Weird but interesting facts of life
Some are funny facts and some will make you say WTF. But being inconvenient and not useless, all those facts will enrich your knowledge base and help you pass through.
Country Time Lemonade once offered free legal assistance when children’s lemonade stands were being ticketed by local governments. The titled the service, Legalaid.
In ancient Athenian democracy leaders where chosen by a form of lottery as it was felt that if voting was used the rich and powerful would have unfair advantages to influence voters.
Christopher Columbus was stuck in Jamaica with angry natives refusing to give him food. Knowing that a lunar eclipse was going to happen, Columbus told the natives that his gods were angry for refusing him food. After the eclipse, the scared natives gave him lots of food and begged for mercy.
After Taliban were driven from some parts of Afghanistan a man dug up his TV and VCR and watched Titanic with his neighbors. Since TV's/VCR/Radios were banned under the Taliban many people buried them in their backyards.
On 3/11/08 a viewer asked Jim Cramer if he should worry about his investment in Bear Stearns. Cramer replied "No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they're more likely to be taken over. Don't move your money from Bear." 3 days later it dropped 92%.
There is a child of a Civil War soldier who is still alive and receiving a monthly pension from the government ($73.13) for her father's service in the Union Army.
There are four times as many abandoned housing units as homeless in New York City.
A group of 15 monkeys escaped a research institute in Japan by using trees to catapult themselves over a 17ft high electric fence one by one.
Kevin Bacon bribes DJ's at weddings with cash so they won't play Footloose
Indianapolis has a volunteer program called 'no one dies alone' (NODA). Their volunteers keep a continuous bedside vigil for dying people who do not have family members to visit them.
Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower shooter, asked for an autopsy in his will to determine what made him kill. The autopsy found a tumor pressing on his amygdala, which controls the fight or flight instinct and possibly influenced his actions.
When 1978 TV series "Holocaust" aired in West Germany in 1979, a panel of historians would answer questions live afterwards. They ended up receiving thousands of calls from Germans saying this was the first time they heard about the Holocaust. "Holocaust" later became German 'word of the year'.
Breast milk contains tons of complex sugars that we can't digest. However, when babies drink it, those sugars can be broken down by beneficial bacteria within their gut. So breast milk promotes a healthy microbiome, a crucial health factor.
Two rescued elephant herds gathered to the funeral of the conservationist who saved their life. It took them 12 hours to get there, without any sign or contact with them to "announce" his death. They hadn't visited the home in over 3 years, and left after 2 nights and 2 days of grieving.
Kurt Vonnegut, when asked by people if there was anyone he'd rather be, said "Jerry Orbach (of Law & Order fame), without a question ... I talked to him one time, and he's adorable."