12 Eternally Youthful Bits of Trivia Stranded on a Pirate-Infested Planet Where Time Does Not Seem to Exist
It seems pretty cool in theory, but I’m having second thoughts about this “Neverland.” All of the non-pirate residents are orphans “who fall out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way” and are “not claimed in seven days.” They, as perpetual children, are then enlisted in a child army that has to face off against adult pirates, for eternity? Couldn’t be me.
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Someone Stole Buddha’s Teeth
Followers of Buddha incinerated his body after he achieved enlightenment, and his remains were distributed to various temples and shrines. In 2014, a golden urn containing some of his teeth, hair and bones was stolen from a shrine in Cambodia. Several of the shrine’s security guards were eventually arrested for their involvement, but the architect of the heist is still on the loose.
The Torturer’s Journal
Franz Schmidt was Nuremberg’s official interrogator/executioner for four decades around the turn of the 17th century. He kept a detailed journal, showing he was very adept at painfully torturing confessions out of people — breaking them on the wheel was a favorite — and then painlessly putting them out of their misery: He was a meticulous hanger and beheader.
The World’s Richest Family Gave Us the World’s Dumbest Social Media Network
In 2009, Russell Rockefeller launched Affluence, a Facebook ripoff for rich people. Requirements to get in were to have a verified income of $300,000 per year, a verified net worth of $3 million or five rich friends who would vouch for your own richness.
Ozzy Osbourne’s Neanderthal Blood May Have Saved His Life
Ozzy had his genome sequenced so science could figure out how to survive an Olympic swimming pool’s worth of cocaine. In his words, “There's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive. Maybe my DNA could say why.” One finding was that he has some very rare neanderthal DNA floating around in there. It’s not impossible that he just snorted neanderthal blood at some point.
Captain Krech’s Sea Monster
In World War I, German Navy Captain Günther Krech and his men were captured by the British when their vessel malfunctioned and failed to dive. Under interrogation, he described a huge, horned, toothy beast that attacked the ship, damaging the diving mechanism. In reality, Günther had gotten a little chilly, and had a heating system installed in his cabin. Its makeshift installation had left a crucial hatch unable to shut, so the ship started filling with water when they tried to dive.
You Might Turn Into Soap After You Die
The process of saponification causes your fat to putrify into a hard, gray, soap-like substance. It’s called adipocere by nerds, or “grave wax” by the extremely cool.
Google Maps Redrew the Germany-Netherlands Border
The Ems estuary is the source of a border dispute between the two countries, which would put Google Maps in an uncomfortable position, if they had any clue what the fuck they were doing. Google completely ignored that border dispute, and drummed up a new one by handing over the Port of Emmet — which everyone agreed belonged to Germany — to the Dutch. They ignored the people of Emmet for years, although it appears to be fixed now.
The Great Norwegian Goat Cheese Fire
Almost 30 tons of brown goat cheese turned into flammable tar when a truck caught fire in a tunnel. The fire raged for five days, and the tunnel was closed for weeks. In the words of Norwegian Public Roads Administrator Kjell Bjoern Vinje, “I didn’t know that brown cheese burns so well.” Neither did we, Kjell. Neither did we.
Nevada’s Horrifying Geyser That God Never Intended
The Fly Ranch Geyser looks like some kind of invertebrate ancestor to a chest burster that no god or intelligent designer could have possibly intended to exist on Earth. And thankfully, it turns out it was human-made. A well was drilled for irrigation in 1916, but the water was too hot. It was re-drilled for geothermal energy in 1964, but it was too cold. It was then improperly sealed, and this abomination slowly grew out of it.
We Lost Archimedes’ Instruction Manual for the Antikythera Mechanism
The great mathematician and engineer Archimedes may have been behind the mysterious Antikythera mechanism, a complex machine that could predict celestial phenomena. Archimedes died when Syracuse was sacked in 212 B.C., and a manuscript he wrote that likely described the machine’s construction, On Sphere-Making, was probably burned in the process.
Scientists Can’t Agree on Whether Dinosaurs Had Lice
Scientists noticed a handful of extremely tiny bugs — about twice the width of a human hair — among a set of dinosaur feathers preserved in amber, with clear indications that these guys were eating the feathers. Mesophthirus engeli were considered a lice-like parasite for a while, although more recently, some scientists have argued those are just babies, and the adult versions are more like little bugs than parasites.
A Crooked Cop Called the Cops on His Own Cop Self
A Michigan cop yoinked some weed from a crime scene, brought it home and baked a batch of weed brownies with his wife. They polished off the whole pan, and started freaking entirely out. He got so high that he called 9-1-1, saying, “We made brownies, and I think we’re dead, I really do.” He subsequently admitted to stealing drugs from crime scenes before, but he was never charged with a crime.