1Criminal law
West Germany fully decriminalized homosexual acts between males only in 1994 after criminal law needed reconciliation with the law in East Germany, where it had been decriminalized since 1968.
2. When stepped on a landmine, it never makes a soft "click" and explodes after the pressure is lifted like in the movies. It explodes the moment you step on it.
3. Yoga is more dangerous than previously thought, and causes as many injuries as other sports. It can also exacerbate existing pain, with 21% of existing injuries worsened.
4. According to “Solomon Curve” (also called the “Crash Risk Curve”), drivers traveling 5 mph (8 km/h) above the average speed of traffic are statistically the least likely to be involved in a crash while crash risk increases dramatically when traveling below the average speed.
5. Alice In Chains' lead vocalist Layne Staley in response to an article in 1998 asking, "Who will wipe and change the band now?" after their manager retired, mailed a jar of piss and a bag of his own feces to the magazine with a note attached that read, "Wipe and change this, motherf***ers!"
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6Billie Holiday
After abusing alcohol and drugs for the better half of her life, iconic jazz singer Billie Holiday was swindled out of her earnings and died with all of 70 cents in the bank.
7. Jim Dale performed 300 voices for the Harry Potter Audiobooks and had to playback recordings of himself on set to remember each one, each time.
8. In music, an 8th note is called a 'Quaver', a 16th note is called a 'Semiquaver', a 32nd note is called a 'Demisemiquaver', a 64th note is called a 'Hemidemisemiquaver', a 128th note is called a 'Semihemidemisemiquaver' and a 256th note is called a 'Demisemihemidemisemiquaver'.
9. Futurama Comics have been released bi-monthly since 2000, and it continues to keep the series alive after the show's cancellation.
10. The piece that holds the rotor blades to the helicopter is known as the "Jesus nut".
11Wild Samoans
While wrestler Hulk Hogan was traveling with tag team duo, the Wild Samoans, whose gimmick was to never speak in public, police found an unregistered handgun in Hogan's car. Hogan begged the Samoans to come to his defense. The Samoans refused to break character and all three men went to jail.
12. John Rhys-Davies who played Gimli the dwarf in Lord of the Rings is the tallest member of the Fellowship at 6'1".
13. A Dairy Queen in Franklin, PA, has one of only four surviving Apollo command module boilerplates displayed in its front yard.
14. When North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was parodied in the film Team America: World Police (2004), the Democratic People's Republic of Korea asked the Czech Republic to ban the film.
15. You aren’t allowed to spin your players in Foosball.
16Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley's autopsy and toxicology reports are the property of the Presley estate and are sealed from public view until 2027 ie., 50 years after his death.
17. Spain's first documented serial killer, Manuel Romasanta, was raised a girl till he was 6 because his parents thought he was a female.
18. "Orang" in Orangutan does not refer to the color orange, but rather the Indonesian word for "person".
19. Watermelon mosaic virus is a virus that "draws" circles on watermelons.
20. Horses cannot vomit due to the angle their esophagus enters their stomach and the muscle tone of their esophagogastric junction. If a horse does vomit it means that they are close to death.
21Fake bus stop
In Senior Centre in Düsseldorf, the adminstrators have set up a fake bus stop as a means to keep Alzheimer's patients from wandering off. The idea was so successful that it has been adopted by several other homes across Germany.
22. Poposicle ice pops were originally known as Epsicles, as they were invented in 1905 by 11-year-old Frank Epperson. Epperson shared the frozen treat with his kids many years later, at which point they became known as "Pop's sickles," leading up to a patent on the frozen treat in 1923.
23. Ben Hawkey, the actor in Game of Thrones who plays Hotpie, opened his own bakery and sells Direwolf shaped bread.
24. Up until the 1600s, a “black swan” was a metaphor for something that did not exist. Then a group of Dutch explorers became the first Europeans to see black swans in Western Australia in 1697, and the phrase was amended to mean “a perceived impossibility that might later be disproven.”
25. Honeycrisp apples were developed in 1974 by the University of Minnesota and patent royalties have generated more than $10 million by 2011 for the University.