1SafeHouse
A spy-themed restaurant called the SafeHouse, which was founded in 1966 has a hidden location with a secret entrance. A password is needed to enter and if it's not given, patrons will have to do silly tasks that are broadcasted to people inside the restaurant in order to enter.
2. Neil Armstrong's heart rate spiked to more than 150 when NASA turned the control over to him for the moon landing.
3. Just 29 days after the Titanic sank, a silent film (Saved from the Titanic) was released chronicling the event. It starred Dorothy Gibson, an actress who had survived the sinking. To add to the film's authenticity, she wore the same clothes that she had worn on the night of the disaster.
4. In Japanese tradition, rabbits live on the Moon where they make mochi, the popular snack of mashed sticky rice. This comes from interpreting the pattern of dark patches on the moon as a rabbit standing on tiptoes on the left pounding on a usu, a Japanese mortar.
5. Prince's death helped save 2 lives. Grammy-winning singer Chaka Khan and her sister were both addicted to fentanyl. Khan told the Associated Press they entered an intensive rehab program because "the tragic death of Prince" made them realize it was "time to take action to save our lives."
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6All rights reserved
The common practice of adding "All rights reserved" to copyright notices came from a treaty in 1910, but as of 2000 it has become obsolete and is no longer needed.
7. George Michael wrote his hit single “Careless Whisper” at 17 years old out of sheer boredom while riding the bus to work. Despite its success, he was not happy with the song and in a 2009 interview with the Big Issue, he said he was “a bit puzzled why it made such an impression on people.”
8. Wendell Fertig was a US serviceman who rather than surrender with the bulk of US forces during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, “self-promoted” himself to Brigadier General and organized pockets of Filipino fighters and other US serviceman into a highly effective Guerilla force.
9. Giovanni Cassini measured the size of France accurately for the first time during the reign of King Louis XIV. The true size turned out to be much smaller than Louis had expected, and Louis quipped that Cassini had taken more of his kingdom from him than he had won in all his wars.
10. Poncke Princen was a Dutch anti-Nazi fighter who after World War 2 was sent to Indonesia to suppress an anti-colonial rebellion. After witnessing the Dutch war crimes, Princen defected to fight with the guerrillas in 1948. He later helped expose the anti-communist massacres of Indonesian dictator Suharto.
11The New Shadow
J.R.R. Tolkien considered a sequel to The Lord Of The Rings trilogy called The New Shadow. Set 100 years later during the Age of Man, he quickly abandoned the idea because “it proved both sinister and depressing.”
12. A Frenchman known as Richebourg, who measured just 58 cm (1 foot 11 inches) as an adult, was employed by the aristocracy to act as a secret agent during the French Revolution, dispatching messages into and out of Paris, whilst disguised as an infant and carried by his “nurse.”
13. Roberto Goizueta, the former CEO of Coca-Cola was the first person to become a billionaire by being an employee and not a company founder (or heir).
14. When a kidney is donated, the single normal kidney will increase in size to compensate for the loss of the donated kidney.
15. Ethiopia adopted Christianity in 330 A.D., just 17 years after the Roman empire. Despite the rise of Islam, the fall of the Byzantine Orthodox Church, and being cut off from all other Christians for centuries Ethiopia remained Christian. They remain the only majority Orthodox Christian African nation.
16Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is partially built with rice. Scientists found the mortar used in constructing the wall is a "Rice-Lime" composite material. The mix of limestone and sticky rice gives the mortar more stable physical properties which offer resistance to earthquakes and the elements.
17. In the 1930s, bridge construction projects expected one fatality for every $1 million in cost. So, the Chief Engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge enacted the most stringent safety measures in history. He even formulated diets to help fight dizziness and sauerkraut juice “cures” for hangovers.
18. There is still a passenger ocean liner in operation. The Queen Mary 2 offers a regular service from New York City and Southampton, England. It is the only passenger ocean liner in service designed primarily for travel, rather than the leisure of a cruise ship.
19. DMSO is an organic solvent which has a really unusual property in that you can "taste" it by just touching it. In reality, it directly triggers the nerves that normally react to taste.
20. There is an upscale Mcdonald's restaurant in Hong Kong called “Next” that has table service. It has a “create your own” menu with fresher and higher quality ingredients than any other Mcdonald's.
21Mountain Goats
Mountain Goats are not actually in the same genus as other goats (Capra). Mountain Goats are the last surviving species of the genus Oreamnos.
22. After Gerald Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Richard Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States, a Supreme Court decision which states that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that acceptance carries a confession of guilt.
23. In 1950, a 20-year-old amateur herpetologist named Kevin Budden was bitten by the taipan snake he captured for antivenom research and died. News of Budden’s death inspired others to capture additional snake species, resulting in the development of five new antivenoms within 12 years of Budden’s death.
24. After the Salem Witch Trials, the town realized that they had made a mistake and compensated the families of the people they had convicted. More than 200 people had been accused of witchcraft, and 20 of them had been executed.
25. Surya Bonaly, a French figure skater, landed a backflip on one blade in the 1998 Nagano Olympics. This was banned in 1976 and Bonaly did it despite knowing that it would negatively affect her score. It has not been repeated in the Olympics since.
