12 Enormous Copper Bits of Trivia Gifted to Us by the People of France, That We Need to Build a Gigantic Pedestal for ASAP

The Moscow-Washington hotline that provides direct communication between the leaders of the U.S. and Russia is called the “red telephone,” but it’s never been either of those things. It was originally a Teletype (a proto-fax machine), and today it’s just a couple of computers that exchange super-secure emails.

In 1965, Cash’s camper started a fire that destroyed 508 acres of forest and scared off 49 of 53 endangered condors from a nearby refuge. By way of defense, he said, “I didn’t do it, my truck did, and it’s dead, so you can’t question it,” and later said, “I don’t care about your damn yellow buzzards.”

He once set aside funding for an expedition to the center of the planet, saying, “I declare the earth is hollow and habitable within. I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.” Andrew Jackson killed the project when he took over.

Navarro kicked a Playboy party up a notch in the 1990s when he took heroine, partook in an orgy and then wrote on the walls with his own blood.

He takes press photos for the U.S. National Soccer Team, going by the professional name Brooks Parkenridge.

While studying at Morehouse College in the 1960s, Jackson was part of a student protest that locked board members in a building for two days — including King Sr. This was about a year after he served as an usher at King Jr.’s funeral.

Lohan said that, while serving a court-ordered community service sentence in 2012, they made her handle Houston’s body: “A lot of other people were meant to do it, and they were like, ‘No, they can’t handle it. Lohan can.’” The Coroner’s Office explained that no, that’s not at all how community service works.

Douglas said of HPV: “It's a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer. And if you have it, cunnilingus is also the best cure for it.” He was right about the first half at least!

A woman who was arrested after throwing her burrito bowl at a Chipotle employee had her sentence reduced from 180 days in jail, to 120 days in jail and two months working at a fast-food restaurant.

Explaining why she didn’t want to have more kids, she described a nightmare scenario where one child doesn’t want cheese on their pizza and another doesn’t want tomato. This, of course, is emotionally draining to her personal chef: “Our chef sometimes looks so downhearted. He’s always saying, ‘Madam, what are we going to do?’”

Hiccups are associated with the vagus nerve, which runs a strange route throughout the body, and therefore can be stimulated in strange ways. While treating a patient who had been hiccupping 30 times a minute, a doctor tried a bunch of weird stuff to stimulate the nerve: making him gag, pulling his tongue and poking his eye. Finally, he hit the jackpot: “Digital rectal massage was then attempted using a slow circumferential motion. The frequency of hiccups immediately began to slow, with a termination of all hiccups within 30 seconds.”

The 1945 Potsdam Declaration demanded Japan’s unconditional surrender. Japanese Premiere Kantaro Suzuki’s response included the word “mokusatsu,” most likely indicating that he’d seen the declaration and was considering it. But the word can also mean something along the lines of “to ignore with contempt,” which may have been the translation that President Truman saw, prompting him to order the bombing 10 days later.