1Transformer Toys
In 1983, Hasbro executives traveled to the Tokyo Toy Show to look for new toys they could release in the United States. After finding a series of transforming robot toys, they teamed with Marvel Comics to create a comic book and animated series "Transformers" to sell the toys.
2. The title "Triple Ace in a Day" refers to pilots who shot down 15 enemy aircrafts in a single day. There have only been 5 such pilots, all of whom flew for the German Luftwaffe in World War 2.
3. Cold Reading is a technique used by mediums and psychics in which the reader, through strategic questioning, gets the subject to reveal information, and through clever psychology convinces them the information came from the reader rather than themselves.
4. Quakers invented the price tag. They were invented because Quakers viewed haggling as immoral since different people paid different prices for the same item. This innovation actually made retail more efficient because employees needed less training and were able to serve more customers.
5. Crisis Apparition is a term used to explain when someone is contacted by a person they were close to, usually after death. In the aftermath of 9/11, many people claim to have been contacted by loved ones who had died that day.
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6When You Wish Upon A Star
Disney doesn't own the copyright to their theme tune, "When You Wish Upon a Star" from 1940's Pinocchio. The rights to that song, as well as several other Disney songs, were sold in 1933 to a music publisher because Disney "had no means of commercially exploiting" them at the time.
7. Prince Philip's 'affectionate' nickname for queen Elizabeth was 'cabbage.'
8. Upon finishing the sci-fi film "Devil Girls From Mars," a 12-year-old Octavia Butler concluded that she could write a better story. Butler went on to win multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and became the first sci-fi writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
9. In 2008, Johnny Depp told Beavis & Butt-head creator Mike Judge he was interested in playing Beavis for a live-action film. Depp and Marlon Brando would riff on the B&B characters while filming Don Juan DeMarco. Mike judge said he considered the idea of a live-action B&B, but nothing came of it.
10. In 1969, American destroyer USS Frank E. Evans collided with an Australian aircraft carrier in the South China Sea at 3:00 am because the commanding officer was asleep and left two inexperienced lieutenants in charge. The ship turned the wrong way, collided, and sank, killing 74 people.
11Exorcist Theme (Tubular Bells)
The song "Tubular Bells" which is famous for being the theme to "The Exorcist," was written and recorded by a 19-year-old Mike Oldfield in 1973. He played almost the entire instruments on the song. The full song is over twenty minutes long and is featured on an album of the same name.
12. Elephantine Colossus was a 200-foot-tall elephant-shaped hotel, which was built on Coney Island in 1885. It housed a concert hall, museum, observatory, and more. It later became a brothel but burnt down on September 27, 1896 following a mysterious incident.
13. During the American Civil War, the Union regularly cracked the Confederacy's coded messages because the Confederacy relied on a limited number of key phrases for encrypting their messages, one of which was "Complete Victory."
14. The Farallon Islands, off the coast of San Francisco, California, has the highest rodent density of any island in the world, with over a thousand mice per acre. Visitors to the islands can, at times, see the ground moving when the mice are burrowing in their underground tunnels.
15. Director Michael Mann directed Heat twice, once in 1989 as a low-budget TV movie and again in 1995 as a big-budget box office hit. Both have the same plot and scenes, but Robert De Niro and Al Pacino star in the remake. Today Heat is recognized as one of the best crime films of all time.
16John Stopp
US Colonel John Stopp conducted a series of G-Force tests in the late '40s and early '50s. He holds the world record for most G's pulled on land, after traveling 632mph (1017 km/h) on a sled track in New Mexico on Dec 10, 1954. Stopping in 1.4 seconds, he experienced 46.2 Gs.
17. The world's longest golf course is in the scrubland of Australia. It is 848 miles long and has many unique hazards.
18. Leon Lederman, recipient of a Nobel Prize in Physics and author of 'The God Particle,' faced overwhelming medical debt near the end of his life and was forced to sell his Nobel Prize to pay it off.
19. In 1974, at a Canadian army training base in Quebec, cadets were being trained to handle discarded explosives. A cadet asked one of the instructors if he could pull the pin on the grenade, and the instructor told him it was safe. It exploded, killing 6 cadets and injuring 65 others.
20. Stored fresh vegetables have lower vitamin C content than frozen ones.
21Diego Marín Aguilera
In 1793, a Spanish man named Diego Marín Aguilera flapped the wings of his man-powered glider, reached a height of about 5 m, and flew over 300 m before crashing because of a broken metal joint. The inhabitants of the town believed him to be a lunatic, heretic, fraud, and burned his "demonic" flapping-wing creation.
22. Gotham City’s location has never been set in DC canon. While its look and atmosphere was primarily influenced by New York City, it is traditionally depicted as being located in New Jersey.
23. NASA planned to send astronauts to Mars in 1981 using Nerva nuclear rockets but congress cut NASA's funding and Nixon canceled the Nerva project entirely in 1973, causing Nasa to focus on the development of the Space Shuttle instead.
24. Milk is sprayed on vineyards to prevent grapes from becoming mildewed.
25. Poverty Point is a prehistoric earthwork constructed by the Poverty Point culture located in present-day northeastern Louisiana between 1700 and 1100 BCE.
