1Möngke Khan
In 1254, Möngke Khan, grandson of Genghis, hosted a religious debate between Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist theologians. The debate ended with the Buddhists sitting silently as the Christian and Muslim debaters sang loudly at each other. Then they all got drunk.
2. A 13-year study analyzing 17,000 traffic deaths in 12 cities found that cities that had protected bike lanes with physical barriers between bikes and motorized traffic had 44% fewer overall traffic deaths than the average city without them. Painted line bike lanes had no improvement on safety.
3. In Italy, it's very common for dwarfs to undergo painful limb lengthening surgery (that involves repeatedly breaking bones and pulling them apart over the course of 2-3 years) due to societal pressure. 90% of Italian dwarfs undergo the procedure (in the rest of Europe, the rate is around 8%).
4. If an alpha male chimpanzee relies on intimidation and aggression in order to keep his status, then a coalition of chimpanzees will attempt to overthrow the alpha male.
5. After World War 2, a small electronics shop was built in a bomb-damaged department store in Tokyo. The company, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, had only $530 and 8 employees. The company invented Japan's first tape recorder Type-G recorder and, in 1958, changed its name to Sony.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Alligators
Alligators are scared of humans and it's usually safe to swim in most alligator-infested waters. A 2010 report tallied all the reported alligator attacks over the 81 years from 1928 to 2009. It found there were only 24 deaths from alligators in the United States, most of them in Florida.
7. The first scientist named in history was En Hedu’anna, the chief astronomer-priestess of Ur. She lived around 2300 B.C., the only daughter of the great empire architect Sargon of Akkad, and called the Shakespeare of the ancient world as her works were studied for 500 years or more after her death.
8. A Canadian study found that Agatha Christie's later-written novels (Postern of Fate) had a 30% reduction in vocabulary and other possible signs of Alzheimer's Disease.
9. Early in his stand-up career Steve Martin once took the entire audience next door to a McDonald's and ordered 300 hamburgers only to then change the order to 'one small fries.'
10. The main cause of the “lump” in your throat when you cry is because the autonomic nervous system responds to all types of crying as stress. In turn, this opens the glottis to allow more oxygen into the lungs. When we swallow, the glottis must close, creating the “lump.”
11Veena Vadini School
There is a school in India named Veena Vadini School that teaches children to use both hands. This school is also known as "The ambidextrous school". The students from this school can write six different languages and two different languages simultaneously.
12. Elvis Presley recorded over 600 songs throughout his career and did not write a single one of them on his own.
13. Paul McCartney was arrested in Japan for bringing 8 ounces of Marijuana into the country in 1980. After spending 10 days in jail he was released without charge and immediately deported.
14. Harry Houdini invited his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the annual meeting of the Society of American Magicians in 1922. Doyle set up a projector and shocked them all with footage of live dinosaurs on screen. It was actually a clip from the upcoming 1925 film The Lost World based on his novel.
15. Ornithologists often use Cheetos to study behavior in crows. Along with being easy to spot, they’re also one of the birds’ favorite snacks.
16Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe at one time was named Lake Bigler in honor of the popular third governor of California. However, once it was revealed that Bigler was a Confederate sympathizer during the US Civil War, his name was removed from the lake and renamed Tahoe.
17. British General Charles O'Hara had the unfortunate "distinction" of surrendering not only to George Washington at Yorktown, but Napoleon Bonaparte at Toulon as well.
18. During World War 2, Norwegians mostly resisted the German occupation nonviolently. They would refuse to go to German-owned businesses, pretend to not speak German, and refuse to sit next to Germans on public transport.
19. Patrick Star from SpongeBob SquarePants is portrayed as dimwitted and lacking common sense because starfish do not have a brain.
20. Former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr married at the age of 77 to a woman that was well-off. She realized her fortunes were dwindling because of his land speculations, and filed for divorce. It was granted on the day of his death. Her lawyer? Alexander Hamilton, Jr., who was graduating from college when his father died.
21Chanakya
Chanakya, one of the oldest known economist added a tiny bit of poison in his King's food, without his knowledge, to immunize him from enemy assassination attempts. The king accidently killed his 8 months pregnant Queen by sharing his food.
22. A question mark superimposed onto an exclamation mark, often seen as ?!, is called an Interrobang. Martin K. Speckter is credited with inventing the mark in 1962 which made it the first new punctuation mark to have been introduced in 300 years
23. Bill Nye's family has a history of a neurological disorder called ataxia and the reason he decided not to have kids was to avoid passing down the condition to them.
24. Spider-man received a Japanese live-action adaption in 1978, in which he piloted a giant robot. This use of giant robots subsequently became its own franchise, which, in turn, is adapted back in the US as Power Rangers.
25. Meg and Jack White of the White stripes publicly portrayed themselves as siblings despite the fact that they weren't related and had married in 1996 prior to the band's formation.
