even forbid her from working. The government moved to change these rules, but a conservative committee forced the new marriage and inheritance law to a national referendum. In September 1985, only 54% of voters supported the reforms. Had only men voted, as was still the case nationally until 1971, the old marriage law would have remained in place.
45. Researchers discovered 26 previously unknown bacterial species living in NASA spacecraft assembly clean rooms despite stringent efforts to keep the facilities biologically clean. Scientists sequenced 215 bacterial isolates collected during the Phoenix spacecraft mission and found that 53 strains belonged to novel species capable of surviving conditions shaped by rigorous cleaning, low humidity, radiation, and limited nutrients.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Yoda Uses Rarest Word Order
One of the unusual speech patterns associated with Star Wars character Yoda is object-subject-verb, or OSV, as in “The greatest teacher, failure is.” In this structure, the object comes before the subject and verb, reversing the order familiar to most English speakers. OSV is the rarest of the six basic word orders identified in linguistic typology, appearing as the dominant order in only about 0.3% of surveyed languages.
47. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve does not keep its emergency crude oil in surface tanks but in 60 massive underground salt caverns spread across four sites in Texas and Louisiana. A typical cavern is about 200 feet wide and 2,500 feet tall, and one is large enough to fit Chicago’s Willis Tower inside with room to spare. The caverns were carved into salt formations using water and can hold between 6 million and 37 million barrels of oil each. The Department of Energy says underground salt storage can cost up to 10 times less than above-ground tanks while also providing strong natural protection against leaks.
48. Latvia has a striking gender imbalance, with about 0.85 men for every woman overall, and among people over 65, women outnumber men by nearly two to one. The gap has helped fuel a “husband for an hour” industry, where women hire men for plumbing, carpentry, repairs, painting, and other household jobs. Companies advertise services such as “Men With Golden Hands,” while others promise to send a temporary “husband” within an hour to handle everyday maintenance.
49. Tokyo’s suicide prevention hotline uses Japan’s 0570 NaviDial system, meaning callers must pay for the call instead of reaching the service toll-free. From a mobile phone, 0570 calls cost 33 yen per minute, including time spent on hold or navigating automated menus, and unlimited-calling plans generally do not cover them. The same paid-number system is also used by some other public services in Japan, including labor and human-rights hotlines.
50. Under Japanese law, married couples must legally use the same surname, so a Japanese couple generally cannot register a marriage while each spouse keeps a different legal family name. Article 750 of Japan’s Civil Code allows the couple to choose either the husband’s or the wife’s surname, although in practice the husband’s name is chosen in the overwhelming majority of marriages. Japan’s Supreme Court upheld the same-surname requirement as constitutional in both 2015 and 2021, leaving any change to lawmakers.
RE: Fact #6 (Halle Berry Got Fake Script) – good on him for quitting. Actors really shouldn’t let that kind of manipulation slide.
RE: Fact #40 (Nixon Practiced Chopsticks For Months) – There are obviously a million reasons to criticize Nixon, but this was actually pretty respectful. It is like when your grandpa works for weeks to show you he finally figured out how to use the VCR.
This reminds me of a commercial I saw once where a grandpa goes into his shed every day to practice lifting a kettlebell. It turned out he was just training so he could lift his granddaughter up to put the star on the top of the Christmas tree. I have no idea what the product was, though.
Nixon’s expertise in foreign policy is one of those areas most people agree he was quite adept at, even if they disagree with how it was applied. Boosting relations with China was seen as a pretty significant win at the time.
I mean, Nixon did not start the US’s stupidity in Vietnam; he was the one who oversaw the withdrawal.
RE: Fact #50 (Japanese Couples Must Share Surnames) – This is what’s causing the “Sato problem, ” which is a serious demographic issue for Japan. If things don’t change, everyone could potentially be named Sato by 2531.
While that quote is probably an exaggeration, surname extinction is a real thing. China is a classic example, though Korea’s top three names covering half the population is driven by different factors.
RE: Fact #5 (Teflon Diet Won Ig Nobel) – Macro foods? Microplastics? Why not both? Introducing: Teflon’s new Macroplastic Diet!
Repulsion gel was basically Aperture’s failed attempt at a diet food. It was essentially a sweeter, toxic version of fiberglass insulation meant to make food bounce off your stomach lining and back out. Definitely glad that product never made it to store shelves.
RE: Fact #29 (Ranavalona’s Reign Halved Madagascar’s Population) – “the population of Imerina from 750, 000 to 130, 000 between 1829 and 1842” …
That comes out to 5 people every hour, around the clock, for 13 years. Systematic genocide is a pretty fitting term for that.
RE: Fact #22 (Conan Stars Trained Each Other) – James Earl Jones was a total hunk back in the 70s.
You really need to see him on Sesame Street back then, reciting the alphabet in the creepiest way possible.
RE: Fact #31 (Thirty Years’ War Fed Itself) – Looting used to be the main way soldiers made money, even for the US. General Smedley Butler wrote about his opposition to ending the practice. US soldiers were mostly prevented from looting civilians in WWII, but they still managed to make off with plenty of Nazi military loot.
RE: Fact #15 (George Wallace Apologized To Students) – “I’d rather be a hypocrite than the same person forever.” – Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horowitz
“Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing.” – Dalinar Kholin, Oathbringer
It’s not really hypocrisy if you actually renounce your past views.
Exactly. Hypocrisy is doing the opposite of what you still claim to believe. That quote doesn’t really fit here.
“A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” – Muhammad Ali
RE: Fact #9 (Lionel Messi Needed Growth Hormones) – I went through this too. Insurance quit paying for it because I was ‘normal’ on the growth chart. Like, yeah, because the treatment was actually working! Never grew another inch after that.
RE: Fact #29 (Ranavalona’s Reign Halved Madagascar’s Population) – >The combination of regular warfare, slavery, disease, difficult forced labor and the practice of tangena resulted in a high mortality rate among both soldiers and civilians during her 33-year reign, reducing Madagascar’s population from 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839. > >.. These negative characterizations, earning her the moniker of the “Mad Monarch of Madagascar”, persisted in Western scholarly literature until the mid-1970s. .. In present-day Madagascar, she remains a controversial figure and is largely viewed negatively.
Good grief, I can see why.
RE: Fact #36 (Whiteclay Beer Sales Fueled Crisis) – An 80% unemployment rate and 25% of babies born with fetal alcohol syndrome at Pine Ridge? That is absolutely bleak.
I used to recruit doctors for various reservations, including Pine Ridge. The pay is bottom-tier, the location feels unsafe, and there is genuinely nothing to do there. Why would a doctor take those roles? Mostly because they want to ‘give back, ‘ or for the experience. Some of the conditions on the reservation are third-world, yet you are still in the USA.
Another reason is that some international schools waive tuition if you work in a place like that for at least two years. My Korean neighbor’s son worked at a Native American reservation for that exact reason so he could attend university in Korea.
My mom does this work. She is a pediatrician who travels for two weeks every year, though I am not sure if it is Pine Ridge specifically. Her program uses a rotation of doctors because it is incredibly hard to keep anyone in a permanent position. She earned her Master’s in public health later in life and has also run a clinic in Uganda for nearly 20 years. She does it because she feels there is so much public health work to be done and never enough resources, so she wants to contribute however she can.
RE: Fact #22 (Conan Stars Trained Each Other) – The mental image of James Earl Jones lifting heavy weights while teaching Arnold how to project like a Shakespearean actor is just amazing.
Conan, tell me what is best in life, in iambic pentameter: “To crush with steel your enemies forthwith, to see them driven failed before your eyes, and hear the lamentations of women!”
RE: Fact #4 (Pay Toilets Faced Organized Revolt) – As Governor of California, Ronald Reagan signed a 1974 bill banning public pay toilets in the state. The legislation was led by feminist assemblywoman March Fong Eu, who successfully pushed to phase out coin-operated stalls that forced women to pay for basic restroom access while urinals remained free.
They basically said, “Fine, we will make it free, but we are going to leave massive gaps in the stall doors so you have to make eye contact with everyone waiting in line.”
RE: Fact #15 (George Wallace Apologized To Students) – George Wallace really seemed to find some redemption after surviving his assassination attempt.
RE: Fact #38 (Barbary Pirates Drained American Budget) – People often miss that the US Navy’s roots are in fighting the Barbary pirates to stop the country from paying such high tributes. The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli was meant to secure shipping rights in the region, and it eventually led to the formation of the Navy. Secured shipping lanes and free commerce are deeply embedded in US military history.
It was not just the tribute that was annoying; it was the fact that the Barbary pirates kept taking American citizens as slaves, even while being paid that tribute. At least Presley O’Bannon showed them who was in charge.
Another issue was that the pirates specifically targeted American ships because they knew America was not in a position to do much about it. The European powers did not care enough, especially since America was not always playing nice with them either.
RE: Fact #39 (Fifty Shades Began As Fanfiction) – I am not sure of the exact number, but there is a massive amount of Twilight fanfiction that has had the names changed and been self-published. It is especially common in the same genre as Fifty Shades.
You would be surprised how many stories started as fanfiction. Outlander was a Doctor Who fanfic.
Heated Rivalry started as a Bucky and Cap fanfic. Amazon is also releasing a movie called The Love Hypothesis, which started as Rey and Kylo fanfic. People use others’ worlds as a creative launchpad more often than you would think, then reskin the story later.
RE: Fact #34 (Wolves Can Outread Domestic Dogs) – And yet, both are still better at reading social cues than my brother-in-law Larry.
RE: Fact #15 (George Wallace Apologized To Students) – >When Hood returned to the University of Alabama to earn a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies, he started a book on Wallace in 1996 and sat at his bedside for hours of interviews.[100] Hood believed in the sincerity of Wallace’s apologies, saying that Wallace was haunted by people’s lack of forgiveness for his actions.[101] Hood graduated in 1997 and requested that Wallace present his degree, and Wallace would have if not for his poor health.[100] Hood instead attended Wallace’s 1998 funeral.[101]
At least Wallace eventually presented the Lurleen B. Wallace Award of Courage to one of the students, Vivian Malone Jones.
RE: Fact #49 (Tokyo Suicide Hotline Charges Callers) – At least they’re motivated to keep people alive for another minute if they’re charging by the minute.
Plus, it would be dishonorable to die in debt, so you’d have to stay alive just long enough to pay the bill.
RE: Fact #10 (Greek Xenia Protected Unknown Strangers) – If you’re wondering why Zeus is the one striking people down, one of his titles is Zeus Xenios, the patron of hospitality.
You mean “epithets”. An epitaph is what you carve onto a gravestone.
After they’ve already angered Zeus, sure. If you ignore the epithet, you end up with the epitaph.
RE: Fact #13 (Flat Earthers Witnessed Midnight Sun) – I need to start acting a little dumber so I can land some free trips to exotic places.
The moon is fake and a million dollars is a fairy tale. Send me to the space station for a week and hand over the million.
People say NASA hired Stanley Kubrick to film the moon landing, but he was such a perfectionist he insisted on filming on location.
RE: Fact #43 (Henry Every Vanished With Treasure) – Why isn’t there a movie about hunting for that pirate’s treasure in New England?
According to Khafi Khan, the pirates put their captives through an absolute horror show, raping and murdering prisoners deck by deck. They used torture to find out where the treasure was hidden. Some women supposedly took their own lives to avoid being violated, while the others were dragged onto the Fancy.
This just sounds like typical pirate behavior, they just happened to target people who were way wealthier and more famous than their usual victims.
RE: Fact #16 (Disney Hercules Angered Greek Audiences) – Disney has always distorted the stories they adapt, it’s just their standard approach.
there’s a reason they left the murder and sexual violence of the original myths out of a kids’ movie.
They also made Hercules Hera’s son. That would be like doing a Batman movie where the Joker is his most loyal partner.
It’s like they didn’t think the original stories were dark enough for a seven-year-old. I mean, the movie was already terrifying enough for me as a kid.
Not to mention that Hades wasn’t even the villain in the actual mythology. He had his moments, but he was way more chill than most of the other gods.
Yeah, the Grimm fairy tales they used as inspiration were dark and definitely not Disney material. Hercules wasn’t the only one getting sanitized.
RE: Fact #19 (Ough Has Nine Different Pronunciations) – Just in case you were curious like I was, “lough” is just the Anglicized way to write “loch, ” and it’s pronounced exactly like “lock.”
RE: Fact #20 (Michael Jackson Hid Deeper Voice) – His natural voice isn’t a massive shift, but you can definitely hear the difference. There’s a clip out there that shows it perfectly.
Imagine being the person in charge of publishing and expecting that iconic MJ sound, only to get his normal voice instead. It’s the most authentic version, but I bet it really confused people at the time.
He actually did a lot of uncredited gaming work just because he was a genuine fan. He didn’t just provide voices, either; he did motion capture too. He was always happy to help out with projects if he loved the work, credits be damned.
It’s so jarring how quickly he switches from the “Michael Jackson” persona to just sounding like a regular guy.
RE: Fact #33 (Jefferson Replaced Subjects With Citizens) – They were all British subjects back then, right? It implies he considered himself one of them too.
He probably dated it 1775 by habit and then thought, ‘Wait, it’s July, when am I going to stop doing that?’
RE: Fact #45 (NASA Cleanrooms Hid Unknown Bacteria) – As a lab tech with clean room certifications who has done manufacturing, you will never truly get rid of bacteria. You can only lower the numbers to a level deemed “acceptable.” Cleaning a room perfectly is a never-ending, Herculean task. The real surprise here is that they found new species, not that they found bacteria in general.
Have you tried Pledge®, though? It kills 99.9% of germs in 60 seconds and is definitely tough enough for space bacteria.
Do you think these species were rarer because the extreme cleaning killed off all their competition?
RE: Fact #32 (Qing Officials Misidentified Russian Envoys) – The Chinese assumed all foreigners were there to offer tribute, which caused friction since the Russians didn’t really get or accept that system.
Using Latin as the bridge between Russian diplomats and Chinese officials via Jesuits is wild. That’s got to be one of the most complicated games of telephone ever.
RE: Fact #18 (Brian Robson Mailed Himself Home) – Back then, people in his spot usually just grabbed jobs on freight ships or trains to get where they needed to go.
RE: Fact #43 (Henry Every Vanished With Treasure) – Several little known facts that go along with this: the reward was an original Streisand Effect: it created more pirates than it caught by advertising the riches one could obtain. There is quite a bit of proof Every returned to England and worked in the Kings Service as a spy for King William and later Queen Anne along with Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe author).
RE: Fact #9 (Lionel Messi Needed Growth Hormones) – This is a big reason why he stayed so loyal to that club for so long.
RE: Fact #34 (Wolves Can Outread Domestic Dogs) – This reminds me of the ‘zeal of a convert.’ It’s the idea that people taking on a new mindset are often more diligent about it than those who’ve held it their whole lives. I know there are biological differences, but it’s a funny thought that wolves are just ‘recent converts’ to domestic life and are overcompensating.
It’s usually because they’ve consciously thought through their beliefs, so it stands in contrast to the opposite view. They don’t take their perspective for granted, unlike people whose native beliefs go unchallenged.
It might just be that wolves are smarter. I remember a study noting that a major genetic difference in dogs is linked to something similar to Williams Syndrome in humans, it makes them super friendly and trusting, but also a lot less sharp.
I’ve always heard it as ‘there’s no zealot like a convert, ‘ and that’s been true in my experience.
RE: Fact #34 (Wolves Can Outread Domestic Dogs) – It definitely depends on the dog and the breed. One of my dogs is a mind-reader who knows exactly what I need, but the other one… we just keep her around for her looks.
My dog is like your second one. She’s tried to jump into the back of my 4Runner three times before I even opened the hatch, but she’s sweet and pretty and sometimes acts like she gets it.
RE: Fact #5 (Teflon Diet Won Ig Nobel) – Since we are sharing Ig Nobel stuff, there is a funny paper from 2020 titled, “Will Any Crap We Put into Graphene Increase Its Electrocatalytic Effect?”
“One can envision an era in which guano-doped graphene is used instead of platinum in fuel cells and electrolyzers” Thanks for the laugh!
RE: Fact #47 (Strategic Petroleum Reserve Uses Caverns) – To get the oil out, they pump water in, which dissolves the salt and creates a risk of the cavern collapsing. Even if they refill it, pulling the reserve this low could cause permanent damage that limits our ability to use the site in the future.
Actually, that’s not true. They use saturated brine to move the oil, which doesn’t damage the cavern. Fresh water is only used when initially mining the space. I used to design and build these salt storage facilities for a living.
RE: Fact #7 (Brett Archibald Survived Ocean Ordeal) – Only 15 meters away, and it turned into a 28-hour nightmare. That is just brutal.
There was that 18-year-old who went overboard at night from a party boat. He vanished within seconds, and I don’t think they ever recovered his body.
Back in 1982, 24-year-old Deborah Scaling was on a sailboat that sank in a storm. She and four others ended up in a tiny rubber boat, but they had to spend most of their time in the freezing water because the wind was unbearable. After five days, only she and one other guy were rescued by a Soviet ship. Two of the others were eaten by sharks and one died of an infection. It’s one of the most harrowing survival stories I’ve ever read.
They really didn’t. It was terrifying, you just watch him disappear into the dark.
RE: Fact #33 (Jefferson Replaced Subjects With Citizens) – ‘Oh drat, Martha, I’ve done it again.’ ‘Just blot it out, dear. The ink is still wet. No one will notice.’
RE: Fact #27 (Akira Kurosawa Rewarded Western Remake) – When you do such a good job that Akira Kurosawa sends you a ceremonial sword… I’m shocked he didn’t just retire immediately to go float around on a cloud like an American Buddha.
I remember reading something like this in a book of Jim Jarmusch interviews: > In Japan this year Kurosawa offered him a beautiful unsolicited testimonial about the elegant and musical shooting and editing in Stranger Than Paradise, and by messenger sent him a book, very very moving, and those paragraphs were the only two paragraphs about the movie that Jarmusch got translated from Japanese.
RE: Fact #14 (Spartan Warriors Depended On Helots) – That’s also why they sent so few men to Thermopylae; they were terrified of a revolt back home. Another cool thing: they had two kings at once, one to handle domestic rule and one to lead military campaigns.
RE: Fact #28 (Worst Movie Sold One Ticket) – If anyone is curious about its performance after the opening weekend: IMDb says the film’s budget was only $1, 100 and it brought in a total of $25, 206 in the US and Canada, which isn’t bad at all.
RE: Fact #2 (Celestine V Resigned After Election) – “I resign.” “You cannot resign. That is against the rules.” “But I make the rules.” “Yes, but it is against the rules.” “Fine, I am making a new rule that I can resign.” “…” “I resign.”
RE: Fact #17 (Elliptical Machines Exaggerate Calories Burned) – They’re useful for two things: keeping track of your progress relative to your past workouts, and giving you an excuse to eat. It feels pretty good to tell yourself you just burned 1, 000 calories so you don’t have to feel bad about having a few beers.
If your goal is weight loss, that inaccuracy isn’t doing you any favors.
But if you need a reason to treat yourself to some extra calories, it’s actually a great perk!
RE: Fact #16 (Disney Hercules Angered Greek Audiences) – My only issue is how the movie cemented the idea that Hades is a villain. Clash of the Titans was terrible and even ripped off the idea of Hades being jealous of Zeus. It’s ironic because, in mythology, Hades had the most beautiful kingdom, filled with the earth’s riches, and he was actually one of the more rational gods. Aside from that, it’s a great movie, the muses as gospel singers were the best part.
Hades has been painted as the ultimate bad guy by religious traditions for over a thousand years, so Disney isn’t really to blame for that. And what did people expect? The original Hercules stories weren’t happy superhero tales, he killed his own family and met a tragic end. The muses were definitely the best part, though.
RE: Fact #39 (Fifty Shades Began As Fanfiction) – I knew about the Twilight connection, but who the hell types an entire novel on a BlackBerry? That is insane behavior.
RE: Fact #33 (Jefferson Replaced Subjects With Citizens) – British subjects are a dying breed. It’s become very hard for anyone born after 1983 to become one, so they’ll mostly be gone by the end of the century.
RE: Fact #30 (Meth Python Needed Prison Rehab) – The hardest part of rehab is getting the snake to realize he needs help.
RE: Fact #12 (Roman Trade Drained Imperial Wealth) – It really came down to how lopsided the trade was. Rome wanted to sell goods back, but they didn’t have much to offer besides cash. India just wasn’t as desperate for Roman products as Rome was for theirs.
Actually, there was some back and forth with silk. India would sell Chinese silk into Rome, then workshops in Syria would dye it and sell the finished product back to India and China.
RE: Fact #31 (Thirty Years’ War Fed Itself) – Armies have basically been feeding themselves this way forever. In the Anabasis, Xenophon talks about the Greeks constantly stumbling upon “villages full of provisions and many other good things, ” and it’s all written about in such a matter-of-fact tone.
Hannibal was clever enough to avoid pillaging the lands of a Roman leader who advocated for the best anti-Hannibal strategy in the Senate. It obviously undermined the guy’s political support even as he tried to sell his land to fund public good and win back favor. That strategy was: we can’t beat Hannibal in a field battle, so let’s burn everything in his path, shadow him, and pick off his raiding parties so he starves. It became official Roman policy after five entire armies were wiped off the map, and it was a huge factor in eventually wearing Hannibal down so Rome could concentrate on other fronts.
That, plus the fact that the Carthaginians barely offered him any support. It’s wild that he still managed to wreck Italy for 16 years.
Sun Tzu advised against “foraging” on local peasants because it turns them against you. He suggested waiting for the enemy to do it, then foraging off the enemy instead. In the Napoleonic wars, Wellington made looting a hanging offense, but British soldiers did it anyway. Napoleon’s forces, meanwhile, were encouraged to loot peasants and villages for supplies and valuables. It was essentially the primary supply chain for the French army.
RE: Fact #21 (Chloe Moretz Avoided Film Title) – that same 12-year-old said one of the most notorious lines in movie history. She handled it well, though, by always insisting that the character was the one saying those things, not her.
RE: Fact #11 (Ferrari Punishes Owners Who Disobey) – Sometimes they won’t even sell you a car unless you’ve already bought the entry-level models. You need to build a solid track record with the dealership. They only get so many slots for the high-end stuff.
It’s the same deal with high-end designer gear. You have to build a relationship with your Hermès dealer just to be considered for a Birkin bag.
My ex’s sister, who comes from a ridiculously wealthy family, used to have her nanny fly a G450 from the US to Paris twice a year just to pick up a new Birkin. A nanny, two pilots, and a handbag. She did it just so she could show it off to friends a few days before it hit the US market.
RE: Fact #3 (Shirley Temple Lost Her Fortune) – Adjusted for inflation, that is roughly like earning $44.5 million and ending up with only $612, 000.
She was so upset when her father tried to calm her down by saying, “Shirley, please…” and she finally delivered that iconic line: “DON’T CALL ME SHIRLEY!”
If that $3.2 million had been put into the stock market in 1950, it would have been worth between $2.5 and $3 billion by the time she passed away in 2014.
RE: Fact #1 (Eccleston Says BBC Blacklisted Him) – He actually left because he couldn’t deal with the directors and producers being so disrespectful to the crew.
It was really more about safety violations that came close to injuring or killing crew members.
RE: Fact #3 (Shirley Temple Lost Her Fortune) – She also hated having that non-alcoholic drink named after her. She actually sued to stop a company from selling a pre-mixed drink with her name back in 1988. She lost because the drink had been around since the 30s and her family hadn’t done anything about it for decades, so the judge decided it had become too “ubiquitous” to change. Her daughter, Lori Black, apparently used to order a Shirley Temple every time they went out together, just to get under her mother’s skin.
A Singapore Sling is basically a grown-up Shirley Temple. I like to picture her sipping one and thinking, “Now this is what I wanted to have named after me!” Whenever we go out for hibachi, I order Shirley Temples for my kids and get myself a Singapore Sling.
Yeah, given that they had to go out together for it to happen, it was probably just a joke to get a reaction.
RE: Fact #27 (Akira Kurosawa Rewarded Western Remake) – It makes more sense when you consider that Seven Samurai was released as The Magnificent Seven in the US because Japanophilia hadn’t really caught on in the 50s. Also, James Coburn picked his role because the character was a mirror of his favorite character in the original.
RE: Fact #46 (Yoda Uses Rarest Word Order) – Interestingly, a linguistic phenomenon called “typological leveling” usually forces OSV languages to shift toward a subject-first pattern if they stay in contact with other languages long enough. That is why almost every surviving OSV language is indigenous with very little external contact. Star Wars is the exception, of course 😀
RE: Fact #40 (Nixon Practiced Chopsticks For Months) – Buy one of those snack-sized bags of Cheetos from a gas station, dump them on a plate, and eat the whole thing using only chopsticks. That is a great way to teach yourself.
RE: Fact #19 (Ough Has Nine Different Pronunciations) – to the English language, “hiccough” is pretty much an obsolete spelling now that everyone just uses “hiccup.”
I pronounce the end of “borough” and “though” the same way. I’m not sure what the mnemonic is getting at there.
RE: Fact #11 (Ferrari Punishes Owners Who Disobey) – Probably because the most famous story of a Ferrari owner being critical of his car and modifying it ended with him founding Lamborghini.
It’s wild that a tractor clutch was better than what Ferrari was using back then.
RE: Fact #41 (Primula Niven Died Playing Sardines) – If you read his autobiography, “The Moon is a Balloon, ” it is clear he was completely devoted to her and devastated by her passing. House parties back then were full of games, so hide-and-seek isn’t shocking. He was fortunate enough to find love and remarry later, though.
Except his second wife was apparently a total nightmare. Everyone who met her thought she was stunning, but also a truly awful person.
RE: Fact #7 (Brett Archibald Survived Ocean Ordeal) – I don’t know much about survival at sea, but I imagine exposure would be the biggest threat, freezing water, the sun beating down on you, and constantly swallowing salt water.
RE: Fact #39 (Fifty Shades Began As Fanfiction) – I know the Twilight bit has been widely known for decades, but the BlackBerry detail is pretty hilarious and honestly not surprising at all.
RE: Fact #12 (Roman Trade Drained Imperial Wealth) – “India takes 50 million sesterces from our Empire every year.” Pliny the Elder was already complaining nearly 2, 000 years ago that Rome was shipping all its gold East just to satisfy a massive appetite for Indian luxuries.
RE: Fact #25 (Megan Fox Had Seventeen-Year Relationship) – Richard Pryor didn’t just marry, divorce, and remarry one woman. He did it with two of them.
I know someone who divorced and remarried the same person twice. It was my friend’s mom, and one time I was staying over at their house and could hear them having sex. Talk about relationship drama.
RE: Fact #23 (Casablanca Ending Followed Hays Code) – It gave us three of the most iconic and famous movie quotes of all time, all in one single scene.
The problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Here’s looking at you, kid. Round up the usual suspects. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
RE: Fact #32 (Qing Officials Misidentified Russian Envoys) – I love how China just assumed every group they met was there to pay tribute to their greatness. It’s a very British-style sense of cultural superiority.
It’s a superiority mindset, but it’s not really comparable to the British approach at all.
RE: Fact #26 (Delimar Vera Returned After Kidnapping) – “However, Cuevas suspects that she was kidnapped and that the fire was staged by an outsider. As a result, her husband, Pedro Vera, becomes estranged from her.” That is just so sad. Poor family.
RE: Fact #31 (Thirty Years’ War Fed Itself) – You see this kind of logistics referred to euphemistically as “living off the land” when people talk about modern conflicts.
‘living off the land’ isn’t really viable in large-scale modern conflicts. It isn’t even about the morality of it; there are simply too many soldiers for local food production to sustain.
Exactly, plus food is only a small part of what a modern military needs. You can threaten peasants for crops, but you can’t exactly shake them down for artillery shells. That said, modern armies can still act like a plague of locusts, stealing anything they can get their hands on.
RE: Fact #26 (Delimar Vera Returned After Kidnapping) – “Delimar’s disappearance was attributed to the intense fire in the room” Wait, really? They actually thought she was vaporized in the fire?
RE: Fact #10 (Greek Xenia Protected Unknown Strangers) – This is a big theme in the Odyssey, too. Treating Odysseus poorly is one of the main ways Antinoös is shown to be a terrible person. Also, when they first run into the Cyclops, Odysseus asks him to honor the gods’ laws about treating guests well, but Polyphemus just laughs, says he doesn’t fear the gods, and eats two of his men.
And then the Cyclops ends up blinded. Don’t eat your houseguests, people!
RE: Fact #21 (Chloe Moretz Avoided Film Title) – She’s in her late 20s now? That makes me feel ancient. I still see her as a kid since I mainly know her from Kick-Ass and 30 Rock.
RE: Fact #46 (Yoda Uses Rarest Word Order) – I figure Klingon was designed with OSV word order on purpose to make it sound more alien.
RE: Fact #47 (Strategic Petroleum Reserve Uses Caverns) – The US also keeps billions of pounds of cheese in what they call “cheese caves.” They aren’t literal caves, but more like underground warehouses.
I’ve heard about the cheese being stored near Springfield. Sounds like an interesting rabbit hole to dive into.
RE: Fact #20 (Michael Jackson Hid Deeper Voice) – Does anyone remember Elizabeth Holmes putting on that deep, forced baritone voice when she was promoting her company?
Her voice sounded so fake it was physically painful to hear. It still baffles me that people actually fell for it.
RE: Fact #43 (Henry Every Vanished With Treasure) – Known as the “Arch Pirate” or “King of Pirates, ” Every was infamous for being one of the few captains to actually get away with his loot without being killed or captured. He pulled off the most profitable act of piracy in history. Even though his career only lasted two years, he completely captured the public imagination and inspired tons of pirate literature. He started as a first mate on the warship Charles II. To keep the emperor happy, the EIC promised reparations, while Parliament labeled them all hostis humani generis. The government put out a £500 bounty, which the EIC later doubled for the first global manhunt in history. They even said Every wouldn’t be eligible for any pardons. By the time they tracked his trail to North America, he and his crew had vanished into thin air with all that gold and those gems.
RE: Fact #1 (Eccleston Says BBC Blacklisted Him) – It is such a shame. I love David Tennant, but I would have loved to see a couple more seasons with Eccleston before the transition. His take on the character felt so original, and for my generation, he was the one who introduced us to the show. He has done plenty of great work since, but it really sucks that the insider politics messed him over.
RE: Fact #22 (Conan Stars Trained Each Other) – I always wondered why Arnold’s performance in that movie felt a cut above his other early work.
RE: Fact #36 (Whiteclay Beer Sales Fueled Crisis) – It is not quite the same, but back in the early 2000s, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had so much beer delivered to his house that the distributors actually suspected he was selling it.
RE: Fact #3 (Shirley Temple Lost Her Fortune) – Her daughter, Lori Black, played bass for The Melvins. King Buzzo has mentioned how cool Shirley Temple was when he had the chance to meet her.
RE: Fact #18 (Brian Robson Mailed Himself Home) – The details of what he packed and how the flight logistics went sideways are wild. It’s crazy that he ended up suffering that much only for the airline to eventually give him first-class treatment after finding him.
RE: Fact #25 (Megan Fox Had Seventeen-Year Relationship) – My parents did something similar. They got pregnant, married, divorced, moved back in together, remarried, separated, reconciled a year later, split again, reconciled after two years, and now they’re talking about moving to different states. 0/10 stars, do not recommend.
Sheesh, I feel for you. Having that as a model for an adult relationship is a real bummer. My parents were toxic, but at least they split once and that was the end of it.
That would have been the healthier route. Now I have one sibling who wants to walk away at the first red flag, and another who refuses to leave until something unforgivable happens.
RE: Fact #4 (Pay Toilets Faced Organized Revolt) – My girlfriend and I were looking for a restroom in Germany, but we were out of cash and had no coins. We ended up using an ATM, which meant paying transaction fees and exchange fees just to get a few coins. We had to buy something at a store just to get change because they didn’t have exchange machines. That bathroom trip ended up costing us something like $20. Free bathrooms in the US really are great! Also, the fact that there are people actually sitting in those European bathrooms all day just collecting tips? No thanks, that job sounds like a nightmare, just sitting there smelling urine all day.
RE: Fact #44 (Swiss Husbands Controlled Marital Assets) – When did women actually get the right to vote in Switzerland? I remember it being really late.
RE: Fact #16 (Disney Hercules Angered Greek Audiences) – When The Waterboy came out, a friend of mine from Louisiana saw it while visiting family over the holidays. The Cajun community had the same reaction to that film as the Greeks did to Disney’s Hercules. The whole audience sat in silence, completely offended by the gators, the gibberish, and the tropes.
I grew up in Louisiana and we all thought The Waterboy was hilarious. Stupid, but definitely funny.
RE: Fact #26 (Delimar Vera Returned After Kidnapping) – Yikes. I wonder how the girl adjusted after everything. That poor family.
RE: Fact #17 (Elliptical Machines Exaggerate Calories Burned) – Since 1 kcal is about 1.16 Wh, the machines can calculate the power and energy they receive, but that doesn’t account for what the user is actually outputting or burning.
RE: Fact #37 (Roman Nomenclators Remembered Everyone’s Names) – Considering names like Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, and Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, that setup makes a lot of sense.
RE: Fact #44 (Swiss Husbands Controlled Marital Assets) – Wait until you find out what year women in Appenzell finally got the right to vote! It wasn’t until 1991, and only after a judge forced them to.
RE: Fact #40 (Nixon Practiced Chopsticks For Months) – My dad did something similar. He started hanging out with some Asian guys and practiced with chopsticks at home for months just so he could surprise them.
RE: Fact #48 (Latvia Gender Gap Fueled Rent-a-Husbands) – I’m from Latvia, and this is a nonsense claim. These services aren’t marketed as “husband for an hour”, they’re just standard handyman services and aren’t geared specifically toward women.
RE: Fact #12 (Roman Trade Drained Imperial Wealth) – Don’t forget they were paying for Indian muslins, which were better than anything even the Chinese silk trade had. They were so fine you could pull a whole piece of cloth through a ring without it creasing. Roman wives were basically bankrupting their husbands, and senators wrote about empty coffers and crushing debt. It’s no wonder the first thing the British did later on was dismantle the Indian looms and seize control of the spice trade.
RE: Fact #17 (Elliptical Machines Exaggerate Calories Burned) – I assume they’re just guessing based on what an average person burns at that speed. It’s not like we can hook up a bunch of medical sensors every time we hit the gym.
RE: Fact #8 (Optimus Prime Voice Honored Brother) – In older writing, the term ‘gentle’ was often used to describe men the author respected. And obviously, ‘gentleman’ has been an ideal for a long time. We definitely need more role models who demonstrate those traits. Optimus Prime is a great one, especially since kids are exposed to him at such a young age.
RE: Fact #41 (Primula Niven Died Playing Sardines) – I had no idea hide-and-seek had a variation called sardines, where the finder actually joins the hider until everyone is packed in.
It gets better, you tell your crush where you’re hiding so they find you first.
RE: Fact #23 (Casablanca Ending Followed Hays Code) – thank goodness for that, because the movie wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective without that ending.