1Philo Farnsworth
Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the television, was a 15-year-old farm boy when he got the idea for scanning an image in rows from the back and forth motion of plowing a field.
2. The ancient Romans enjoyed visiting new places as much as anyone nowadays. The Romans' favorite attraction was the Pyramids of Giza, and local tour guides lied to them in order to entice them and make money from them.
3. The Gimbel's manager in the film "Elf" wears a "Wanda" name tag because Wanda Sykes was originally cast in the role.
4. People in numerous New Guinean villages traditionally ate the corpses of the recently deceased to prevent worms from devouring their loved ones' remains. As a gesture of love and mourning, they removed the brain, mashed it with ferns, steamed it in bamboo tubes, and consumed them. They ate everything else except the gall bladders. This practice caused brain-wasting disorders such as Kuru to spread through generations. Because Kuru has such a lengthy incubation time, instances continued to be documented even after this practice was discontinued in 1960.
5. In addition to the costs of non-included services like meals and transportation, Bhutan taxes tourists $200 per night. The government uses the money from this Sustainable Development Fee to make tourism less harmful to the environment, build greener infrastructure, and train people who work in tourism.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Tidong Tribe Marriage Belief
The Tidong tribe of Indonesia believes that if a newlywed couple holds in their poop for three straight days, their marriage is less likely to fail.
7. Maple wood is used exclusively for sports flooring due to its great shock resistance. This property allows the floor to bounce back in response to foot activity, protecting the athletes' joints and reducing fatigue. The ball's bounce is enhanced by the wood's shock-absorbing properties.
8. S. President Rutherford B. Hayes made history by making the first phone call as head of state. Hayes received a call from Bell in 1877 when he was at a clambake in Rhode Island. When Bell finished, Hayes remarked, "Please talk a bit more slowly."
9. We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about Earth since nearly 80% of the ocean has never been mapped, explored, or even seen by humans.
10. The Yellowstone Caldera is a huge supervolcano located in the United States. If it erupts again, it won't destroy mankind, but it may trigger a new ice age by drastically changing weather and climate patterns.
11The Beatles Concert
Since The Beatles stopped performing in public in 1966, classic albums like Sgt. Pepper and The White Album were never performed live.
12. The Mexican P-47 fighter squadron that fought against Japan in World War II was the first Mexican military unit to ever deploy outside of Mexico.
13. The arachnoids, which may stretch up to 200 kilometers in length, are massive spiderweb-like formations unique to Venus's surface. There may be a connection between arachnoids and volcanoes, yet it's also possible that different kinds of arachnoids develop in various ways. The upwelling of magma from the interior of the planet might be to blame for the fissures in the surface.
14. Camels belonging to the Kharai species are found only in India. They are a peculiar camel species in that they prefer marine environments and can swim. They feed on mangroves and help regenerate the mangrove forests they feed on.
15. Since there are no ventilation systems or windows aboard a spaceship, eating beans might result in "1-3 cups of flatus" and is therefore banned during space missions.
16Twelve Days of Christmas
The total number of presents in "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is 364, which is the same as the number of days in a year minus December 25th.
17. Companies in the Philippines must provide their regular staff with a one-month basic pay bonus known as "13th month pay" by December 24th of each year. This bonus is calculated based on the number of months the employee has worked for the company.
18. The death of swing music and dance in the United States may be traced back to 1944, when the federal government imposed a hefty 30% tax on any food-serving facilities (like clubs) that featured dancing. Not until the 1960s would it finally be abolished (though it was reduced a few years after implementation).
19. On one occasion, Orson Welles unintentionally showered the audience with arrows. Welles had the archers shoot offstage in his Boston production of Henry the Fifth, but the stage revolved around them. Welles was already aware of the issue, but he had wrongly assumed that the Harvard students wouldn't act irresponsibly by firing arrows into the audience.
20. In 1966, the Beatles gave their final public performance in Candlestick Park in San Francisco. The event was a huge disappointment and far from a sellout, with over 20% of tickets remaining unsold. After that, the Beatles never played for a paying crowd again.
21Niue Pokemon Coins
Coins featuring characters from Disney, Pokémon, Peanuts, Star Wars, and more are legal tender on the Pacific island nation of Niue. This strategy has long been employed by smaller nations. The Maldives sell a set of stamps featuring Clint Eastwood; Lesotho sells stamps with the gorillas from Gorillas in the Mist; and Bermuda sells a coin featuring The Queen from the Netflix series.
22. The TwitterPeek, released in 2009, was a mobile device that could only be used to send and receive tweets.
23. Creed, a Christian pop-rock band from the 1990s, originally went by the name "Naked Toddler" when they played their first gig. Once the group realized how horrible it sounded, they promptly changed their name.
24. Chicago lights its gas burners at the track switches on its railroad lines to keep trains running smoothly and on time during the harsh winter months. Most of the switches in other cities in the USA are heated electrically.
25. Thomas Jefferson, then-vice president, was notified of a large, bright light in the Louisiana sky in the year 1800. A while later, he gave a report on his findings to the American Philosophical Society and documented the experience in his journal.
