1Lightsaber Noises
Multiple Star Wars lead actors have struggled with a habit of making their own sound effects for fight scenes to the point where multiple takes needed to be re-shot because you could see the actors making lightsaber noises.
2. Fresh snow absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape because the trapped air between snowflakes attenuates vibration. That’s why it gets so quiet when it snows.
3. Bill Withers, the singer, and songwriter of “Ain’t no Sunshine” was a factory worker making airplane toilets when he wrote the hit song at age 31. After the song hit gold, the record company presented him with a gold toilet marking the start of his new career.
4. Forcing left-handed children to write with their right hands is not in any way innocuous or helpful. It is actually harmful to their developing brains and can result in dyslexia, stuttering, and other learning or speech disorders.
5. Margaret Mitchell’s once husband said to her “For God’s sake, Peggy, can’t you write a book instead of reading thousands of them?” She went on to write “Gone with the Wind.”
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6Impossible Task
“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” originated as an idiom to describe a ludicrously far-fetched or impossible task.
7. It’s a 50+ year old tradition in Sweden to watch a specific Donald Duck cartoon at exactly 3 pm on Christmas Eve. Approximately half the country tunes in to watch it every year.
8. Matt Groening originally planned for Krusty the Clown to be Homer Simpson in disguise. This is why Krusty looks so similar to Homer.
9. The Persian Army brought an immense block of marble to the Battle of Marathon, intending to build a monument of their victory. Captured by the Greeks, they sculpted a statue of Nemesis, the goddess who cuts down those with too much pride.
10. For months, scientists in France could not figure out why seagulls they were tracking were traveling far inland, away from their breeding colony. Eventually, they traced the seagulls’ path and discovered they were visiting a chip factory.
11Pub Names
The reason that pubs in England have such weird names goes back to medieval times, when most people were illiterate, but could recognize symbols. This is why they have names like Boot and Castle, or Fox and Hound.
12. The FBI investigated the song “Louie Louie” because people thought the lyrics were dirty. After three months, FBI abandoned the investigation because it couldn’t make out the words.
13. Sogen Kato was believed to be the oldest man in Tokyo at the age of 111 until it was discovered that he died at 79 and the family lied about it to keep receiving his pension.
14. The reason large cuts of meat like port and brisket “stall” (stay at the same temperature, sometimes for hours) while being smoked is because they are “sweating” and water evaporation is cooling them as fast as heat is being added.
15. Some users of the antidepressant clomipramine have an unexpected side effect of spontaneous orgasms after yawning.
16Margot Robbie
After the scene where Margot Robbie has sex with Leonardo DiCaprio on a pile of money in ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, Robbie ended the scene with her back covered in paper cuts from the fake money they used.
17. The rendering of the Death Star plans in the original Star Wars was created by two students using computers at JPL. The writers and staff planned to thank JPL in the credits until one programmer pointed out that JPL didn’t even know their computers had been used.
18. The Philippines has its own version of apple pie made from coconuts and condensed milk. Buko pie is believed to be invented by Soledad Pahud. She discovered apple pie while working as a maid in the United States. When she returned to the Philippines, the lack of apples led to her create a coconut-based recipe.
19. A World War 2 Japanese soldier named Ishinosuke Uwano, who had been missing since 1958 was found alive in Ukraine at the age of 83. He was declared dead in 2000 in Japan. He hadn't visited Japan in 60 years and had to enter the country on a Ukrainian passport in 2006.
20. A group of striking coal workers in West Virginia had leftover World War 1 chemical bombs dropped on them by the US government during the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in American history.
21Austrian McDonald’s
If you’re an American needing to find an embassy in Austria, you can go to any McDonald’s in the country and they will provide you a phone number and even a phone if you need it in order to contact the embassy.
22. Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman are separated but not divorced due to how close they still are.
23. Only 9% of all plastic waste ever produced has been recycled.
24. While most air traffic communications around the world use the NATO phonetic alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, etc.), Atlanta doesn’t. Taxiways, Gates, and others including a ‘D’ are referred to as ‘Dixie’, so as not to cause confusion with Delta Air Lines. Atlanta is Delta’s hub.
25. The word “Apple” didn’t always refer to the specific fruit. As late as the 17th century the word was used for all fruits that weren’t berries.
