15 Boxes of Trivia We Opened During the Week Ending March 8, 2024
They say Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden for eating forbidden fruit. This fruit came from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They would have been allowed to stay in paradise, if they instead ate from the tree of knowledge of stuff in general.
Sadly, no such tree existed back then, because there wasn’t much knowledge in those days, or much stuff. We’ve made up for that in the years to come. Embrace that, with facts about murder, robots and prunes.
Wish You Were Here
When deciding where to stage the D-Day landings, the Allies couldn’t do recon along the whole coast of Europe. So, the BBC asked listeners to send in postcards of the entire area, without telling them why. The War Office used these images to decide Normandy was a decent spot.
The Sentimental Killer
Last month, a man was found guilty of two murders. The evidence against him was pretty strong. He recorded one of the victims dying and left the footage on his phone. Someone who stole this phone saw the recording and turned it over to police.
Dwayne “Plato” Johnson
We refer to one old Greek philosopher as Plato. That wasn’t his name, though. He was born with the name Aristocles. “Plato” was his wrestling nickname and meant “broad,” because he was so broad.
De-Paving
There’s a growing movement to dig out asphalt in bits of a city, leaving soil behind. Though this makes the path useless for tires, it’s good for preventing flooding, since it gives water an alternate method of draining away.
Play Sneezing
Sometimes dogs sneeze, not because they need to clear their noses but as a social cue. Sneezing is their way of showing that they’re playing. If your dog sneezes, they’re probably having a good time.
Don’t Try This At Home
A man at a 2015 Fourth of July celebration thought it might be funny to place a fireworks mortar tube on his head and light it. Previously, he had been known for playing Gaston in Disney World. After the firework went off, there was nothing left of him.
Hydrotherapy
Electroconvulsive therapy treats disorders such as depression and catatonia. This treatment existed even back in ancient Rome — though they didn’t have generators back then. In those days, they used electric fish.
R.I.P. Beth
Soldiers who use robots to defuse bombs sometimes become emotionally attached to the devices. Many write their spouse’s name on the side of the bot, and after the bot finally blows up, the soldier might host a funeral.
Close Shave
A couple of Dallas Cowboys players got into an unusual tussle in 1998. One player refused to vacate a barber chair for the other, so they ended up wrestling, and one stabbed the other in the neck with scissors. No one died, so it was all in good fun, ruled a judge afterward.
Throwaway
In the 19th century, the owner of a portrait studio in London came up with the idea of telling people to say the name of a certain food to put the right expression on their faces when he took their picture. No, he didn’t tell them, “Say ‘cheese.’” He told them, “Say ‘prunes.’”
The Devil’s Drink
Sultan Murad IV of the Ottoman Empire banned coffeehouses, claiming that coffee causes indecency and social decay. He went on to die from cirrhosis of the liver, from all the alcohol he drank.
The Oner
Goodfellas contains a famous sequence in which characters enter the Copacabana nightclub through the kitchen rather than the front, and are greeted like royalty. The reason behind this scene is the production couldn’t get permission to bring the crew in through the normal front entrance.
The Marriage of Jefferson
When Thomas Jefferson first fell in love with his future wife Martha, he contacted Mozart to ask him to write a special piece of music for her. But on meeting the guy, Jefferson found him so repulsive that he abandoned the idea.
Crowdsourcing Search & Rescue
A woman went missing for a week last month hiking in California’s San Gabriel Mountains. Search crews gave up, because the risk of an avalanche was too great. Then some amateur reported spotting her body using a drone, so the sheriff sent a helicopter out to the right spot to get her out of there.
Full House
In 1842, the playwright Honoré de Balzac came up with a plan to get people interested in his new play Les Ressources de Quinola. He spread the rumor that it was so popular that it fully sold out. On opening night, no one showed up. They’d all heard the play was sold out, so there was no point in buying tickets, of course.
