1 Fair Play Gives Readers Clues
Fair play in detective fiction means authors must give readers a genuine chance to solve the mystery alongside the detective. The principle became central to the clue-puzzles popularized during Britain’s Golden Age of detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s by writers such as Agatha Christie and S. S. Van Dine. Every vital clue must appear in the text and be possible to decode, even if hidden in plain sight among red herrings, rather than being withheld until the final reveal.
2. In the 1990s, American singer-songwriter Dolly Parton earned an estimated $10 million in royalties from Whitney Houston’s 1992 cover of her song “I Will Always Love You.” She invested the money in an office complex located in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee, explaining that she wanted to be among Houston’s people, “who are my people as well.” Parton affectionately called the complex “the house that Whitney built.”
3. On March 26, 1975, Boulder County clerk Clela Rorex issued the first same-sex marriage license in the United States to Dave McCord and Dave Zamora. Colorado law did not specify that marriage had to be between a man and a woman, and the district attorney confirmed that Rorex could decide whether to grant the license. When a man named Roswell “Ross” Howard later asked to marry his horse, Dolly, Rorex rejected his request because the eight-year-old horse was underage and lacked written consent from her parents.
4. During her marriage to NBA legend Michael Jordan, Juanita Jordan reportedly hired a private investigator to follow him for four years because she questioned his fidelity. The investigator claimed to have observed Jordan in compromising situations with six different women, after which Juanita filed for divorce in 2002. She withdrew the petition a month later, and the couple attempted to reconcile before ending their 17-year marriage in 2006. Juanita reportedly received a $168 million settlement, then the largest celebrity divorce settlement on public record.
5. The anchor chains of large ships rust so badly that their corrosion takes up a great deal of the oxygen in the enclosed chain locker in which they are stored. Iron forms rust when it reacts with oxygen, and damp, poorly ventilated conditions can slowly create a hypoxic atmosphere. A person entering could collapse after only a few breaths. Even just opening the hatch may not be enough to ventilate the space and make it safe.
6 Cryptic Pregnancies Hide Until Childbirth
About 1 in 2,500 pregnancies go un-noticed until the baby is delivered, a rare phenomenon known as a cryptic or stealth pregnancy. Symptoms may be non-existent or misdiagnosed while weight gain and a distended belly can be mistaken for bloating. In the worst cases, the woman only finds out that she is pregnant when labor begins.
7. By one estimate, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster is the costliest disaster in human history. Its economic toll is placed at about $700 billion before inflation, equivalent to approximately $2.06 trillion in 2025 dollars. The total is expected to continue to rise as cleanup operations and the economic impacts of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are expected to continue indefinitely.
8. The iconic “This is Sparta!” line from 300 began much quieter than audiences remember. After delivering it in a low, monotone growl for several takes, actor Gerard Butler asked director Zack Snyder to let him try one more version and unleashed the now-famous scream. The exaggerated performance caused the other actors to hide their laughter, but Snyder considered it over the top and “awesome,” which is why that take was included in the finished film.
9. At the 2006 Academy Awards, Memphis rap group Three 6 Mafia won Best Original Song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle & Flow, competing against Dolly Parton’s nominated song “Travelin’ Thru.” When the group returned to Memphis, Parton sent them a signed congratulatory letter saying she was “just glad that the Oscar came back to Tennessee one way or another.” The victory made Three 6 Mafia the first hip-hop group to win an Academy Award.
10. In 2017, Los Angeles Angels outfielder Justin Upton hit a 444-foot home run that bounced off the grass and dropped into a giant Sherwin-Williams paint can beyond left-center field at Angel Stadium. The can was part of a promotion promising a $1 million donation to the Angels Baseball Foundation if an Angels player landed a home run inside it. Despite the ball ending up in the can, the donation was not made because the rules required it to enter “on the fly” without bouncing first.
11 Iliad Fragment Accompanied Egyptian Mummy
At the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, archaeologists uncovered a roughly 1,600-year-old Roman-era mummy with a bundled papyrus deliberately placed on its abdomen during embalming. The fragment contained part of the “Catalogue of Ships” from Book II of Homer’s Iliad, which lists the Greek forces assembled for the Trojan War. Although archaeologists had previously found Greek papyri in similar positions, those contained magical or ritual texts. Researchers called this the first known case of a Greek literary work being deliberately incorporated into mummification.
12. Based on 2023 data, Iceland ranked first in the Human Development Index and the inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, according to the UNDP’s 2025 Human Development Report. Its standard HDI was 0.972, while its score fell by only 5 percent to 0.923 after accounting for inequality in health, education, and income. Iceland therefore led the world not only in average human development but also after those achievements were adjusted for how evenly they were distributed.
13. Australian actor Russell Crowe was director Bryan Singer’s first choice to play Wolverine in the 2000 film X-Men. Crowe declined the role but recommended his friend and fellow Australian actor Hugh Jackman. Producers initially cast Dougray Scott, but scheduling conflicts with Mission: Impossible 2 forced him to withdraw shortly before filming. Jackman then received the part that transformed him from a little-known actor into an international star.
14. In November 1982, 10-year-old American schoolgirl Samantha Smith wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov asking why the Soviet Union wanted to wage war and conquer other countries. Andropov replied in April 1983, denied that his country wanted a nuclear war, and invited her to visit. Smith toured the Soviet Union with her parents that summer and became an international celebrity and symbol of US-Soviet peace known as “America’s Youngest Ambassador.” She died at age 13 when Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 crashed while approaching an airport in Maine.
15. NBA sixth man Junior Bridgeman spent his offseasons working at Wendy’s to learn how the fast-food franchise business operated. After retiring in 1987, he built an empire of more than 450 restaurants, including over 160 Wendy’s and 120 Chili’s locations. In 2024, he purchased a 10 percent stake in the Milwaukee Bucks, the team for which he had played most of his career.
16 Shackleton’s Crew Used Cocaine-And-Caffeine Tablets
During the desperate return from Ernest Shackleton’s 1907-1909 Nimrod expedition, his four-man polar party used cocaine-and-caffeine “Forced March” tablets to keep moving. At one point, their food ran out, leaving them to spend roughly 36 hours consuming only the stimulant tablets and cocoa. Frostbitten, starving, and struggling to remain awake, they continued until they found food again, after which Frank Wild called the meal “the finest meal we had ever tasted.”
17. Mary Leona Gage won Miss USA 1957, becoming the first woman from Maryland to claim the crown. Just one day later, she admitted that she was actually 18 rather than 21, was married, and had two young sons. Since being a wife and mother violated the contest rules, Gage was stripped of her title, and her crown and prizes went to runner-up Charlotte Sheffield.
18. Dolly Parton initially tried to withdraw her 2022 nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because, as a country singer, she did not feel that she had earned the honor. After being inducted anyway, she promised to record a rock album to justify her inclusion. The result was 2023’s Rockstar, her only full-length rock album, featuring collaborations with artists including Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, and Stevie Nicks.
19. In January 2009, American financial adviser Marcus Schrenker tried to fake his death by falsely reporting that his plane’s windshield had shattered and he was bleeding profusely. He then activated the autopilot and parachuted over Alabama, leaving the empty aircraft to fly another 200 miles before crashing near a residential area in Florida. Schrenker escaped on a motorcycle he had hidden beforehand, but an email to a friend exposed his location. Authorities found him two days later inside a tent at a campground in Quincy, Florida.
20. The United States Postal Service’s unofficial motto, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” is based on a description written more than 2,500 years ago. Ancient Greek historian Herodotus used similar words in The Histories to praise the mounted couriers of the Persian Empire. The modern wording became associated with American mail after it was inscribed on New York City’s James A. Farley Post Office Building, which opened in 1914, although it has never been the Postal Service’s official motto.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Alan Bean Blinded Apollo’s Camera
During Apollo 12’s first moonwalk in November 1969, astronaut Alan Bean accidentally pointed the mission’s color television camera directly at the Sun while mounting it on a tripod. The intense sunlight damaged its vidicon imaging tube beyond use, ending live television coverage from the lunar surface for the remainder of the mission.
22. A 2026 study found that passenger-capacity signs on many European lifts have become unrealistic as obesity levels and average body weight have risen. Researchers looked at 112 lifts built between 1972 and 2024 and found most makers still allow around 75 kilograms per passenger, about four kilograms under the current average adult weight. This means that some lifts may not be safe or comfortable for the number of passengers shown on their signs, and may even stop automatically if the total weight limit is exceeded.
23. While returning from the Third Crusade in 1192, King Richard the Lionheart was captured near Vienna and eventually imprisoned by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. The emperor demanded 150,000 marks, equivalent to 100,000 pounds of silver and two to three times the English Crown’s annual income. To raise the money, clergy and laypeople were taxed one-quarter of their property’s value, while churches surrendered their gold and silver treasures. Richard was finally released in February 1194.
24. Cardinal Richelieu, portrayed by Tim Curry in the 1993 film The Three Musketeers was so widely hated that bonfires were lit across several French provinces to celebrate his death in 1642. More than 150 years later, revolutionaries opened his tomb at the Sorbonne and stole the preserved front of his head. It passed through private hands and was occasionally exhibited until Napoleon III arranged for its return and reinterment in 1866.
25. German cancer researcher and Nobel laureate Otto Heinrich Warburg remained in Berlin and continued his work under Nazi rule despite his Jewish ancestry and openly being homosexual. He was banned from teaching and briefly dismissed in 1941, but Hitler’s Chancellery ordered his reinstatement within weeks. The Nazis valued his cancer research partly because Hitler, whose mother had died from breast cancer, was obsessed with finding a cure for this disease.
RE: Fact #23 (Richard’s Ransom Drained England’s Churches) – Henry VI wanted that massive ransom because he needed the funds to secure Sicily, which was allied with Richard. Richard had famously torn down Duke Leopold of Austria’s banner during the Siege of Acre. The French were also heavily involved, wanting Richard’s brother John to take the throne, with John planning to hand over Évreux to the French in exchange for their support.
RE: Fact #11 (Iliad Fragment Accompanied Egyptian Mummy) – I had no idea people were still being mummified in Egypt as late as the fourth or fifth century AD.
This specific mummy was technically Roman since Rome controlled Egypt then, but the Romans were huge fans of Egyptian culture and kept the mummification tradition going for a bit longer.
Ancient Egyptian religion actually hung around in a modified Greek form until Emperor Theodosius ordered the destruction of all pagan temples.
Here is a simplified timeline of Ancient Egypt: – Old Kingdom to 1st Intermediate Period – Middle Kingdom – 2nd Intermediate Period – New Kingdom to 3rd Intermediate Period – Greek/Ptolemaic Egypt to Roman Egypt So yeah, this is from the Roman period, which is way different from the “Ancient Egypt” most people picture.
RE: Fact #26 honestly not surprised. One of Hitlers famous photos has him with his favorite child (his words, not mine); a little jewish girl. If memory serves, her and her family were spared and protected on his orders. It would not surprise me if he spared and protected more than was recorded in the history books.
RE: Fact #15 (Junior Bridgeman Built Fast-Food Empire) – He was a pretty sharp businessman if you read into his history. He sold off some restaurants, picked up a Coca-Cola bottling company, and teamed up with others to buy aluminum factories. He even bought Ebony and Jet when they went bankrupt. His son is now the CEO of the restaurant group, and his daughter runs Ebony and Jet.
RE: Fact #5 (Anchor Chain Rust Steals Oxygen) – Enclosed spaces are incredibly hazardous, and the threat of hypoxia is terrifying if you know what to look for. You walk in, collapse seconds later, and unless there’s a crew nearby with SCBA gear ready, you’re pretty much gone.
Rotting potatoes are just as dangerous for the same reason. It’s something that really gives me nightmares.
RE: Fact #35 (Finnish Bottleneck Concentrated Rare Diseases) – Isn’t that wild? You get desperate and sleep with your cousin once, and 4, 000 years later everyone is still dealing with it.
RE: Fact #44 (Orenstein Invented Poker’s Hidden-Card Camera) – Talk about a convenient turn of events, inventing the under-the-table camera and then going on to win a poker tournament.
RE: Fact #2 (Dolly Parton Invested Whitney’s Millions) – I remember hearing a radio interview where she said she actually preferred Whitney Houston’s version of the song. That’s such a classy move from someone who knows who they are and doesn’t need to be petty or jealous. RIP to a legend.
That is what real confidence looks like. When you know you don’t have anything to prove, you can genuinely celebrate someone else’s success, even if that success involves “beating” you.
Dolly was always incredibly secure. She never felt threatened because she wasn’t into competition, she stayed in her own lane, knew her worth, and didn’t feel the need to put others down. Almost every interaction she had with other artists was positive. I don’t think she ever had drama with anyone; if someone insulted her, she either ignored it or responded with pure class. I love that famous story where she was asked about the ‘dumb blonde’ stereotype and replied, ‘I’m not offended by all the blonde jokes because I’m not dumb, and I also know that I’m not blonde.’
She’s definitely said that a few times. I saw an old interview where she mentioned it, and she brought it up again in a recent BBC documentary. What’s great about Dolly is that if you listen to her across 40 years, her core opinions haven’t changed. Her politics feel genuine, her music isn’t just about marketing, and her confidence seems natural. She’s been a remarkable person from the start.
RE: Fact #22 (Lift Signs Underestimate Modern Passengers) – Elevators define their limits in kilograms, and the passenger count is really just for show. For two men and two women, the math is not actually that far off.
Schindler elevators usually set it at 80 kg. It has probably been a long time since they picked that number, though, because the old elevator from the 60s and the new one they installed last year both have the same ratings.
RE: Fact #13 (Russell Crowe Recommended Hugh Jackman) – All roads eventually led him to playing a priest on a Vespa in that exorcism movie. He definitely made the right career moves.
RE: Fact #34 (Alfred Reoccupied Abandoned Roman London) – By the time Napoleon reached Rome, the population was less than 20% of what it had been at the height of the Roman Empire over 1, 600 years earlier.
RE: Fact #19 (Marcus Schrenker Faked Death Midflight) – What a complete idiot. He messed up almost every part of that plan.
I remember it differently, I thought he planned to have the plane crash into the ocean on autopilot, but it just ran out of fuel too early.
If I recall, he stashed a motorcycle in the woods to reach the campsite after parachuting. It’s strange; he had some skills, but his whole approach felt like something a 14-year-old would think is clever. Trying to disappear with that kind of mindset is exactly why he got caught. What was his long-term plan, just riding the rails like a Depression-era hobo?
RE: Fact #48 (Prion-Free Goats Remain Apparently Healthy) – This is so interesting. Usually, when we knock out that gene in mice, they end up with demyelination disorders, so it is wild that these goats are living healthy lives.
RE: Fact #15 (Junior Bridgeman Built Fast-Food Empire) – Bridgeman even made his managers put in time at the drive-thru, since he saw that as the heart of any fast food place.
RE: Fact #36 (Vatican Trains Priests In Exorcism) – If you look at the updates to the Roman Ritual throughout the 20th century, you can see the advice getting more specific about the dangers of exorcism and the importance of referring the mentally ill to medical professionals. It makes sense that the requirements have become much stricter than they were a couple of centuries ago.
RE: Fact #18 (Dolly Parton’s Induction Inspired Rockstar) – Dolly is one of the few celebrities I actually wanted to meet.
RE: Fact #35 (Finnish Bottleneck Concentrated Rare Diseases) – This isn’t unique to Finland at all. It’s the founder effect, where mutations concentrate in small groups isolated by geography, culture, or history. You see the same thing with Tyrosinemia Type 1 in Quebec or Ellis-van Creveld syndrome among the Amish.
RE: Fact #40 (Bruises Can Permanently Stain Skin) – I definitely have a dark spot from a bad hip pointer I got back when I was playing rugby. It has been there for over 20 years now, even though the skin never broke.
RE: Fact #3 (Clela Rorex Licensed Same-Sex Marriage) – It is wild that people actually took the time to write or call their county clerk over this. Five couples they didn’t even know got married, and they were so bothered by it they felt the need to complain.
If even a few same-sex couples get married, people might eventually realize that their local communities didn’t actually collapse or get struck down by a higher power. Once that sets in, they might realize all the fear-mongering about same-sex relationships being dangerous was totally overblown. Some might even become tolerant, and we can’t have that, right?
RE: Fact #35 (Finnish Bottleneck Concentrated Rare Diseases) – That’s true. On the flip side, some genetic diseases that are common elsewhere are rare in Finland because they didn’t go through that bottleneck. Cystic fibrosis is a good example; it’s common in Europe but extremely rare in Finland.
RE: Fact #20 (Postal Motto Echoes Herodotus’s Couriers) – It’s total nonsense. I’m a mail carrier, and I get told to stop working because of the ‘gloom of night’ or heavy snow several times a year. Management definitely doesn’t care about the heat or the rain, though.
RE: Fact #4 (Juanita Jordan Investigated Michael’s Infidelity) – I actually saw Michael Jordan in Saint Tropez with his new wife. The irony was that he was wearing a t-shirt featuring a massive photo of himself.
RE: Fact #31 (Langer Declared North Dakota Independent) – Say what you want, but it is hilarious that he was reelected just two years later. It is also depressing because it makes perfect sense.
Essentially, he was a corrupt demagogue whose supporters didn’t care about his scandals because he saved their farms. Even with his extreme methods, he got the job done. I looked into it briefly, and he basically built a massive cult of personality among desperate farmers during the Great Depression. He provided real financial relief and prevented hundreds of foreclosures. He even used the National Guard to block wheat exports until prices rose and stopped banks from foreclosing on farms. When he faced fraud charges, he fought them until they were dismissed, then spun the whole thing as a political hit job against a guy who fought for the ‘little guy.’ It worked, and he won re-election. Later, as a senator, he supported civil rights and even stood up against the internment of Japanese Americans, while also calling out the red scare for the nonsense it was.
RE: Fact #9 (Parton Congratulated Three 6 Mafia) – Calling Dolly Parton ‘gracious’ feels like an understatement. This doesn’t surprise me at all.
RE: Fact #16 (Shackleton’s Crew Used Cocaine-And-Caffeine Tablets) – They all made it out alive, though. A real testament to British spirit, led by an Irishman.
RE: Fact #20 (Postal Motto Echoes Herodotus’s Couriers) – Funny enough, Herodotus was talking about the Persian Empire’s courier system. The architects of that NYC post office just carved the line into the stone back in 1912, and everyone just assumed it was the official motto.
RE: Fact #6 (Cryptic Pregnancies Hide Until Childbirth) – That has to be one of the most terrifying, stressful situations imaginable. A surprise birth sounds like a total nightmare.
I know a couple who had this happen when they were only 18. She was 120 lbs and didn’t show at all, plus she kept having her regular periods. No morning sickness, nothing. One day she had back pain, tried a bath and ibuprofen, and it just got worse. Her partner drove her to the ER, and thirty minutes later, he got a call saying, ‘Brittany is fine, but you’re going to need a car seat.’ She gave birth to a healthy, full-term boy right there. They were incredibly shocked, but luckily the community pulled together to get them everything they needed. It was a massive adjustment, but the baby just turned 13, and they’re actually still together.
The show ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant’ tried to raise awareness, but it’s so surreal that most people don’t believe it’s real until it happens to someone they know.
RE: Fact #30 (Ancient Courts Tortured Enslaved Witnesses) – Torture is a useless way to get the truth; it just makes the victim say whatever the torturer wants to hear.
RE: Fact #41 (Germany Uses One Alternative-Medicine License) – It is less of a test for real medical expertise and more of a check to ensure you aren’t an immediate threat to public health.
Alternative medicine sucks up a patient’s time, money, and effort, often during windows where early medical intervention is crucial. Is it inherently harmful just by acting as a distraction from real treatment?
RE: Fact #13 (Russell Crowe Recommended Hugh Jackman) – He actually suggested they hire a “huge, jacked man” for the role, and they just ran with it.
RE: Fact #7 (Chernobyl Became History’s Costliest Disaster) – The book ‘Midnight in Chernobyl’ really makes the case that the massive cost of cleaning up that disaster was a major factor in the Soviet Union’s collapse.
RE: Fact #12 (Iceland Leads Both Development Indexes) – The fact that Iceland only has about 300, 000 people really helps. It gets much tougher to keep inequality in check as a population grows. I’ve got to give credit to Germany for being the only country with a large population to crack the top 10.
RE: Fact #44 (Orenstein Invented Poker’s Hidden-Card Camera) – This invention did so much to make poker a mainstream spectacle. Trying to watch a poker game on TV without knowing at least one person’s hole cards is just painful.
RE: Fact #50 (Ryazan Slaughtered Its Own Success) – In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev wanted to ‘catch up and overtake America’ by tripling meat production in three years. When the Central Committee did not see the growth they wanted, they issued a decree demanding ‘decisive action.’ Alexei Larionov stepped up and promised he could hit the goal in one year, which he told Khrushchev in person in 1958. To make it happen, Larionov slaughtered all the 1959 calves, wiped out most of the breeding and dairy stock, snatched up private cattle from farmers, and bought meat from other areas. By late 1959, Ryazan hit its 150, 000-ton goal, triple the year prior. Larionov got the ‘Hero of Socialist Labour’ title and the region got the Order of Lenin. But in 1960, production fell off a cliff to 30, 000 tons because of the mass slaughter. Farmers stopped working because their cattle were gone, which halved grain production too. By that fall, he was fired, and on October 10, 1960, he killed himself. Khrushchev had other obsessions too, like forcing farmers to plant maize in regions where it would not grow, which all damaged his image and helped lead to his removal in 1964. Also, Mao Zedong was inspired by Khrushchev’s talk and started the ‘Great Leap Forward’ in 1958, ignoring Soviet warnings.
Then some Wall Street type read about this and thought, ‘What a great idea!’ And that, my friends, is how Private Equity was born.
RE: Fact #30 (Ancient Courts Tortured Enslaved Witnesses) – This is the kind of stuff they never include in the movies. It really makes you question people who romanticize history.
RE: Fact #12 (Iceland Leads Both Development Indexes) – They’ve also snagged 9 out of 48 World’s Strongest Man titles, which is wild for a population of only 395, 000.
RE: Fact #8 (Gerard Butler Improvised Sparta’s Scream) – There are whole generations out there who have no idea how much this line dominated the early internet.
RE: Fact #43 (Akbar Collected Thousands Of Cheetahs) – Tigers were heavily hunted too, but unlike them, the cheetah was completely wiped out in India. It was declared extinct there in 1952 and now they are putting massive resources into trying to bring them back.
RE: Fact #43 (Akbar Collected Thousands Of Cheetahs) – What is even more heartbreaking is that cheetahs almost never attack humans.
RE: Fact #32 (Tree-Of-Heaven Toxins May Protect Lanternflies) – Birds will eat them, but when the lanternflies feed on the Tree of Heaven, they absorb toxins that make them bitter and can actually get the birds sick. In their native range in China, they have natural predators like parasitic wasps, praying mantises, and spiders.
RE: Fact #11 (Iliad Fragment Accompanied Egyptian Mummy) – As a fellow book lover, I totally get the urge. Bury me with my favorite reads, too!
RE: Fact #38 (Stress Odor Alters Dogs’ Expectations) – Humans can smell stress too. The unique thing here is that dogs can pick it up across species.
RE: Fact #33 (Denmark’s Farmland Covers Sixty Percent) – Thinking 60% of Denmark is farmland is like me having a veggie patch in my Aussie backyard.
RE: Fact #10 (Sherwin-Williams Withheld Million-Dollar Home-Run Donation) – Ah the insurance. The good guys !
They were probably thinking, ‘Those sick kids didn’t really need the money anyway.’
RE: Fact #49 (Adenosine Briefly Pauses The Heart) – It is wild that adenosine does this at high concentrations, considering it is not really just a ‘drug.’ It is basically in every living thing. It is a building block of our DNA and RNA, and it makes up the ‘A’ in ATP, which you probably remember from biology class as the energy source for our cells. Because biology loves to reuse the same mechanisms, our brains also use it as a signaling chemical. It binds to specific receptors to help us feel sleepy, acting as one of the body’s ‘rest and digest’ signals.
RE: Fact #37 (Opry Welcomed Thirteen-Year-Old Dolly Parton) – I was lucky enough to see her perform at the Opry when I was younger. She was truly amazing.
RE: Fact #28 (Bullet’s Unlikely Path Killed Cooley) – My yoga studio in downtown Los Angeles shares a wall with an indoor shooting range. It is pretty distracting while you are trying to balance, and I am already terrible at yoga. I hope there are no more magic bullets like that.
RE: Fact #37 (Opry Welcomed Thirteen-Year-Old Dolly Parton) – It seems like everyone respected and liked her, no matter what kind of music they were into.
RE: Fact #24 (Revolutionaries Stole Richelieu’s Preserved Head) – In the later Musketeer novels, the main characters actually look back on Richelieu with some fondness, noting how much better he was than the person who replaced him.
RE: Fact #1 (Fair Play Gives Readers Clues) – This is a huge gripe I have with the game Heavy Rain. It’s a detective mystery that literally lies to the player to make it impossible to solve until the final reveal. I had my wife play through it, and near the end, she said, ‘I think I know who the killer is, but the game insists it can’t be them, so I must be wrong.’ She was right.
RE: Fact #29 (Gallaudet Protesters Ousted Incoming President) – During my ASL classes, it was often mentioned that the deaf community can be prideful to a fault. There is often a push against things like cochlear implants and a real sense of suspicion toward anyone who isn’t deaf, even if they are fluent in ASL.
RE: Fact #21 (Alan Bean Blinded Apollo’s Camera) – My understanding is that he didn’t point it at the sun directly, but at the reflection on the foil covering the lunar module’s descent stage. The researcher who covered this definitely did his homework.
RE: Fact #28 (Bullet’s Unlikely Path Killed Cooley) – I had heard about this story, but I never realized the victim was only 14. That is just heartbreaking.
Right, I remember that recreation in the show where the person sitting there just slumps over.
RE: Fact #15 (Junior Bridgeman Built Fast-Food Empire) – He was, and still is, really beloved in Louisville.
RE: Fact #19 (Marcus Schrenker Faked Death Midflight) – He radioed that his windshield imploded and he was bleeding out, yet they found the plane with an intact windshield and zero blood. Plus, he made that call right near an air base, so jets were on him immediately. Then he actually asked the police for help finding a place to stay. This guy was a total moron.
RE: Fact #40 (Bruises Can Permanently Stain Skin) – I slammed my leg in a car door and the mark is still there 8 years later. No idea how I managed to do that to myself.
RE: Fact #48 (Prion-Free Goats Remain Apparently Healthy) – It would be amazing if we could figure out how to safely shut down normal prion protein production in humans. We could stop the disease right in its tracks. As far as I know, knocking it out in lab animals is not usually a huge deal, though I suspect it is much harder to pull off in humans even with all our gene therapy progress.
RE: Fact #1 (Fair Play Gives Readers Clues) – That’s definitely better than those early detective stories where it suddenly turns out the murderer was an orangutan. We need more stories ending with an orangutan-ex-machina.
RE: Fact #13 (Russell Crowe Recommended Hugh Jackman) – Can you imagine Crowe having to stay in that kind of shape for 30 years? He would have hated it. Honestly, it sounds like both guys ended up exactly where they wanted to be.
RE: Fact #6 (Cryptic Pregnancies Hide Until Childbirth) – A friend of mine went through this! Her first pregnancy was typical, but the second one showed absolutely no symptoms until the baby arrived. Both of her daughters are healthy.
RE: Fact #41 (Germany Uses One Alternative-Medicine License) – Germany is totally obsessed with this stuff and it is a goldmine for grifters. Homeopathy is sold in regular pharmacies, which legitimizes it, and some insurance even covers it. I have a GP near my house who is a trained medic but also offers homeopathy. I cannot grasp how someone with a scientific background thinks sugar pills can cure anything. Note that this is different from natural herbal remedies like teas or ointments, which can actually help with symptoms, but homeopathy is pure placebo.
RE: Fact #42 (Nigeria’s Life Expectancy Ranks Lowest) – That is the lowest reported life expectancy. I can only imagine places like Mauritania aren’t doing much better.
RE: Fact #10 (Sherwin-Williams Withheld Million-Dollar Home-Run Donation) – On the other hand, the Cincinnati Reds have a promotion where a fan wins a truck if a player hits a specific sign. It’s never actually been hit, but once Jesse Winker came within three inches, and the team and the dealership just said ‘close enough’ and gave him the truck anyway.
RE: Fact #42 (Nigeria’s Life Expectancy Ranks Lowest) – Lowest life expectancy among the countries that actually have the ability to record it.
RE: Fact #38 (Stress Odor Alters Dogs’ Expectations) – I think this has been known for a while. I remember hearing that dogs sometimes try to comfort stressed people to get them to stop ‘stinking’ of stress. I’ve noticed dogs doing that to me before, too.
I love the idea that we think dogs are being sweet by comforting us, when really they’re just disgusted by the smell of our stress and don’t know any other way to make it stop.
RE: Fact #27 (Se7en’s Ending Survived Studio Interference) – That bleak ending is exactly what made it such an effective, memorable psychological horror. If they had gone with a conventional ending, it would have just been another forgettable cop movie in that star-studded catalog.