1Paul Warner Powell
Paul Warner Powell, a convicted killer had his death sentence thrown out when it couldn’t be proven that he had assaulted a girl he had murdered. Believing he was now immune, he sent a taunting letter to the prosecutor, admitting the assault. It was used to successfully re-convict him to death.
2. Queen Elizabeth II was immune from prosecution, could drive without a license, and could fire the Prime Minister of Australia or Canada as she pleased.
3. Costco purposefully designed their store without signs to force people to wander through all the aisles and find things to buy.
4. During the Erfurt latrine disaster of 1184, a party of nobles gathered in a room within the Church of St. Peter in Erfurt, right above the latrine pit of the monks. Due to the weight of the party, the floor of the room collapsed and up to 100 nobles died plummeting into the fecal pool.
5. Bill Watterson never licensed Calvin and Hobbes. Anything sold with Calvin and Hobbes on them, such as the Bumper stickers depicting Calvin urinating on something are unlicensed knock-offs. He once said: "Only thieves and vandals have made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise."
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Garfield phones
Garfield phones have been washing up on a beach in France for over 20 years. They have been washing up after shipping container full of them fell off a cargo ship during a storm and the locals can do nothing about it.
7. John Lennon was so fed up with people trying to over-analyze Beatles lyrics and trying to find a hidden meaning in them that he started purposefully putting in meaningless nonsense into songs like "the Walrus was Paul" just to confuse them.
8. An Iranian director named Jafar Panahi made a documentary about his life as a dissident under house arrest and had it smuggled out of the country on a USB stick hidden inside a birthday cake. He also defied a 20-year filmmaking ban to make the movie.
9. In 1924 the KKK tried to move into South Bend before the Irish Catholic students of Notre Dame drove them out by throwing potatoes.
10. In Frasier, many of the callers to Frasier's show were celebrities who phoned their lines into the studio without having to appear in person. Celebrities who called in include Christopher Reeve, Eddie Van Halen, Jay Leno, Matthew Broderick, Timothy Leary, Macauley Culkin, and Kevin Bacon.
11Secessio plebis
Plebeians from the Roman Empire abandoned the city in a form of protest, known as Secessio plebis, leaving the streets completely empty and the wealthy unable to enforce their power.
12. The Co-founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, bought 28,100 acres of land in the U.S. for $23 million. His long term plan is to retire to the region. And his short term plan - to stop the logging operations and preserve the country.
13. According to the EPA, handling most receipt paper (aka thermal paper) is likely dangerous to your health, due to the high levels of BPA, and using hand sanitizer before handling a receipt exponentially increases the amount of the chemical you absorb into your body.
14. Researchers played nonstop loops of Led Zeppelin, A Tribe Called Quest and Mozart to cheese wheels to find out how sound waves impacted flavor. Cheese wheels that were exposed to hip hop music had the strongest flavor.
15. Georges Cuvier, the father of paleontology, established the idea of species becoming 'extinct' as a fact. Until the late 18th century, 'extinction' of species was unthinkable because God would not wipe out the entire species he created for his divine plan.
16Neutron star
A neutron star is so dense that a matchbox-sized portion of one would weigh 3 billion tons.
17. 9 missing episodes of the 1960s Dr. Who series were found in a TV station in Nigeria. They’d been left there in the 60s-70s for foreign syndication. It was the largest haul of classic Who episodes ever recovered in the last three decades.
18. New York City has the highest concentration of nesting Peregrine falcons in the world. The birds can soar over the city by taking advantage of updrafts from skyscrapers. Pigeons are widely available for food, which also negates their need to migrate.
19. Zofia Rydet was a Polish photographer who, at the age of 67, decided to try to shoot the interior of every home in Poland. Over the final 19 years of her life, she shot 20,000 images. She said, "The simplest, most ordinary documentary picture becomes a great truth about human fate."
20. During the Irish Potato Famine, the poor were hired for useless construction projects called 'famine follies' in order to provide them with work that would not take existing work away from other workers. These included roads in the middle of nowhere, between two seemingly random points.
21IRS
The IRS and the USPS both have a plan in place in case of a nuclear war. The IRS has an employee handbook called the "Internal Revenue Manual" that details how to collect taxes after the nukes. The USPS will continue delivering mail and has 60 million change-of-address forms prepared.
22. The US two-dollar bill is still being produced today. Its apparent rarity is in part due to the common misconception that it is no longer being produced, causing people to collect them, thus pulling them out of circulation.
23. Giant manta ray has the largest brain of any fish — with specially developed areas for learning, problem-solving and communicating. Giant manta rays are known to be playful and curious and might even recognize themselves in mirrors, a sign of self-awareness.
24. When Elvis Presley's debut single was first played on the local radio station, he was invited for an on-air interview. The DJ asked Elvis which high school he attended: a roundabout way of informing the audience of his race without actually asking the question.
25. The beat of the Mission: Impossible theme song spells the letters M.I. in Morse Code: dash dash-dot dot).
