1. Mongols had rules against spilling noble blood over the ground. Instead, they used loopholes like making them bend backward until the backbone snapped, pouring molten silver into eyes and ears, and being rolled up in a rug and trampled to death by the Mongol cavalry.
2. The word ‘fuck’ was first used in 1568, but was most commonly used between 1700-1720. It disappeared from the English language for 150 years in the 1800s-1900s but is now once again climbing in popularity.
3. Dolphins can see our skeletons and sense our heartbeats via their sonar. They have even been known to ward off sharks preying on humans.
4. All the American flags on the moon are now white due radiation from the sun and absence of atmosphere.
5. In 1954, a flight Ernest Hemingway was on crash-landed in Africa. He and his companions were rescued and put in another plane, which burst into flames on the runway. Finding the door jammed, Hemingway used his head as a battering ram, butted the door twice and got out
6. Ernest Hemingway grew paranoid and talked about FBI spying on him later in life. He was treated with electroshock. It was later revealed that he was, in fact, being watched, and Edgar Hoover personally placed him under surveillance.
7. The terms “left” and “right” politics appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left.
8. Italy has a 13-foot tall sculpture of a middle finger in front of their stock exchange.
9. Vulcan Point in the Philippines is in a Lake on an Island which is in a Lake on an Island.
10. According to Bill Murray, the 2004 Hong Kong Comedy movie Kung Fu Hustle is “the supreme achievement of the modern age in terms of comedy”.
11. Andre-Francois Raffray, a lawyer in France sought out a 90-year-old lady, who agreed to give him her apartment if he paid her $500 each month for the rest of her life. She went on to become the oldest living person ever, living for another 30 years and even outliving the lawyer who by then had paid her $180,000, which was twice the value of the apartment.
12. There are languages without the terms “Left, Right, Front, and Behind.” These cultures use “North, South, East, and West” their whole lives, no matter if they are in their home or in the woods. The result is a compass brain. They always know how they are oriented.
13. The Catholic Church unknowingly made Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) a saint after the Christianization of his life story in the 14th century.
14. Only Two words in English contain all the Vowels in Order: ‘Facetiously’ and ‘Abstemiously’
15. The decision to ground all planes in the U.S. on September 11th was made by one man, Ben Sliney, one of the FAA’s National Operations Managers. It was his first day in that position.
16. The Greek explorer Pytheas was the first to encounter the northern Arctic icecaps, the Germanic tribes, the Midnight Sun and visited Great Britain in 325 B.C. He was also the first person to postulate that the tides were caused by the moon.
17. There was 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg that reported an incidence of a great space battle over Germany in the middle ages. There was even a crash landing reported outside the town.
18. Georgia in the USA has a set of giant stone slabs, etched with “rules” for post-apocalyptic humanity in many different languages. It can be used to chart the sun and stars, and warns against “petty laws and useless officials”. No one actually knows who funded the construction of this monument.
19. Up until the 1960’s, poor Swiss children were auctioned to farmers to be used as a source of cheap labor.
20. It was a closely guarded secret for many, many years that a number of American Prisoners Of War’s were held where the Hiroshima atomic bomb was dropped.
21. The cast of Friends earned at least $88,460,000 over its 10 seasons, EACH. This does not include syndication royalties negotiated from the 5th season onwards.
22. When a frog swallows its prey, it blinks, which pushes its eyeballs down on top of its mouth to help push the food down its throat.
23. Australia’s largest ever petition of 792,985 signatures was submitted to the parliament in 2000 to protest against rising beer prices.
24. Philadelphia cream cheese was first created in New York. It was named after Philadelphia because, at the time, the city was renowned for its production of similar cheeses. Also, in Mexico, any brand of cream cheese is often referred to as “queso filadelfia.”
25. In the Shawshank Redemption, in the scene where Andy crawled through the sewer, actor Tim actually crawled through chocolate syrup and the tunnel where it was filmed still smells like chocolate today.
26. Due to the gender imbalance, by the year 2020, 24 million Chinese men will be unable to find a spouse.
27. Elijah Wood created his Lord of the Rings Frodo audition tape in his backyard with a homemade Hobbit costume.
28. A budgie(Bird type) named Puck is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as “The bird with the largest vocabulary in the world”. It has a vocabulary of 1728 words. Also, he just doesn’t mimic, he often creates his own phrases and sentences.
29. On July 1, 1916, at the Battle of the Somme, a charge of 60,000 lbs. of explosives was detonated creating a crater that was 300 feet across and 90 feet deep. The explosion, which occurred in France was heard as far away as London and was the loudest man-made sound in history at the time.
30. If the Sun was scaled down to the size of a white blood cell then the Milky Way would be the size of the continental United States.
