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.
In 1985, Ryan White was refused re-entry to his school due to him having AIDS. 117 Parents and 50 teachers petitioned for his ban. People even cancelled their subscriptions as White was the paperboy and they believed they would be infected via newsprint.
Switzerland is the only country in the world which could fit 114% of its population into bunkers in case of an emergency
The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana, the longest continuous bridge passing over water, is so long that for 8 of its 24 miles, you can't see land in any direction.
A Naked Mole Rat can survive up-to 18 minutes without oxygen by dropping its heart rate and switching to fructose based anaerobic respiration. It's also the only known cold-blooded mammal.
The murderer Dr. Crippen fled to Quebec from London in 1910 after being investigated for the murder of his wife. The Chief Inspector of the case Walter Dew was alerted and reached Quebec before Crippen. Dew greeted Crippen as he got off of his ship and promptly arrested him.
About "It's not the fart that kills you, it's the smell," a quote by Norwegian rally car driver Petter Solberg. In Norwegian, fart means speed and smell means impact. The expression has become a meme.
A man in Africa single handedly stopped the desertification of his region by reviving ancient farming and irrigation techniques despite being ridiculed by his community.
Google hires programmers through their own search engine
Comcast disabled fast-forwarding for their on-demand service to force people to watch commercials
When China ordered a Boeing 767 from the U.S. in 2002 to serve as its presidential jet, its intelligence service discovered nearly 30 bugging devices onboard the plane, "including one in the headboard of the presidential bed." The C.I.A. and the White House refused to comment.
You don't have to display compulsive or ritualistic behavior (e.g. excessive hand-washing) to be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Up to 60% of OCD cases don't display compulsive behavior and are affected primarily by obsessive thoughts that become disruptive to their lives.
Wilbur Wright (the older of the Wright Brothers) got his teeth knocked out at age 18, changing the course of his future. The boy who knocked his teeth out, Oliver Cook Haugh, grew up to become a notorious Midwest serial killer.
The characters in Mad Men lit a total of 942 cigarettes and had 369 drinks over the course of seven seasons.
Steven Spielberg promised Tom Sizemore a role in Saving Private Ryan as long as he never failed a drug test while shooting. If he failed once, even on the last day, Spielberg promised to kick him out of the movie and reshoot all of his scenes with a new actor.
The film The Shawshank Redemption remains one of the most valuable assets in Warner Brothers catalog (which has several multi-billion dollar movie franchises) and Bob Gunton (the warden) still makes six figures a year from it.