1Unreleased Documentary: The Sweatbox
The Sweatbox was a documentary about the making of The Emperor's New Groove. It was produced by Sting's wife and was never released by Disney due to the unprecedented access the documentary had to their creative process, which was uncharacteristically rushed and improvised for this project.
2. During the process of becoming a US state in 1890, Wyoming demanded the right for women to vote. The US Congress denied this request. The state replied by saying that they'd "remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women."
3. Vincent by Don McLean was Tupac's favorite song, and his girlfriend played it as he was dying, so it would be the last thing he heard.
4. Malignant hyperthermia is a deadly reaction (temperature as high as 109°F) to general anesthesia. Malignant hyperthermia is an inherited condition that runs in families. It's the reason anesthesiologists always ask you if anyone in the family has had a fatal reaction to anesthesia.
5. Whiplash was originally an 18-minute short film that received acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, drawing investors to fund the full-length film, which cost $3.3 million to make and grossed $49 million at the box office.
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6Vlad the Impaler's Turban Tribute
When Ottoman envoys, citing a religious custom, declined to remove their turbans when meeting with Vlad (Dracula) the Impaler, Vlad saluted their devotion and decided to strengthen their custom by having three spikes driven through each of their heads, pinning the turbans in place forever.
7. A B29 weather reconnaissance plane called Straight Flush flew over the city of Hiroshima before the atomic bomb attack to determine if conditions were favorable. Its pilot, Claude Eatherly, later expressed remorse, received psychiatric hospitalization, and engaged in anti-nuclear activism.
8. Following the success of the '90s hit film "The Bodyguard," Kevin Costner contacted his longtime friend Princess Diana to star in a sequel. She agreed. The first draft arrived the day before her death, in 1997. After her death in 1997, they scrapped the film.
9. The drawing of the bear on Alaska's license plates was appropriated from artist Douglas Allen without his permission. The plates were first released in 1976, but Allen didn't even know until 2015. Allen had never been to Alaska. He had sketched the bear at the Bronx Zoo.
10. The person who published the first map with the word America later tried to change the continent's name to Parrotland.
11Berlin's Divided Lights View
In 2013, astronaut Chris Hadfield took a picture of Berlin at night from the International Space Station, which showed the division between the former east and west through its streetlights. East Berlin looks orange due to sodium vapor lamps, while West Berlin looks white due to fluorescent lamps.
12. Nintendo copied LEGO in the '60s and outsold them for a few years in Japan. Their N&B Block series was very similar to LEGO and way more popular because it had more round shapes. Nintendo stopped the N&B Block series in the early '70s, most likely due to legal pressure from LEGO.
13. When the Mongols defeated the Poles at the Battle of Legnica, they beheaded King Henry II and paraded his head. His wife recognized his mutilated body by his eleventh toe.
14. The Merci Train was a collection of 49 boxcars sent by France to the United States in response to humanitarian aid the US provided after World War II. Each state, barring Alaska, got their own, and 43 still survive today.
15. Although chopsticks have supplanted spoons for eating rice in China and Japan, Korean people continue to use spoons to eat rice and alternate back and forth with chopsticks during a meal.
16Jim Carrey's Character Inspiration
Director Michel Gondry found Jim Carrey's emotional state after a breakup "so beautiful, so broken" that he asked him to stay that way for one year to fit his character in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
17. Due to consistent rock falls, Reunion Island (France) has created the most expensive road in the world. The road is estimated to be worth 1.6 billion euros for a length of 12.5 km. That is 133 million euros per kilometer. To avoid the rocks, engineers constructed the ring road in the ocean.
18. Tortoiseshell, used in eyeglass frames, guitar picks, and luxury items, has been banned for trade since 1973 because it mostly comes from the endangered hawksbill sea turtle. Manufacturers now use plastic to make most "tortoiseshell" objects.
19. Mayor Richard J. Daley presented the bluegill fish to the then-Crown Prince of Japan, Akihito, in 1960 as a gift from the city of Chicago. The prince donated the fish to fishery research agencies in Japan, but they escaped and became an invasive species. Emperor Akihito apologized in 2007.
20. Egyptian mummies would have their eyes replaced by shells, linens, or painted onions. This has made it especially difficult to study Egyptian mummy eyes since embalmers often made no effort to preserve them.
21Early Jesus Depictions
The earliest depictions of Jesus from the 3rd century present him as a beardless man wearing Roman clothes.
22. After one of the contestant's parents accused it of being rigged, Fox canceled the TV game show "Our Little Genius". Since the show never aired, the FCC couldn't conduct any investigation.
23. Volkswagen offered 5 years of free connected emergency services on certain car models after law enforcement contacted VW's Car-Net service to ask for the GPS location of a carjacked vehicle with a child inside, and the representative refused to help until a $150 subscription fee was paid.
24. People with B blood type tend to be resistant to most Norovirus strains.
25. Despite being commonly ranked as one of the worst Christmas films ever made, the 1985 film "Santa Claus: The Movie" is immensely popular in the UK. One of the film actors, John Lithgow, said in 2019 that he wishes he had a nickel for every Englishman who's told him it's their favorite film.
