1Truvia sweetener
A Sixth-grader's science fair project discovered that Truvia sweetener is an insecticide.
2. Many rock drawings of animals by native Americans have turned out to be complex regional maps, with the animals representing herd locations. They were both hunting guides and warning signs.
3. American actress Betty White is older than Mickey Mouse.
4. A pod of orcas hunted cooperatively with early Australian whalers under a "law of the tongue". They would corral and locate prey in return for the tongues and lips of captured whales. The arrangement ended when one of the orcas was accidentally killed.
5. In 1919, James Cowan Smith donated £55,000 to the National Gallery of Scotland on the condition that a picture of his dog Callum be on display permanently in the Gallery. It still is on display to this day.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Mohammed Abdi Hassan
A Somali pirate named Mohammed Abdi Hassan fell into a "movie trap" in Brussels. Thinking that he would work on a documentary, he was instead arrested as soon as he disembarked from his flight.
7. Almost an entire French town in 1951 was poisoned by ergot, the fungus LSD is made from. ”I am dead and my head is made of copper and I have snakes in my stomach and they are burning me,” screamed one man before trying to jump into a river.
8. A farmer named Tony Dighera developed a plastic mold to put over his pumpkins so that they grow into the face of Frankenstein. Known as "Pumpkinsteins", it took him 4 years, 27 varieties of pumpkin and $400,000 to perfect his idea.
9. The King (Willem-Alexander) of the Netherlands has been secretly flying as a commercial co-pilot for 21 years and has been doing so even after ascending to the throne in 2013.
10. It takes 95% less energy to recycle a ton of aluminum cans than to produce anew. 1 ton of recycled aluminum saves an equivalent of 40 barrels of oil.
11Alcohol
70% alcohol is better at disinfecting surfaces than 91% alcohol. In one experiment, a 50% alcohol solution killed Staphylococcus Aureus in less than 10 seconds, but a 90% solution failed to kill it even after two hours of contact time.
12. During the early years of American sitcom 30 Rock, Donald Glover was so young when he started on their writing staff that he was still living in a New York University dorm and working there as a Resident Adviser.
13. In 2013, there was a Japanese remake of the film Unforgiven that replaced the gunslingers with Samurai, making it a reverse homage to the westerns that were inspired by Samurai films.
14. Shoplifters were using self-service checkouts to scan expensive fruit and vegetable as carrots at a major United Kingdom supermarket chain. They were only discovered when the supermarket noticed they had sold more carrots than they had ever had in stock.
15. Rollen Stewart, the “John 3:16 guy” who would wear rainbow wigs and attend numerous sporting events while holding up religious signs in view of television cameras, is currently serving multiple life-sentences in California.
16Astronauts
Astronauts lose as much as 22% of their blood while in space due to the uniform blood pressure caused by microgravity. Until their body replaces this blood, many returning astronauts can't stand for more than a few minutes without fainting.
17. The Stanley Hotel, the hotel that served as the inspiration for The Shining, plays the movie adaptation on a continuous loop on channel 42.
18. “Percussive Maintenance” is the technical term for banging and shaking something until it works.
19. An inmate named Kevin Pullum escaped Twin Towers Correctional Facility by walking out of an employee exit 2 hours after being convicted of attempted murder. He used a newspaper photograph of actor Eddie Murphy to alter an identification badge.
20. A paranoid schizophrenic man’s diary served as Freud’s primary source to understand the condition and write the book “The Schreber Case.” Daniel Paul Schreber believed he was receiving cosmic rays through his anal glands by God in order to transform him into a woman so that he could herald and breed a new race.
21Charlie Bucket
Charlie Bucket, the main character in Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", according to Dahl's widow, was originally written as "a little black boy". Dahl's agent, who thought a black Charlie would not appeal to readers, insisted that Charlie be white.
22. Rock star success was once highly regional. In June 1976, Bob Seger played to 78,000 fans in Detroit, only to play to less than 1,000 in Chicago the very next day.
23. J. R.R Tolkien, Otto Frank (The father of Anne Frank), and Adolf Hitler where all present as foot soldiers at the battle of the Somme.
24. Isaac Newton became a member of Parliament but only spoke once, telling someone to close the window.
25. Internet speed is measured in Megabits, not Megabytes. Bytes hold 8 bits, thus making an internet speed of 100megabits/s actually only 12.5 megabytes/s.
