26 Shazam Outsold Superman Until Lawsuit
In 1939, Fawcett Comics debuted Billy Batson’s superhero alter ego, then called Captain Marvel (now known as Shazam), whose titles became some of the world’s bestselling comics and sometimes outsold Superman. Detective Comics, Inc., the company that became DC, argued that Captain Marvel copied Superman and took Fawcett to court. The lawsuit lasted more than a decade and ended with National Comics Publications prevailing, forcing Fawcett to stop publishing the hero. In 1972, DC licensed the Marvel Family and reintroduced Captain Marvel in Shazam! #1.
27. In 2014, Cascades Elementary School in Lebanon, Oregon, ended a “pay-to-pee” practice that charged students “Super Pro” bucks for bathroom visits outside three scheduled breaks. Children could instead save the fake money for trinkets at the school store, giving them an incentive to hold it in. A first-grade girl named Lily had an accident while trying not to spend her bucks, while other children feared penalties on classroom behavior charts. After parents complained, the principal ended the payment and chart penalties, although teachers could still remove two minutes of recess for unscheduled bathroom visits.
28. While casting Kung Fu Hustle (2004), Hong Kong filmmaker Stephen Chow spotted martial artist and actress Yuen Qiu even though she had not come to audition for the role of Landlady. She had accompanied a friend and sat off to the side, slouching with a cigarette in her mouth while the friend auditioned. Chow’s team had spent more than a year seeking someone who looked dowdy, could perform kung fu, and connected the film to the older movies he loved. After Chow learned who Yuen Qiu was, he cast her in the role.
29. In 1984, Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter’s crossover series Secret Wars received its name after Mattel focus groups found that children responded positively to the words “secret” and “wars.” Marvel originally announced the 12-issue series as Cosmic Champions but renamed it while developing a related Mattel toy line. Mattel also influenced the story and designs, asking Marvel to upgrade Doctor Doom and Iron Man’s armor and add fortresses, vehicles, and weapons with greater play value. Secret Wars became a bestseller, selling more copies than any other comic published during the previous 25 years.
30. In 1917, British Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry attended a London school production of Julius Caesar and watched 10-year-old future actor Laurence Olivier play Brutus. She wrote in her diary, “The small boy who played Brutus is already a great actor.” Olivier later earned praise in school productions of Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream before beginning his professional stage career in 1925.
31 Radioactive Decay Powers Earth’s Interior
About half of Earth’s internal heat comes not from residual warmth left over from the planet’s formation but from ongoing radioactive decay in the crust and mantle. Uranium-238, uranium-235, thorium-232, and potassium-40 produce most of this radiogenic heat as they decay. Scientists estimate Earth’s total internal heat flow at about 47 terawatts. This energy drives mantle convection, plate tectonics, mountain building, metamorphism, and volcanism, while core convection helps sustain Earth’s magnetic field.
32. British poet John Milton is credited with introducing about 630 words into English, compared with roughly 229 attributed to British playwright William Shakespeare. Cambridge University English lecturer Gavin Alexander reached those totals by searching the Oxford English Dictionary for the earliest recorded uses. Milton’s credited additions include “pandemonium,” “sensuous,” and “complacency,” along with using “space” to mean outer space.
33. In late 1993, American kickboxer and martial arts world champion Fredia Gibbs encountered serial killer Lonnie Franklin Jr., later known as the Grim Sleeper, at a domino game in Inglewood, California. Franklin drugged her drinks, trapped her inside his van, and attempted to rape her. Gibbs fought him off and escaped, becoming one of only two known survivors of his attacks.
34. In 1904, the cookbook Cooking in Old Creole Days included a “raw beef soup” made from one pound of chipped beef, four ounces of water, and four drops of muriatic acid, now called hydrochloric acid. The recipe kept the mixture on ice for 12 hours, warmed the sealed jar in a bain-marie for one hour, then strained and chilled it again. It instructed readers to serve the cold soup as nourishment for very ill people.
35. In 52 CE, ancient Korean King Mobon of Goguryeo began using his subjects as human furniture, sitting on them or resting his head on them like pillows. He killed anyone who moved and shot arrows at subjects who tried to advise him. In 53 CE, an attendant named Duro hid a knife and approached the king after growing fearful of him. When Mobon pulled Duro close and sat on him, Duro drew the knife and stabbed the king to death.
36 Bread Erased Mistakes Before Rubber
For centuries before rubber erasers appeared, artists and writers removed pencil marks with rolled-up pieces of crustless white bread. In 1770, an English optician named Edward Nairne reportedly discovered rubber’s erasing ability after accidentally picking up rubber instead of breadcrumbs. He began selling natural rubber erasers for three shillings per half-inch cube, although the material remained perishable until Charles Goodyear developed vulcanization in 1839.
37. At Brussels Airport in Belgium, travelers buy more chocolate than at any other location in the world, averaging one 500-gram box being sold every 15 seconds. Foreign tourists returning home and Belgians visiting relatives commonly purchase it as a portable gift. Those sales total more than 650 tons of chocolate and 32 million euros each year.
38. The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, inspired American writer Stephen King to create The Shining, but director Stanley Kubrick did not film the movie there. King stayed at the nearly empty hotel on October 30, 1974, and developed the book’s premise after experiencing a frightening dream. The 1994 comedy Dumb and Dumber later used the Stanley as its fictional Danbury Hotel. Jim Carrey reportedly requested Room 217 during filming but left after three hours and never publicly explained why.
39. Consumed by a forbidden passion for his stepmother, Queen Stratonice of Syria, Seleucid prince Antiochus reportedly became gravely ill. In 294 BC, his father, King Seleucus I Nicator, tried to save his life by ending his own marriage to Stratonice and marrying her to his son Antiochus. Seleucus also made his son king of the empire’s eastern provinces. Antiochus and Stratonice had five children, and he later named the city of Stratonikeia in Caria after her.
40. From 1790 until 2015, Paris bakers had to notify city hall before closing for vacation, allowing roughly half to close in July and the other half in August. French lawmakers introduced the rule after bread shortages helped fuel the 1789 French Revolution, when bread served as a main food staple for poor citizens. The rotation ensured that every Paris neighborhood retained access to fresh baguettes throughout the summer. In 2015, the mayor abolished the 225-year-old rule to reduce bureaucracy.
41 POW Parole Predated Prison Camps
During much of the 18th century, European armies commonly released captured enemy soldiers on parole instead of confining them in permanent prisoner-of-war camps. The prisoners promised not to take up arms again, following a practice that had become standard in Europe after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Britain finally established the earliest known purpose-built POW camp at Norman Cross in 1797 as the French Revolutionary Wars produced increasing numbers of prisoners.
42. For more than 2,000 years, Daoist adepts explored methods of avoiding ejaculation through huanjing bunao, literally “returning the semen or essence to replenish the brain.” Practitioners maintained arousal through an extended plateau phase while avoiding orgasm, using breath control, visualization, pressure on the perineum, or squeezing the urethra. They believed that retained jing could rise through the spine, nourish the brain, and improve well-being. In reality, some physical techniques cause retrograde ejaculation, which redirects semen into the bladder rather than the brain.
43. In 2019, Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo opened its first Kletskassa, or chat checkout, for customers who were not in a hurry and wanted to talk with the cashier. The checkout formed part of a Dutch health ministry program designed to combat loneliness, particularly among older people. Customers responded so positively that Jumbo announced plans in 2021 to introduce another 200 chat checkouts, especially in areas where loneliness posed a problem. Some stores also added chat corners where local residents could drink coffee and talk.
44. New Zealand’s Alpine Fault has a 75 percent chance of rupturing within the next 50 years, and the rupture would produce an earthquake around magnitude 8. The 600-kilometer fault runs along the spine of the South Island, forming the on-land boundary between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates. It has ruptured four times in the past 1,100 years, producing an earthquake of about magnitude 8 each time. The next rupture would cause one of New Zealand’s largest earthquakes since European settlement.
45. Insurance companies sell hole-in-one policies that allow golf tournaments to offer $1 million prizes without carrying the entire financial risk. Through prize indemnification, the insurer backs the award and pays when a qualifying contestant scores an ace. Actuaries estimate the odds at 12,500 to 1 for an average golfer and 2,500 to 1 for a professional, while some contests offer prizes worth as much as $4 million.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Avengers Cast Received Day-Of Ending
Actress Elizabeth Olsen said the Avengers: Infinity War cast learned the movie’s ending inside an air-conditioned van on the day they filmed it. Marvel protected the secret by giving cast members incomplete or fake scripts, while directors Anthony and Joe Russo said very few actors had seen the real movie. After revealing the ending inside the van, the directors immediately sent the actors out to film the scene.
47. During World War II, future British actress Audrey Hepburn secretly carried messages for the Dutch Resistance while living under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. At age 15, she refused to join the Nazi-controlled artists’ union and instead performed clandestine ballets inside safe houses, where audiences watched silently and donated money to the Resistance. In spring 1944, Hepburn began assisting a Resistance doctor named Hendrik Visser ‘t Hooft, who once sent her into a forest with a secret message hidden inside her sock for a British paratrooper. When Dutch police approached her afterward, she offered them wildflowers and avoided interrogation.
48. In 2025, Croatian freediver Vitomir Maricic set an official Guinness World Record by holding his breath underwater for 29 minutes and 3 seconds in a 3-meter pool. Before submerging, he spent 10 minutes breathing pure oxygen, which Guinness permits in its oxygen-assisted category. Years of specialized training helped him tolerate rising carbon dioxide levels, while remaining motionless reduced his oxygen consumption. Maricic warned that the stunt required professional preparation and should never be attempted without expert supervision.
49. An estimated 600 million people worldwide chew areca nut, commonly called betel nut, with habitual use serving as a major cause of oral cancer. Its main alkaloid, arecoline, damages DNA in epithelial cells and suppresses the tumor-fighting protein p53. A 2026 study estimated that betel nut use could account for 70.5% of oral cancer cases in India and 53.7% in Taiwan. However, only 51.3% of Indian participants knew about the cancer risk, compared with 95.2% in Taiwan.
50. The nation referenced in the National Hockey League’s name originally meant Canada, not the United States. When the NHL formed in Montreal on November 26, 1917, all four founding franchises were Canadian. The league remained entirely Canadian until the Boston Bruins became its first American team in 1924.
