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Pat your pockets for your phone, wallet, keys and facts!

25 Random Bits of Trivia to Pack Into Your Bindle Before You Run Away From Home

May 16, 2024

Okay, so you’ve packed some food for your long journey to who knows where, but did you pack food for thought? Probably not. Everyone only thinks of feeding their tummies, and we get it, there are taste buds to sense the yummies. We’re just saying — no one thinks of feeding their brains! They’re delicious in their own way, and you’ll thank us later.

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25

Dogs can tell when you're lying. Researchers found that trained dogs would often not follow their handler's indications about where to find food, if the indications were intentionally misleading (as opposed to just wrong). The experiment has been conducted on chimpanzees as well, who failed miserably. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

CRACKED.COM The Last of Us was initially pitched to George Romero. Neil Bruckmann came up with the basic concept while he was in college, and had a chance to pitch it to Zombiemeister George Romero himself - who passed on it. After that, Bruckmann tried to turn his idea into a comic book, before it became a game. — Source

23

Myanmar banned the Simpsons movie because of its colors (allegedly). An often cited (though unverified) reason for the ban is the movie's prominent use of yellow and red. Some sources talk about superstitions regarding the colors, while others report the hues are forbidden due to their association with a rebel group. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

CRACKED.COM The U.S. planned to feminize Hitler with estrogen. Stanley Lovell, research head of the OSS (CIA's precursor), hatched a plan to lace Hitler's food with estrogen and make him more feminine, which (somehow) would lead to Germany losing the war. This was even dumber than Lovell's regular dumb ideas, and was never carried out. — Source

21

Blood spatter analysis is full of crap. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the uncertainties associated with bloodstain pattern analysis are enormous, and the thing is more subjective than scientific. Hardly the almost magical forensic tool Dexter and other TV shows make it out to be. NY Fabric 2903 CRACKED.COM DEPARTMEN — Source

20

CRACKED.COM ат Mikhail Gorbachev did a Pizza Hut ad. In 1998, the former USSR leader appeared in an ad for everyone's third-favorite pizza chain. It's a bizarre, minute-long piece, in which Gorbachev randomly drops by a Pizza Hut (with a child, for some reason), and everyone ends up hailing him for bringing the franchise to Russia. — Source

19

GRAGKED.COM Studio execs said no to a lesbian Velma in the Scooby-Doo movies. According to James Gunn, Velma was written as explicitly lesbian in his initial script - but then the studio intervened, making her sexuality ambiguous (and finally giving her a boyfriend in the sequel). — Source

18

TUCKE Tucker Carlson used to be for truth in reporting (and was booed for it). Carlson was never progressive, but there was a time when he cared about facts. The New York Times is a liberal paper ... but it's a paper that cares about accuracy, he said at CPAC 2009. Conservatives need to ... mirror those institutions. The audience booed him. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

SPIDE Marisa Tomei was almost in Parks and Recreation. According to showrunner/co-creator Michael Schur, there were plans for a plotline about Aziz Ansari's Tom Haverford dating an older woman, who would have been played by Tomei. Schur laments that the timing didn't work out. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

CRACKED.COM Michael Keaton worked with Mr. Rogers. Before he tried comedy, Keaton worked at a TV station in his native Pittsburgh, and was occasionally a part of the behind-the-camera crew on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. According to Keaton, Fred Rogers was one of the nicest, authentically good people you've ever met. — Source

15

hirtin be triche can when robbing people 0 decigin previsional Lakes الد Post-It notes are the 300 m Across Practical KIA CRACKED.COM Shan the result of a failure. smit dedicions based ander While trying to develop a strong adhesive for 3M, and Dr. Spencer Silver came up with microspheres - Read S which did exactly the opposite. Nothing became Saben Misse of it, until a co-worker needed paper markers that stood in place, and thought of Silver's sad glue. night help Triall Cast net Enor one L wide, try EGPA mentor fairs path as things goige of mentors geta hanfactible age to — Source

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25 Random Bits of Trivia to Pack Into Your Bindle Before You Run Away From Home — Source

13

Milk won't make your bones stronger. It stands to reason - if your bones are made of calcium, and milk has calcium, you should drink lots of milk, right? It turns out that biology is more complicated than that. Decades' worth of studies have failed to find any benefit to bone health from drinking extra milk. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

CRACKED.COM The flu almost vanished during lockdown. During the 2020-2021 season, hospitalizations due to the flu plummeted to about 14% of the previous year. As the flu spreads the same way as COVID but is less infectious, it didn't stand a chance against all the masks, social distancing, and hand-washing. — Source

11

Sir Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton prescribed toad vomit against the bubonic plague. Shortly after a plague outbreak, a young Newton studied medical texts and came to the conclusion that the best treatment was powdered toad, mixed with the toad's own vomit. We're forced to admit, Newton wasn't a genius at everything science-related. CRACKED.COM — Source

10

ARES The Martian cut a reference to cannibalism. In Andy Weir's novel, astronaut Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara in the movie) explains that if the ship fails to get supplies for the trip back to Mars, the rest of the crew will commit suicide - and she will eat them. The supplies wouldn't be the only source of food, she exposits. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

The last mammoths are more recent than the Egyptian pyramids. Wooly mammoths died out about 4,000 years ago. By then, the furry mega-phants could only be found on Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean. It wasn't a dignified ending for the giants - their population got so small that it was extreme inbreeding that finally did them in. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

OOH Taking an at-home DNA test can destroy your military career. If you're a member of the armed forces, a 23andMe test can cause worse than awkward family conversations. The tests can find genetic markers for medical conditions that'd get you booted out of the military, where you are not protected by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. CRACKED.COM — Source

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6

Superman used Spider- Man's catchphrase long before Spider-Man. Because of these great powers ... you have a great responsibility. Uncle Ben? Nope - Pa Kent to Clark in Superman Comes to Earth, the first-ever live-action version of the hero. The serial came out in 1948, a full 14 years before the webslinger was created. GRACKED.COM — Source

5

The Democratic Republic of Congo had an imaginary minister for some time. To better his chances to be named trade minister, Honorius Kisimba Ngoy proposed himself for the position, along with a hilariously unqualified dude he made up to make himself look better. As it turned out, the prime minister disliked Kisimba so much that he picked the fake guy. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Gladiators were unionized. Being mostly slaves, gladiators didn't have an awful lot of rights - but they did join in collegia, sort-of unions that made sure they got some basic respect. Among other things, collegia made sure that fallen gladiators had a proper burial. CRACKED.COM — Source

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25 Random Bits of Trivia to Pack Into Your Bindle Before You Run Away From Home — Source

2

A secret Soviet weapon turned out to be bee poop. When a yellow substance began raining down on Vietnam after the war, making locals sick, the U.S. accused the Soviet Union of using chemical weapons. Then a Harvard analysis discovered it was feces dropped by airborne bees. (The sickness was actually caused by all the malnutrition and other nasty stuff in the aftermath of a long war). CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Prince was (probably) one of the very first Oregon Trail players. In 1971, Prince Rogers Nelson was an 8th-grader at Bryant Junior High, in Minneapolis - meaning he was in the class of Don Rawitsch, the teacher who came up with Oregon Trail to keep his students engaged. Sadly, there's no record of how many times (if any) he died of dysentery. CRACKED.COM — Source

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