12 Trivia Tidbits for Friday, February 23, 2024
There's our favorite patient! Wow, has it been six months already? Time flies! Okay, let’s get down to business: Open up that big beautiful brain of yours, and let’s see how that last batch of trivia tidbits we implanted up in there are doing.
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The USSR Planned to Kick Off World War III in 1979
Believing, for some reason, that NATO was going to nuke Poland, they drew up a preemptive attack that would start with seven megatons of nuclear destruction, and end with a ground invasion that would claim all of Europe up to the River Rhine.
Asteroids Can Cause Tornadoes
Scientists have determined that unique patterns on the surface of Mars come from asteroid impacts so intense, they shot up swirling plumes of wind and debris that whip around at 500 miles per hour.
A Hong Kong Businesswoman’s Unique Take on Democracy, Freedom and Sovereignty
Pro-democracy protests erupted in Hong Kong in 2014 when Hong Kong Executive Council member Laura Cha said, “American slaves were liberated in 1861 but did not get voting rights until 107 years later. So why can’t Hong Kong wait for a while?”
Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond Is a Shill for the U.S. Government
The original script of Tomorrow Never Dies had an American admiral getting seduced and murdered by a spy, but the Pentagon got mad and forced them to make the victim Canadian instead.
This One Weird Trick Will Keep You From Looking Like a Jerk in Korea
If you’re dining with someone older than you in Korea, remember that it’s polite and respectful to turn away and shield your mouth when you’re sipping alcohol.
Ancient Norwegian 10-Day Wolf Shirts
There’s an old Norwegian legend about two royal changelings who owned wolfskin shirts that would turn them into actual wolves. The story goes that two randos find them camping in the woods, steal their wolf shirts and find that they’re stuck in werewolf mode for 10 days. They use this newfound power to stalk around the woods and murder humans with impunity. Somewhat more powerful than the three wolf moon shirt you found at Goodwill.
The Beard-Second
The beard-second is kind of a joke, but is often used as an actual unit of measurement by physicists. It represents the length that the average beard will grow in one second (approximately 5 nanometers).
A Grisly Murder at a Beloved Family Theme Park
Rocky Point Amusement Park was a Rhode Island theme park open from 1847 to 1995. It was a wholesome tradition for generations of families, but a pretty horrific murder was swept under the rug in 1893. A father, who had suffered head trauma a few years earlier, suddenly snapped and murdered his daughter on the park’s beach. He was found not guilty due to insanity.
The California Charity Scammers
Geraldine and Clayton Hill created the nonprofit On Your Feet in order to collect clothes from local businesses to be donated to the unhoused. But they actually intercepted lots of the donations and sold them to secondhand stores, pocketing over $1 million.
The Arctic Circle Race
The race in Sisimiut, Greenland doesn’t have time to come up with a catchy name. It’s a three-day, 99-mile cross-country ski race that takes place, as you may have guessed, above the Arctic Circle.
Germany’s Wildest Card Game
German board games are notoriously complicated and bizarre, but the card game Busen Memo makes Höllfahren look like Pank-a-Squith. It is like any regular memory match game, where you pick up one card at a time and try to match it to its mate, but the pairs you’re trying to connect are the distinct bosoms of 48 women.
Wealthy Ancient Egyptians Hired Priests to Cram Food Into Statues’ Mouths
They’d have a statue built of themselves, specifically with open eyes and a gaping maw, the better to see you and eat you with. Priests would then stick food in there every day for a while, giving your spirit the energy it needed to traverse hell and make it to the good afterlife.
