15 Trivia Tidbits for Saturday, June 22, 2024
Albert Einstein might be known as a theoretical physicist, but he also came up with some practical ideas. In 1930, he got a patent on a new type of refrigerator, with no moving parts. It was less efficient than the traditional type of refrigerator, but hey, it did boast the distinction of having no moving parts.
That wasn’t the man’s greatest invention. Find out what it was below, along with information about a less reliable invention, which you can plug into your eye.
Dark Horse
Queen Elizabeth had a horse named Obelisk, who’d drop oats to lure in pigeons. Then he’d stomp on the birds to kill them. He didn’t eat the pigeons; he must have just liked killing them. He was removed from his post and sent for psychological counseling.
King Me
The Taliban kidnapped New York Times reporter David Rohde, holding him for several months in 2008 and 2009. Rohde finally managed to escape by tiring the guards out, so they fell asleep. He tired them out by challenging them to games of checkers.
Wanna Tell the World
The Lonely Island comedy song “I Just Had Sex” became a hit in many countries around the world. In Southeast Asia, clubs would play the song unironically. If you don’t know English, or you know the language but aren’t super familiar with its subtleties, it just sounds like a legit song.
Bake Me a Cake
Making cakes in Victorian times seems like a dream job, compared to alternatives that existed at the time. But being a baker back then really meant working all night so the goods would be ready by morning, kneading dough with your feet and inhaling flour dust in enclosed spaces. A baker typically died at around age 42.
Shocking Sight
In 1868, a Connecticut inventor named Judah Moses got a patent for a pair of electric spectacles. These glasses sent electricity to your optic nerve, claimed ads, fully restoring your sight. We cannot confirm their effectiveness.
J. Moses
Convicted of Kindness
A nurse in the Netherlands was convicted of 10 deaths, as she was the last person to see these patients before they died. In reality, the deaths were all from natural causes, and she was the last person to see them only because she sought out dying patients to comfort them.
Je M’appelle
In France, you can’t legally change your surname. With very few exceptions, your legal name will always be the one you were born with. If you get married, for example, and want to take your spouse’s name, your passport will continue to list only your birth name.
Peeping Gary
A Colorado motel owner spent more than a decade peering from the attic at his guests and taking notes on their sexual habits. He never got caught, and we only know about him because he eventually contacted a reporter to share his many notebooks of observations.
You Look Tired
Riding bicycles is very dangerous, warned traditionalists in the 19th century. Along with various other health risks, the practice could give you “bicycle face.” No consensus existed about just what this face looked like, but doctors assured women that it was very ugly.
The Cleaning Fairy
An aspiring maid in Ohio came up with a plan in 2012 to drum up some business. She’d break into homes, do some unsolicited cleaning and then leave a bill for $75. Apparently, this is illegal, and she ended up pleading guilty to attempted burglary.
Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office
Shark Bite
The Romans used to find stones that appeared to be shaped like human tongues. They believed these were petrified tongues that fell from the sky during eclipses. The truth was cooler: These finds were the teeth of ancient megalodons.
Redundant Accessory
Presidents went almost 200 years without wearing flag pins. The first president to do it was Richard Nixon, and he got the idea from a Robert Redford movie, The Candidate. The movie was a comedy.
March of Progress
In-vitro fertilization was a wild gamble when it began in the 1970s, with just a couple percent chance of success. By the 1990s, the chance of success rose to 25 percent. Today, it’s more than 50 percent.
Friends in Low Places
We use the phrase “low man on the totem pole” for someone without much status. That makes very little sense. If people are stacked in a totem pole, the bottom person must be the strongest and most important.
MC Scrambled
Albert Einstein said that his greatest idea was the Theory of Relativity. He said that his second-greatest idea was boiling an egg in the same pot where he was making soup, as this meant he afterward needed to wash one fewer pot.