1Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin was one of the planned assassination targets during a May 15, 1932 coup attempt by Japanese naval officers. While the prime minister was killed at home, Chaplin survived as he was at a sumo event with the prime minister's son.
2. Princess Leia’s hair in Star Wars was inspired by women of the Mexican revolution.
3. In 2015, a guide dog in New York was awarded the ASPCA’s “Dog of the Year” award for running in front of an oncoming bus to protect his blind owner and didn’t leave her side until she received medical attention even though he suffered a broken leg.
4. Pilot fish can form a sort of symbiotic relationship with sharks to the point where if their shark is caught, the pilot fish will follow the boat that took it and become distressed when it can’t find it or isn't near its “host” shark.
5. In 1911, Wyoming State Penitentiary All Stars was a baseball team that was made up of death row inmates who had been told that as long as they kept winning games, their executions would be delayed. Their fourth victory, by a score of 15-10, was also their last.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Raising Ducks
Some farmers in Bangladesh are now raising ducks instead of chicken because ducks can float during floods.
7. According to the United States Flag Code, the flag “should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.” This includes paper napkins or plates printed with the design.
8. While experimenting on a jet pump project for NASA in his bathroom in 1982, Lonnie Johnson shot a stream of water across the room and thought, “This would make a great gun.” The Super Soaker went on to make him some $73 million in royalties.
9. In Toy Story 4 instead of creating all of the individual cobwebs by hand, Pixar created AI spiders that were programmed to spin the webs wherever the cobwebs needed to be.
10. When the medieval scholar Rhazes was tasked with choosing the location of a new hospital in Baghdad, he hung meat at points around the city, and chose the location where it rotted the slowest.
11Alan Turing
Alan Turing once bought 150 pounds of silver but didn’t trust banks so he buried it in the woods instead. After the price of silver had almost doubled, he went to dig it up, but could no longer find it.
12. King Charlemagne kept his daughters at home with him and refused to allow them to get sacramentally married. However, he accepted their extramarital relationships. He rewarded their common-law husbands and treasured his illegitimate grandchildren.
13. Mark Twain once wrote an essay entitled ‘Concerning the Jews.’ He claimed Jews didn’t do their part of fighting in America’s military. In response, the War Department revealed that Jewish Americans were represented in the military in a larger percentage than their share of the population.
14. Two men led a team of 80 people to collect over 1.2 million golden orb spiders, milk them for their silk, and create the rarest textile on earth: a golden silk cape.
15. One of the 'unwritten rules' of the Tour de France: if the Tour is passing through where one of the riders grew up, everyone will slow down to let that rider lead the whole Tour through his hometown. Also, if the race leader needs to stop to take a pee break, everyone else slows down/stops too.
16Adam Walker
Adam Walker was protected from a great white shark by a pod of dolphins while swimming to raise money for dolphin conservation. About 10 dolphins surrounded him for about 1 hour in Cook Strait, 6th leg of the Oceans Seven: a marathon of 7 long-distance open water channel swims around the world.
17. An Irish Titanic passenger named Jeremiah Burke sent a goodbye message in a bottle during the sinking. It subsequently washed up near his home, where his handwriting was recognized by his mother.
18. In 1775, a Massachusetts farmer named Samuel Whittemore who was 78 and alone, fired upon British soldiers killing 3. Now out of ammo, he drew his sword to continue the fight. He was shot in the face, bayoneted multiple times, and left for dead. When found, he was trying to reload his musket. He died 18 years later.
19. In 1978, an inspection of USS Stein, a damaged U.S. Navy ship revealed the remnants of claws from the tentacles of a giant squid. The claws were much larger than any that had been seen by scientists, indicating that the squid was of a size substantially greater than any that had been documented.
20. The 3,500 mile Great American Horse Race of 1976 contained over a hundred experienced riders and the winner ended up being a man riding a mule named Lord Fauntleroy. He beat the next closest finisher, a thoroughbred Arabian, by 10 hours and the pair ended up winning $25,000.
21Shoveling Snow
Shoveling snow is a known trigger for heart attacks. Some hospitals even prepare for more cardiac-related visits after a large snowfall.
22. When Weird Al Yankovic created the music video for “Smells Like Nirvana”, he used many of the same props and actors from Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video. It was also shot in the same location. He was helped by the producers of the original Nirvana video.
23. In 2019, Hatty, a Labrador retriever was sworn in as an Illinois County as a “Comfort Dog.” Her paw was on a law book as an oath was read. Hatty’s job is to comfort sexual trauma victims during testimony and interviews. The dog works 9-5 on up to 200 cases per year. She was trained by prison inmates.
24. 30 Billion honey bees from around the US are shipped to California once a year to pollinate almond trees. They are then shipped to other parts of the country through the year for the same purpose.
25. Because she supported the Civil Rights movement, the FBI created a fake story that actress Jean Seberg had cheated on her husband with a black man. The stress of this fake story caused her to go into labor prematurely and resulted in the death of her baby.
