15 Bindles of Trivia We Shouldered This Week
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter was laid to rest this week. People close to her will remember various aspects of her life. Us in the trivia business, we’re more likely to remember the time John Wayne Gacy posed for a photo with her and got her to autograph the print with the message “Best wishes.”
We tend to focus on the weird around here. Read some weird facts below. There’s even one fact about puppies, and that’s one of the less pleasant ones.
Rest in Peace
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Two British grandmothers went on vacation in Spain in 2005 to a resort with a bed that folded up into the wall. The bed popped out and crushed them both to death. Four days passed before the hotel noticed what had happened.
47 Rabbits
The Aztecs measured drunkenness in terms of rabbits, based on the legend that a goddess gave birth to 400 rabbit gods. If you’re slightly drunk, that might count as a few rabbits, but if you’re extremely drunk, that might register as the full 400 rabbits.
Lying Technology
Your car’s speedometer probably says you’re going faster than you really are. The issue is, laws strictly ban speedometers from underestimating your speed, for safety reasons, and yet the meter might always be a little inaccurate, so they generally err in the other direction.
Decades of Porn
The Smithsonian has in its collection, sealed away, thousands of nude photos of college students. Colleges such as Yale used to take nude photos of all incoming freshman, as part of an investigation into a link between body shape and intelligence.
Sagrada Familia
Barcelona has a church big enough to sit 9,000 people, which is still being built, though construction began all the way back in 1882. You might imagine they should have it finished it by now, but they didn’t, because of COVID.
Humps from Down Under
Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia. Saudi Arabia has its own camels, but it mainly breeds these for racing. Race camels aren’t very tasty, and Saudi Arabians also like eating camels, so they get juicier ones from Australia.
Intimate Ceremony
Bill Gates wanted to keep his 1994 Hawaiian wedding private, so he did the reasonable thing and bought out every hotel room in town. On the off-chance that people would try spying on the couple via helicopter, he also took the precaution of hiring every helicopter on the island.
Puppy Tummies
A Colombian drug cartel came up with a novel method for smuggling heroin. They cut open the stomachs of Labrador retriever puppies, inserted packets of liquid heroin then stitched the pups back up. Like most heroin smuggling plans, it worked fine — right until they got caught.
The Boss’ Sacrifice
Sega was in bad shape in 2001, facing huge losses thanks to the failure of their Dreamcast console. President Isao Okawa restored faith by donating his own $700 million stake in Sega back to the company. He died of heart failure right after that.
Filthy Necks
Men’s shirts used to feature detachable collars. Laundry was so expensive back then that it made practical sense to detach a collar, wash it, then sew it back to the shirt rather than to simply wash the shirt in its entirety.
Just Bow and Smile
Japanese folklore has monsters you can defeat through politeness. If the monster Betobeto-San follows you at night, you can escape harm simply by stepping aside and saying, “After you, Betobeto-San.” Another monster, you can just bow to it, and it will bow back and fall off its perch into the lake.
Stupid Beavers
Beavers have no idea what they’re doing when building dams. Beavers will even cover a tape player with sticks if it plays the sound of running water. They just instinctively cover up the sound of water, in whatever form.
Photo-Op Gone Wrong
A parachutist in 1980 came up with great stunt: He’d jump out of a plane and then fly under St. Louis’ Gateway Arch. Instead, the wind blew him smack into the arch, and he slid down one of the arch’s legs and died.
The Pee Shark
The flesh of the Greenland shark tastes like urine. Most of these sharks are blind, from parasites. Vikings still ate them because Vikings were hardcore.
See Ya, Suckers
A video captured kids on a school bus making fun of a grandmother employed as the bus monitor. Some unrelated guy set up an online fundraiser for her, hoping to raise enough so she could take a vacation. The fundraiser got her more money than she would have otherwise earned in 45 years, and she retired.