1Louis Armstrong
During the Civil Rights Movement, Louis Armstrong "blew his top" in an interview about the segregationist governor of Arkansas, referring to him as a "motherf*cker" and singing an F-bomb-laced rendition of the national anthem.
2. Busch Beer was created to spite Major League Baseball. STL Cardinals owner August Busch Jr was told by MLB he couldn't name their ballpark Budweiser Stadium. He got approval to name it after his family and then ordered his brewers to create the new beer.
3. Research during 1950s all-male combat aircraft assignments revealed that a woman's voice was more likely to gain the attention of young men in distracting situations. Joan Elms's voice was used for the automated voice warnings for Convair B-58 and was named "Sexy Sally" by the pilots.
4. There is a spider called the Darwin's bark spider whose web is 10 times stronger than kevlar. It is the toughest biological material ever studied.
5. North America and the USA in particular have the world's most extreme weather, averaging more than 10,000 severe thunderstorm events per year, with more than 1,000 tornadoes.
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6Take Me to the River
Al Green has stated that “Take Me to the River” has earned him more royalties from being featured on the animatronic singing fish Big Mouth Billy Bass than from any other recordings of the song.
7. Curtis Mayfield became paralyzed from the neck down after stage lighting equipment fell on him while he was being introduced at an outdoor concert. He discovered he could continue to sing by lying down and letting gravity pull down on his chest and lungs and went on to record an album in 1996.
8. The clearest lake in the world is the Blue Lake located in Nelson, New Zealand. Visibility in the lake is up to 80 metres meaning the water is considered almost as optically clear as distilled water.
9. After announcing the discontinuation of the SEGA Dreamcast in 2001, the price was reduced to as low as $49.95. Japanese businessman Isao Okawa forgave SEGA's debt of $500 million prior to his death and returned $695 million worth of SEGA stock helping the company survive.
10. Brenda Lee (best known for her hit "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree") had 47 US chart hits during the 1960s, the most by a woman and surpassed only by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and Ray Charles.
11Mummification
When mummification became accessible to middle/lower classes in ancient Egypt, embalmers started secretly cutting out the hearts of the lower classes so the elite wouldn't have to share the afterlife with them. The heart was considered the seat of the soul and vital to access the afterlife.
12. The NY Yankees used to play the Frank Sinatra version of "New York, New York" after wins and the Liza Minnelli version after losses. Minnelli complained and asked them to play her version after wins or not at all. So the Yankees began playing the Sinatra version after every game, win or lose.
13. Dying coral reefs lack the sound to attract new fish. Speakers playing healthy reef noises at dying coral reefs increases species diversity and doubles fish abundance.
14. American convicted felon Jeremy Meeks’ mugshot gained so much traction online that it got him a modeling contract while he was still in jail. He served 13 months in jail and walked into NY Fashion Week, a year later. He also walked in Milan Fashion Week, helped to launch a fashion line, acted, and more, all within 5 years of his release.
15. Architect Alejandro Echeverri was approached by the mayor of Medellin, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, to revitalize the city. He focused on building in the poorest areas first to bring people and infrastructure into these neighborhoods. Crime dropped substantially.
16Medical students
Medical students practice some of the more invasive exams (i.e. rectal, vaginal) on specially trained actors, who guide them through the procedure, as going through real patients from the get-go could damage the confidence of medical students.
17. John F. Kennedy wore a rigid back brace due to his poor health and terrible back which left him sitting upright in the limo after being initially shot by Oswald. This gave Oswald a clear second shot.
18. In World War 2, Germany carried out only one land operation in North America, the installation of a secret weather station (Weather Station Kurt) in Newfoundland. They scattered American cigarette packets and planted a sign saying "Canadian Meteor Service" in case anyone found it, and the site wasn't rediscovered until 1977.
19. On March 12, 1990, over 60 disability rights activists abandoned their mobility aids and climbed, crawled, and edged up the 83 stone steps of the U.S Capitol, demanding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which had been stalled in Congress. It was called the “Capitol Crawl.”
20. Female dogs can get pregnant by multiple male dogs within the same heat cycle, then give birth to X amount of puppies per father.
21Digby Tatham-Warter
In World War 2, Major Digby Tatham-Warter led a bayonet charge while wielding an umbrella and wearing a bowler hat. He later disabled a German armored car with his umbrella. When saving the chaplain from enemy fire, he said “Don’t worry about the bullets, I’ve got an umbrella.”
22. Abdul Baser Wasiqi, Afghanistan's only athlete at the 1996 Olympics injured himself before the marathon and limped the whole way, finishing in 4:24:17, almost an hour and a half behind the 2nd last finisher. When he arrived, the stadium was already being prepped for the closing ceremony.
23. A year before the end of World War 1, Germany lodged an official complaint with the United States over the issuing of the Winchester M97 "Trench Broom" shotgun to its' troops. This gun upset the Germans so much that the German military issued a kill order towards any troops carrying either shotguns or shotgun ammunition.
24. Almost 90% of "Indian" restaurants in the United Kingdom are actually Bangladeshi.
25. Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell as a student discovered pulsars. She credits her discovery to impostor syndrome and a fear of being kicked out of college, saying, “I’m a bit of a fighter, so I decided until they threw me out I would work my very hardest". That discovery earned the 1974 Nobel Prize.
