85 Truly Astounding And Incredibly Interesting Facts I Learned In May
🚨 Warning: This article contains mentions of murder, violence, and other sensitive topics. 🚨
There's nothing I love more than a good fun fact, whether it's about a fascinating historical event or a mind-blowing tidbit about space.
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I actually love facts so much, that I write a weekly column full of the most interesting things I learned each week.
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At the end of each month, I put everything I learned in one big post for your reading pleasure. This means you might have seen some of these facts in other BuzzFeed articles.
And here are the original posts:
21 Astounding Facts I Learned This Week That Will Live In My Brain Forever
So, without further ado, here are the 85 most interesting facts I learned in May:
1.Hello Kitty was actually created to sell shoes! Sanrio started as a silk company, and soon switched to selling sandals. They found that the sandals with cute designs sold better, so they hired cartoonists to design characters and thus, Hello Kitty was born.
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2.China owns all of the pandas in the world. Yup, even if you've seen a panda at a zoo, it's still owned by China. The program started nearly fifty years ago during Richard Nixon's presidency.
So how does a panda rental work? China is able to choose the location they rent the pandas out to. The rental contracts are typically between $500,000 and $1 million, with the money going to panda conservation efforts. Most zoos are given the option to renew their rental after the contract has ended, which is normally set for 10 years. There is currently a bill in Congress to change elements of this law, focused on the stipulation that even if a panda is born abroad, it is still owned by China and must be sent to China within the first few years of life. However, experts believe that a bill like this might threaten conservation efforts.
3.Before city parks became common, people used to picnic in cemeteries. The cemetery craze began in the 19th century when cemeteries began planting gardens and incorporating flowers in their headstone designs instead of skulls. The new trend horrified some, who couldn't believe that others would dine at someone's final resting place. In Denver, the police had to intervene once the cemeteries began to fill with litter.
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4.During NASA's Gemini 3 missions, astronaut John Young snuck a corned beef sandwich aboard the spacecraft. He hid the sandwich in his pocket and shared it with the other crew members. Someone ratted Young out for being a sandwich smuggler, and NASA banned sandwiches from future missions.
5.The space bun look is pretty much synonymous with Star Wars' Princess Leia, but did you know that the iconic hairstyle was actually inspired by the women of the Mexican Revolution? Star Wars creator, George Lucas, said that he looked to soldaderas, or Mexican women who joined the uprising as inspiration since he wanted Leia to resemble a fighter and not a damsel in distress.
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While many of the soldaderas wore hats or hair coverings, Clara de la Rocha often wore the two buns on either side of her head. de la Rocha fought alongside her father. The pair seized the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa in 1911. de la Rocha eventually earned the title of colonel for her efforts. Photos of de la Rocha were even featured in Star Wars exhibits as the inspo for Leia's look.
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6.The White House built a vinyl collection during the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. The collection, which included over 2,000 records, was started by First Lady Pat Nixon, who assembled a committee of music journalists, scholars, and experts to curate the collection, which includes a variety of genres. The artists included range from The Beatles to John Denver to The Clash, with the collection serving as a time capsule to the 1970s.
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7.Nobody actually knows how to spell Shakespeare’s name. In fact, The Bard’s name has over 80 different spelling variations. There are no records of him ever spelling his name as William Shakespeare, as he is known today.
8.Rodney Alcala was a serial killer, who in the midst of his killing spree, appeared on an episode of The Dating Game, causing him to be known as The Dating Show Killer. Alcala first began his crimes in Los Angeles in 1968, when he lured an eight-year-old girl into his apartment. She was saved by a passerby. Alcala fled to New York, where he enrolled in film school under an alias. While in school, Alcala studied under Roman Polanski, a director who was charged with the rape of a young girl. Alcala was eventually caught and was put in jail.
Upon his release, he assaulted another young girl, and was sent back to jail. It is believed that after his second release from jail, Alcala went back to New York, where he killed Elaine Hover who was the goddaughter of both Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin. By 1978, Alcala had gotten a job at the Los Angeles Times as a typesetter, despite his criminal past. He lured women in under the guise of taking photos of them for his portfolio. Many of them were never heard from again. That same year, Alcala appeared on an episode of The Dating Game and won a date with Cheryl Bradshaw. Backstage, Bradshaw declined the date, saying she had a bad feeling about Alcala.
Alcala was caught after murdering a 12-year-old girl and dumping her bones in the woods. When park rangers recovered her remains, they began questioning her friends and formed a composite sketch of Alcala. Using the sketch and what they knew about Alcala's criminal past, authorities were able to pin him down as the murderer. During the trial, Alcala was given the death penalty, which was overturned. A second trial was held. Alcala was sentenced to death once again, but that verdict was also overturned. In 2010, Alcala went on a trial for the third time and represented himself. He was given the death penalty again. While Alcala was conclusively linked to nine murders, it is believed that his true number of victims could be much higher. He died of natural causes in July 2021.
9.While it's shocking to imagine living in a pizza-less world, the dish actually didn't become super common in America until after World War II. Soldiers who were stationed in Italy loved pizza so much that they brought it back to America. Prior to that, Italian immigrant families made pizza in their own homes, but the meal didn't hit the mainstream until after the war.
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10.File this one under: talents pigeons have that I simply don't. An experiment featuring eight pigeons found that after training, the birds could differentiate between the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet. Their success rate was higher than that of a human's, with the pigeons being able to correctly guess the artist over 90% of the time.
11.Despite the fact that the Hindenburg airship was full of seven million cubic feet of highly combustible hydrogen, there was still a smoking lounge on board. Passengers could not bring their own matches and lighters on board. Instead, they entered a pressurized room that prevented any hydrogen from getting through, where a single lighter was kept.
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These precautions couldn't save the airship from tragedy. The Hindenburg burst into flames on May 6, 1937. Experts believe that the ship caught fire due to both a hydrogen leak onboard and inclement weather. Miraculously, 61 of the 97 passengers survived the fiery wreck.
12.Milton Hershey, the inventor of the Hershey bar, cheated death on the Titanic. Hershey had written a $300 check to reserve a room on the ship. Business in the chocolate world must have been booming in 1912, because Hershey and his wife dipped out on the trip due to work committments, likely saving their lives.
13.The Super Soaker is the world’s bestselling toy, but for years, its creator didn’t receive a single cent from the toy’s sales. Lonnie Johnson was awarded $72.9 million in a settlement with Hasbro for the unpaid royalties.
Johnson invented the Super Soaker in 1982 while working on a totally different project. "I was working on a new idea for a heat pump that would use water as a working fluid instead of Freon," Johnson told CNN. While experimenting with different nozzles, he realized that he could create a water gun. Johnson also invented the Nerf Gun, so you should probably thank him for a lot of your childhood fun.
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14.TBH, this might be the cutest fact I've ever read. Dogs "play-sneeze" when they're having a good time. The sneezes also indicate to other dogs that their rambunctious behavior is only play.
15.In 1901, Valdimar Ásmundsson translated Bram Stoker’s Dracula into Icelandic. The issue? They actually made significant changes to the plot, meaning the people of Iceland were essentially reading Dracula fan fiction for nearly 100 years. Dutch author and historian Hans Corneel de Roos cracked the case, and said that some suspect that Stoker collaborated with Ásmundsson on the Icelandic version. de Roos also said that he believes the Icelandic version, which is called Powers of Darkness, is actually a better book than the OG Dracula.
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16.In Finland, the punishment for most minor infractions is based on the day-fine system. This means that the fines for crimes like speeding, littering, and disturbing the public peace are determined by the amount you could spend in a day based on your income. The wealthier you are, the more your speeding ticket is going to cost.
17.Yoko Ono was fascinated by Salvador Dalí's surrealist work and offered the artist $10,000 for a single piece of hair from his famous mustache, which she wanted to store in a custom box. Dalí notoriously jumped at any moneymaking opportunity, so he agreed to Ono's request.
After thinking about the situation, Dalí decided that he didn't want to give Ono his hair, because he believed that she was a witch who would use his hair in a spell. Instead, he sent his assistant out to pick a single dried blade of grass to give to Ono instead, who supposedly believed it was one of Dalí's actual mustache hairs.
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18.Although Freddie Mercury died just before Wanye’s World was released in 1992, he was given a VHS with the flick's infamous head-banging scene that featured Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Mercury supposedly loved the scene. At the time, Queen's American fanbase was dwindling, but Mercury believed that the inclusion of the song in the film would spur a Queen comeback in the United States.
19.Outback Steakhouse was founded in Tampa, Florida by four Americans who had never even visited Australia. The group came up with the concept for the restaurant after seeing a surge in popularity for Australian culture following the release of Crocodile Dundee in 1986. Gotta hand it to 'em for giving us the Bloomin' Onion!
20.McDonald’s announced the redesign of their McFlurry cup in 2006 after the British Hedgehog Preservation Society launched a six-year campaign against the old container. According to the group, the hedgehog’s head could easily get stuck against the lid of the old cup, meaning they wouldn’t be able to get out, leading to dehydration, starvation, and even death. McDonald’s said they carried out significant research during the redesign process to ensure that no hedgehogs would be harmed by a McFlurry cup in the future.
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21.Emma Gatewood, often referred to as Grandma Gatewood, shocked the world when she became the first woman to walk the Appalachian Trail solo in one season. Gatewood took up hiking at age 67, after her 11 children were grown and out of the house. After she saw an article in National Geographic about the trail, she became determined to conquer all 2,168 miles.
In 1955, she told her children that she was "going on a hike in the woods," and set off on her first journey along the Appalachian Trail. Gatewood ultimately did the entire trail three times, completing her final trek at age 75. She also hiked 2,000 miles of The Oregon Trail, hiking an average of 22 miles a day on her journey. Grandma Gatewood is viewed as a pioneer of long-trail hiking.
22.If the thought of going number two in a public restroom grosses you out, then just be glad you weren't an astronaut on board the Apollo spacecraft. The Apollo astronauts didn't have a space toilet, and instead had to use a plastic bag with an adhesive that they stuck to their bodies. After finishing their business, they had to add disinfectant to the bag, and then knead it by hand until it was all mixed together. All of their poop bags made the journey back to Earth with the astronauts.
23.Gouverneur Morris, who was the author of the final draft of the US Constitution, might have one of the most gruesome death stories I've ever heard. After suffering from a painful blockage in his urinary tract, Morris decided to take matters into his own hands and inserted a whale bone into his penis to try to clear up the blockage.
Not only did the bone fail to dislodge the blockage, Morris also got a gnarly infection from his self-performed surgery. He died as a result of the infection in 1816. To make things interesting, he died in the same room that he had been born in.
24.Ever wondered if there was an actual difference between green and white asparagus? Turns out they're the same species! White asparagus is just asparagus that's never been exposed to light. Its shoots are covered with soil so that the plant can avoid photosynthesis. White asparagus is actually a delicacy in Europe, but is not produced in the United States.
25.Ted Kaczynski was dubbed "The Unabomber" by the FBI because his earliest mail bombs were sent to universities (UN) and airports (A). Over 17 years, Kaczynski carried out 16 bomb attacks that killed three people and injured 23.
26.Richard Chase was a serial killer who went down in history for drinking the blood of his victims after ruthlessly killing them. He was even known as the "Vampire of Sacramento." As a child, Chase exhibited disturbing signs and was often cruel to animals. After his father kicked him out of their house, he turned to drugs and alcohol, which exacerbated his mental illness. He convinced himself that he was a walking corpse, and told others that his heart would stop. Chase also believed that his cranial bones were shifting, and shaved his head so he could monitor the movement of his skull.
By age 25, Chase was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was dubbed "Dracula" by fellow patients at his psychiatric hospital after they saw him trying to drink the blood from dead birds. Despite this behavior, he was released and sent to live with his mother. By the mid-1970s, Chase had been kicked out of several apartments for killing animals and drinking their blood. In 1977, Chase's mother refused to let him come home for Christmas, which set off a month-long murder spree that took the lives of six people.
Police were able to trace the crimes to Chase due to his love of blood. During one of his killings, a neighbor knocked on the door, which startled Chase. He fled, but the neighbor contacted the police, who figured out Chase was the trespasser. They went to his apartment, where all of the utensils were covered in blood and his fridge was full of human brains. He was arrested and sentenced to death. Chase overdosed on anxiety medication in prison and died in 1980.
27.While most household pets look and act very different from their ancestors after centuries of domestication, cats remain mostly unchanged from their ancestors. They actually domesticated themselves, in part because the two lineages cats come from were solitary hunters without a social hierarchy, meaning it would have been incredibly difficult for humans to domesticate them.
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28.While you probably think of rum when you think of Captain Morgan, there actually was a real Captain Morgan that the drink was named after. Sir Henry Morgan left his family in Wales to become the leader of a powerful group of pirates called the Brethren of the Coast. The Brethren controlled the entire Caribbean. He was supposedly a generous captain and a great leader but was ruthless to those who crossed him, even going so far as to strangle prisoners until their eyeballs popped out.
Morgan led an army of pirates to fight against the Spanish and snapped up territory and riches. He led a charge to capture Panama and succeeded in 1671. Using the gold he amassed through his pirate adventures, Morgan bought land in Jamaica, and eventually became the governor.
29.During Arnold Schwarzenegger’s required year of service in the Austrian Army, he disappeared for a week to participate in a bodybuilding contest. Schwarzenegger won the contest, but was caught and was forced to serve a week in military prison. Looks like the punishment was worth it because the contest win paved the way for Schwarzenegger to move to Hollywood.
30.While I was under the assumption that all vodka came from potatoes, only 3% of vodkas worldwide are made from potatoes. Most vodka is actually made from grains, wheat, or rye, but vodka connoisseurs say that vodka made from potatoes is typically the most flavorful.
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31.King David Kalākaua, the final Hawaiian king and the first to be elected and not appointed, saved Hawaiian culture by embarking on a world tour. When missionaries came to Hawaii, many native Hawaiians died from disease. The missionaries also stoked racial tensions. As king, Kalākaua was determined to boost Hawaiian culture and tradition and decided to embark on a world tour.
In 1881, he left Hawaii and visited Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. The trip took 281 days. As a result of his journey, Kalākaua became the first reigning monarch to circumnavigate the globe.
32.The smell of old books is truly unmatched. The scent, which is called lignin, is released when the materials used in the production of the book react with light, heat, and water. While the scent typically depends on what the book was made out of, most books have a vanilla-like smell.
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33.After the 2014 death of Robin Williams, members of ISIS took to Twitter and forums to write about how his movies were impactful on their lives. This angered some members, because they condemned Williams for criticizing ISIS's mission.
34.Butterflies often "mud puddle," a process during which they extract, then eat, the salts that are found in mud, blood, and feces. Apparently, it's very nutritious!
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35.Paul McCartney's song "Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)" was written because of a bet. Dustin Hoffman told McCartney that he couldn't write a song about any old random thing. McCartney disagreed, so Hoffman grabbed a magazine, flipped to a random page, and challenged McCartney to write a song about the article, which was on the death of Pablo Picasso. McCartney wrote the song on the spot.
36.Maybe some current Senators should brush up on this one! Senate Rule XIX states that a US Senator cannot insult their colleagues. The rule, which dates back to 1902, was established after a fistfight between Senators erupted during a debate about a treaty relating to the annexation of the Philippines.
37.Forrest Mars, who created Peanut M&M's, couldn't even enjoy his own invention because he was allergic to peanuts.
38.There are actually a few reasons why fire trucks are red. The most obvious is that humans associate the color red with urgency, so seeing a red vehicle speeding down the street clued them into the fact that there was an emergency nearby. There's also a theory that fire trucks were actually painted red because it was the cheapest paint color available at the time. Some have attempted to debunk this, saying that red paint wasn't the cheapest, but stations painted their trucks red to evoke a sense of pride. Others believe that fire trucks are red because virtually all early cars were black, so the red stood out.
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There's also a big difference between a fire engine and a fire truck, despite the fact that the terms are often used interchangeably. A fire engine typically transports the water necessary to fight fires until firefighters can access a fire hydrant, while fire trucks carry the ladders and other important equipment.
39.While William Shakespeare’s grave now shows him holding a quill, the original grave actually depicted the playwright holding a bag of grain. In 1747, the citizens of Stratford-upon-Avon replaced the bag with a quill. Some believe the quill was to honor his plays, while others say the grain was removed because Shakespeare grew wealthy dealing grain during a time of famine.
40.When Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, was 14 years old, he wrote a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt congratulating him on his re-election. The letter also contained a plea. "If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green American, in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green American and I would like to have one of them," Castro wrote.
41.When Frank Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, his ambulance was able to avoid all of the Los Angeles traffic en route to Cedar-Sinai, reaching the hospital in record time. So why was there so little traffic? Everyone was home watching the two-hour Seinfeld finale event.
Many Seinfeld fans were unsatisfied by the show's ending, which found the characters on trial in a small town for not helping a person who was being mugged. Critics quickly forgot the poorly received finale, as the news was full of tributes to Sinatra.
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42.I'm confident that the price of a Costco hot dog will remain $1.50 until the end of time. The hot dog has cost $1.50 since it was introduced in 1984, and has stayed the same price ever since, even as other food items, like the store's dollar pizza slices, have risen in price due to inflation. That's not to say people haven't tried to raise the price. When the company's president complained the store was losing money on the hot dogs, Costco CEO, Jim Sinegal, refused to budge. "If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you," Sinegal said. "Figure it out."
43.Sabiha Gökçen, a Turkish pilot, is believed to be the first female combat pilot in the world. Gökçen was one of several children adopted by Turkish president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Soon after, Atatürk granted women the right to vote and empowered them to take up passions like aviation. Gökçen was enchanted by flight and enrolled in flight school, where she became the first Turkish woman to receive her pilot's license.
In 1936, Gökçen embarked on her first solo flight. From there, she began training as a military pilot. By 1937, she completed her first solo combat mission. She continued flying and made headlines for her solo trip to the Balkans. While she retired from flying in 1964, she lived long enough to see an airport in Istanbul become named in her honor in 2001.
44.If being trapped underground in a speeding metal tube freaks you out, then just be glad that trains have windows now! The first subway cars ever built in London had tiny little slits for windows. Passengers couldn't see out them to know when to get off the train, and the lack of windows made riders feel incredibly claustrophobic. So why no windows? The engineers who designed the train thought that there was nothing worth looking at underground in the tunnels.
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45.Actor Claire Danes is barred from entering the Philippines and has been for more than two decades. In a 1998 Vogue interview, Danes said she found Manila, the country's capital city, to be "ghastly and weird." The actor had recently spent time there filming the movie Brokedown Palace. She later doubled down on her criticism, telling Premiere magazine, the city "smelled of cockroaches, with rats all over, and that there is no sewerage system, and the people do not have anything — no arms, no legs, no eyes."
As a result, the city council formally banned Danes from entering the country, and even voted to forbid her movies from being shown. Manila said the ban would be lifted once Danes issued a formal apology. While she has since apologized for her remarks, the city council shot back, saying they didn't believe her apology was genuine. She is still barred from the Philippines.
46.While traveling to space, astronauts' eyeballs can change shape, leading to vision problems. Among those who had spent over six months at the International Space Station, NASA documented several instances of astronauts suddenly becoming far-sighted, having issues reading, and needing others to assist them because they couldn't see. It is believed that this is due to a build-up of fluid in the head, which applies immense pressure to the eyeball.
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47.Randy Steven Kraft is a serial killer known as the "Scorecard Killer," because he was known for keeping a list that resembled a scorecard of all of the people he murdered. Kraft's scorecard included initials and abbreviations to list out the names of his victims, which also made it difficult for others to determine who each entry was about.
Kraft was convicted of killing 16 young men between 1972 and 1983 in Los Angeles. He mostly killed by strangling or suffocating his victims, although he would also sometimes give them alcohol or drugs to cause a fatal overdose. Most of the men he killed were in the Marines. Kraft had enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from college but was medically discharged after he came out as gay.
Officials were able to connect 14 murders to the same person, who they believed was above average intelligence. They also noted that the killer likely had military training. Police began to suspect Kraft after his license plate was connected to a 15th murder, but he was released on a lack of evidence. Years later, he was pulled over by police, who found a man's body in the car. They also found Kraft's scorecard, which connected him to 16 murders. There were so many markings on the card that it is believed Kraft actually killed about 60 men. He was sentenced to death in 1989, and still remains on death row, where he maintains that he is innocent.
48.After reading M. Night Shyamalan's spec script for The Sixth Sense, Disney executive, David Vogel bought the rights to the movie for about $3 million. Disney believed that the movie would never amount to anything, and fired Vogel for buying the film. They also sold the production rights to the movie to Spyglass Entertainment, meaning Disney would only get a tiny portion of the movie's profits. The Sixth Sense went on to spend five weeks at number one, and was nominated for six Oscars. Guess Vogel had a sixth sense about how well the movie would do!
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49.The FBI has an iron-clad rule that applicants must not have used marijuana in the past year. As a result, the agency has said they've had a hard time hiring hackers. Those who have used cocaine or ecstasy must wait 10 years before becoming eligible to work for the FBI.
50.Even sports legends get embarrassed. During a trip to Las Vegas, Michael Jordan tipped a casino waitress $5 for bringing him a drink. Hockey icon Wayne Gretzky, who was accompanying Jordan on the trip, stopped the waitress and handed her $100 instead, telling Jordan, "That's how we tip in Las Vegas, Michael."
51.There is a red waterfall in Antarctica, which is known as Blood Falls. The water is red because it contains almost no oxygen, and is home to dozens of different species of microorganisms, which are thought to be flowing from a lake that has been trapped under the ice for over two million years. Scientists believe that a similar ecosystem might live on Mars.
52.Cleopatra supposedly always wore red lipstick, which was made from flowers, fish scales, and crushed-up bugs. During that time, red lipstick was seen as a sign of social status, and both men and women donned the shade.
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53.Paul McCartney, who is a vegetarian and an animal rights activist, was approached to guest star on an episode of The Simpsons that featured Lisa Simpson becoming a vegetarian. When he learned about the episode's plotline, he said he would guest star on one condition: Lisa permanently became a vegetarian. The showrunners agreed, and Lisa Simpson has been a vegetarian ever since.
54.The average cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds and contains about 500,000,000 water droplets.
55.Two women's regulation basketballs can fit through a standard basketball hoop at one time. Two average men's basketballs just miss the cut, but some pairs could fit depending on how much air is in the balls.
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56.After Robert Morin graduated from the University of New Hampshire, he worked at the college as a librarian for over 50 years. When he died in 2015 at age 77, everyone at the school was shocked to learn that Morin was a multimillionaire, who had left his entire $4 million fortune to the school. He said that $100,000 had to go to the library and that he trusted that the university would do "the right thing" with the other $3.9 million. The school invested $1 million of the gift in a new scoreboard for the football stadium, a move that drew backlash and criticism that the school only spent "the bare minimum" on the library.
57.John Graham was a 22-year-old who had recently reconciled with his mother, Daisie, after being estranged for years. Despite their reconciliation, Graham still harbored resentment toward Daisie, and plotted to kill her. When Daisie planned a trip to Alaska to visit her daughter, Graham planted a dynamite time bomb in her suitcase. He then purchased a life insurance policy in his mother's name while in the airport terminal, hoping to collect around $37,500.
On November 1, 1955, the bomb detonated on board the flight, killing 44 people. It was the first attack of its kind onboard a commercial aircraft. After six days of searching the wreckage, officials determined that the plane had been taken down by the bomb, and turned the investigation over to the FBI. They were able to pin down Graham due to the level of damage his mother's luggage had sustained. He was caught and sentenced to death in 1957. His trial was televised, making Colorado the first state to broadcast criminal trials.
58.On the fifth floor of the US Supreme Court building, there's a full basketball court that was constructed in the 1940s. The court was jokingly dubbed "The Highest Court in the Land." The basketball court is actually directly above the Supreme Courtroom, so people aren't allowed to play while court is in session.
59.Female sharks store sperm after mating. They can hold it for years until they are ready to reproduce. This practice actually promotes genetic diversity, and helps maintain wild shark populations.
60.Presidents over the years have had a variety of different pets, but Andrew Jackson's parrot was probably one of the more unique animals to ever call the White House home. Jackson purchased the African grey parrot as a gift for his wife, Rachel. The couple named the parrot Poll.
After Rachel died, Jackson and Poll spent even more time together, causing Poll to pick up on Jackson's frequent cursing. Poll even attended Jackson's funeral in 1845. Overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people, Poll began cursing, and had to be removed from the funeral proceedings.
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61.I demand an explanation. Double Stuf Oreos contain only 1.86 times the amount of creme as a traditional Oreo. A math teacher discovered the discrepancy while conducting an experiment with his class.
62.There's a theory that William Shakespeare helped write the King James Bible. The bible was underway in 1610, when Shakespeare was 45 years old. The bard also had a relationship with King James, having written for him before. The last line of Psalm 45 ends in "shake," while the first word of Psalm 46 is "spear." People think this is a hidden message included in the text by Shakespeare himself. The theory has since been debunked, but some are convinced that the message means that the playwright had something to do with the bible's publication.
63.Bears actually weren't always called bears. In the Middle Ages, people were so scared of the animals that they refused to call them by their proper name because they feared it would summon them. Instead, they started referring to them as "bruin," meaning "the brown one," which later morphed into "bear." People adopted that as the actual name for the species, meaning the word "bear" is actually the world's oldest euphemism.
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64.Althea Gibson was truly the blueprint for Black women in sports. As a child, Gibson loved tennis but was barred from many competitions because she was Black. Eventually, tournament organizers couldn't deny her talents, and she began competing in high-profile tournaments. Her success also allowed her to attend college, although the negative press surrounding her caused her to consider quitting tennis and dropping out of college to join the Army. She stayed, and by 1951, she was the first Black player to compete at Wimbledon.
Gibson went on to win both the singles and doubles tournament at Wimbledon in 1957. She also won the US Open in 1958, cementing her as one of the world's best tennis players. She later took up golf and became the first Black woman to ever compete on the pro tour. Upon her retirement in 1971, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
65.The first McDonald's drive-thru was built in 1975 in Sierra Vista, Arizona, located near Fort Huachuca. The soldiers working at the base were under strict orders to not appear in uniform in public, so they were unable to pick up a Big Mac on their way home from work unless they changed into civilian clothes. Manager David Rich decided to cut a hole in the side of the building that would allow soldiers to order meals without getting out of their vehicles, and thus, the drive-thru was born.
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66.Between the end of Prohibition and the 1970s, Coors Banquet was only available in 11 states, all located west of the Mississippi River. The beer was unpasteurized and had to be kept cold during transit, otherwise, it would go bad. Despite this, several US Presidents loved the brew so much that they went to great lengths to bring it to the White House.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower occasionally had the Air Force fly a supply of Coors to Washington DC. Years later, President Gerald Ford smuggled a case of Coors back to the White House after a ski trip in Colorado. By 1991, Coors was distributed in all 50 states.
67.Remember this one for when you're having a bad day! Planning a vacation actually creates more happiness in your brain than going on the actual trip does. A 2010 study showed that people had their highest levels of happiness before going on their trip, proving that the anticipation, and not the trip itself, boosts happiness.
68.Goldfish can distinguish music by different composers. Scientists played music by Bach and Stravinsky for the fish, and found that they could identify the correct composer about 75% of the time.
69.In 1979, a 22-year-old Cameron Crowe pretended to be a student and went undercover at a high school to write a book about his experiences. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which later became a movie, featured a character named Mark Ratner. Ratner, who was based on a student named Andy Rathbone, was portrayed as being a huge computer nerd, something Rathbone took offense to. In fact, he even sued Crowe for the way he was depicted. Rathbone later went on to write PCs For Dummies and many other books in the Dummies series, which has millions of copies in print.
70.Some believe that Benjamin Franklin fought hard to make the turkey America's national bird. While he never actually proposed giving the turkey the honor, Franklin wrote in a letter to his daughter that the bald eagle had "bad moral character," and believed that turkeys were "much more respectable."
71.Rats, squirrels, and other rodents can't vomit. They're some of the few mammals who lack the ability to puke because their brains lack the neurological circuits associated with vomiting.
Paramount / Via giphy.com
72.There is only one known case of a person being struck by space debris. In 1997, Lottie Williams was walking in a Tulsa, Oklahoma park when she was struck in the shoulder by a 6-inch piece of metallic material. Williams was unharmed. It was later determined that the material came from a piece of a Delta II rocket that had been launched eight months earlier.
73.A ton of the props and artwork from the show Melrose Place had coded meanings about HIV awareness, environmental issues, women's rights, and same-sex marriage. In 1995, artist Mel Chin convinced the producers of the show to allow him and a group of artists, teachers, and students to replace the show's art with their messaged work. Several art shows with all of the artwork have been held since the show's finale.
74.Some believe singer Jeff Buckley predicted his own drowning. The last line of the last song of his final (and only) studio album refers to being “asleep in the sand with the ocean washing over.”
In May 1997, Buckley drowned in the Mississippi River while in Memphis, Tennessee. There are lots of questions surrounding his death and why he entered the water at night by himself. Officials believe he was caught up in the wake of a passing boat.
75.During World War II, the government urged Americans to save the grease they accumulated while cooking. Why? The Army was accepting grease donations to produce explosives. One of the most commonly donated greases was from bacon.
Giphy / Via giphy.com
76.Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese actor, was one of the most popular stars of the silent film era in Hollywood. Hayakawa acted in silent films in the 1910s and 1920s, where he typically portrayed villains or forbidden lovers. He was usually not allowed to "get the girl" at the end of the movie because he was a Japanese man acting alongside white women. The only time he actually ended up with the female lead was when he starred in The Dragon Painter alongside his wife, Tsuru Aoki.
At the height of his fame, Hayakawa was earning up to $2 million, which equals about $28 million in today's money. In fact, some say his fame was on par with that of Charlie Chaplin, who is arguably the world's most recognizable silent film star. By 1918, Hayakawa was so popular that he started his own film studio. He successfully transitioned to "talkies" in the 1930s, and steadily worked until he largely retired from acting after starring in 1957's The Bridge on The River Kwai. Hayakawa became the first Asian person nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his role in that film.
77.Hummingbirds are one of the few bird species who pee. Other birds excrete urine in solid form, but hummingbirds consume so much water through the nectar they drink that their urine is liquid.
Giphy / Via giphy.com
78.Cher's 1998 hit "Believe" is the first song to use Auto-Tune. The singer believed her career was hitting "rock bottom," and after hearing a different song with a wobble effect created by a vocoder (a voice effect pedal tool), decided she wanted to create a similar song. Her producers decided to use Auto-Tune, which had been released the year before, to create the effect. For years, they denied the use of Auto-Tune and claimed they had used the vocoder tool instead, but later came clean.
79.During the Great Depression, so many stories about Americans starving came out that word traveled all the way to Africa. In response, Cameroon sent $3.77 in relief money to the United States to show support, despite the fact that effects of the Depression were felt in the country.
80.When Lance Armstrong was found doping and stripped of multiple Tour de France wins, the committee decided to award the win to the next-place finisher. However, they found that so many bikers were doping that they ended up declaring no winner for seven successive Tour de France races.
81.Ever seen a movie with the "all persons are fictitious" disclaimer? That came to be after MGM released Rasputin and the Empress, a movie that said Prince Felix Yusupov shot and killed Rasputin. Yusupov heard about the movie and sued, saying it wasn't true.
The issue? Yusupov had already released a memoir saying that he, in fact, had killed Rasputin, so his libel case had little ground to stand on. He pivoted his argument and said that the film defamed his wife due to a factual discrepancy. Turns out, an MGM employee had pointed this out, and had been fired and accused of tampering with the film. As a result, MGM lost the suit, and thus, the "all persons are fictitious" disclaimer was born.
82.70 million years ago (aka, when dinosaurs were still around), days were only about 23-and-a-half hours long. The Earth turned faster then, meaning back in the day, there were technically 372 days in a year.
Pixar / Via giphy.com
83.Blink-182's iconic Enema of the State album cover originally showed a red cross on the nurse's hat. However, the band was forced to remove the cross from the cover after the American Red Cross told them it was a violation of the Geneva Convention because the band was in no way a medical entity.
84.Archaeologists have found an ancient takeout counter in the ruins of Pompeii. The counter, known as a termopolium, served hot drinks, street food, and wine. The city was destroyed in 79 CE after Mount Vesuvius erupted.
85.And finally, Jeannette Rankin became the first female member of Congress in 1916, four years before the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, was ratified. Rankin began her political career as a student volunteer fighting for women's suffrage. When she learned Montana was considering legislation supporting women's suffrage, she headed over to volunteer. Upon arrival, she learned the legislation was a hoax but managed to convince them to actually follow through with the measure. She visited over 15 other states to fight for the right to vote.
In 1916, two years after Montana officially passed suffrage under her leadership, Rankin ran for one of Montana's two House seats. In that election cycle, more than 300 women around the world ran for office, as more states began granting women the right to vote. Rankin officially became the first woman to serve in Congress. She left office after her first term but was elected again during World War II.
