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We’re gonna iron those wrinkles right out

40 Random Bits of Trivia That Are Like Botox for the Brain

July 04, 2024

Just think of these factoids as deadly bacteria being injected into your brain, in a controlled environment, to make it more conventionally attractive.

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40

The more you spend on your wedding, the higher the chance you'll get divorced. GRACKED.COM A study in 2014 discovered that couples who spent more than $20,000 on their wedding are roughly 46% more likely to get di- vorced than couples who spent $5,000-10,000. — Source

39

Knife manufacturer, Victorinox, claims never to have had to lay off an employee. CRACKED.COM To avoid this they set aside profits during boom peri- ods to supplement reces- sionary periods, as well as temporarily contracting employees to other com- panies as outsourced labor during recessions. — Source

38

Specially made, aluminum Lego figures are inside NASA's Juno probe. CRACKED.COM The 3 Lego mini fig- ures represent Galileo, the Roman god Jupi- ter, and his sister and wife, the goddess Juno, specially made by the Lego Company. — Source

37

Tour de France has a dedicated team that transforms penis graffiti on the route. ISRAEL deceminch a LC QUICK STEP - LCL LCL BOV 45 CRACKED.COM The team's sole pur- pose is to drive each day's route and turn genitals graffitied on the road into owls and butterflies. — Source

36

Open plan offices are detrimental to workers and businesses. CRACKED.COM Despite about 70% of US offices being open con- cept, workers in open plan offices are 15% less pro- ductive, have trouble con- centrating, and are twice as likely to get sick. — Source

35

The British Air Force sank an ocean liner by mistake one day before the end of WWII. CRACKED.COM Just a day before the German government surrendered in 1945, the British Royal Air Force mistakenly believed the SS Cap Arcona, carrying 7,000 women, children and Holocaust survivors, was a warship and sank it. — Source

34

In the 1950s, the US Air Force tried to design a cockpit to fit the average pilot's body. CRACKED.COM After measuring 4000 pilots they discovered that none of them came close to having an aver- age body. This led to the introduction of adjust- able seats. — Source

33

PETA had a problem with the whaling segment of 'Assassin's Creed: Black Flag! harpooning humpback whale m retum to ship hold E to return to the ship CRACKED.COM Ubisoft dismissed it say- ing, We do not condone illegal whaling, just as we don't condone a pirate life- style of poor hygiene, plundering, hijacking ships, and over the legal limit drunken debauchery. — Source

32

A maternity home in Nova Scotia scammed women and killed infants. CRACKED COM The Ideal Maternity Home was opened in 1928 and forced women to pay $500 each for their stay, then ei- ther killing their newborns through medical negli- gence or selling them for up to $10,000 per baby. — Source

31

Lyndon В. Johnson didn't run for re-election because he knew he would die before the end of his second term. CRACKED.COM A study he commissioned had predicted he would die at the age of 64, and sure enough, he would die on 22 January 1973 at age 64, 2 days after what would have been the end of his 2nd term. — Source

30

The secret society of businessmen and lawyers called 'Hawaiian League' overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii. GRACKED.COM Members of the league were mostly non-native Hawaiians and U.S./Brit- ish/German lawyers and business people. They forced Hawaii to adopt a constitution in their favor and ended the monarchy. — Source

29

Growing up in a warm climate will make your sweat glands more active. CRACKED COM Sweat glands mature during the first 2 years of life, so growing up in warm cli- mates leads to more active sweat glands than people who grew up in a cli- mate-controlled environ- ment or in cold climates. — Source

28

Wal-Mart used to take out life insurance policies on their employees. WAL MART SECTION GUARANTEED CRACKED.COM The corporation would then keep the payouts when they died, a prac- tice colloquially known as Dead Peasant Insur- ance. — Source

27

A Chinese superstition says having mirrors in a couple's room adds another person to the relationship. GRAGKED.COM A mirror facing the bed pro- motes intrusion of a third party into the couple's rela- tionship and possibly encour- ages infidelity, because the reflection of the mirror dou- bles the energy and luck of those sleeping on the bed. — Source

26

Amazon Web Services has a service for transferring large amounts of data with a truck. CRACKED.COM The service, called Snow- mobile, brings you a truck with 100 Petabytes worth of hard drives. They copy your data, then drive it to its destination, bypassing the internet entirely. — Source

25

There is a community in Cairo, Egypt that collects trash and recycles upwards of 80% of it. FOOD M& TRIP und 100 GRACKED COM It is nicknamed Gar- bage City and its mostly Christian resi- dents have been col- lecting and recycling Cairo's trash for sever- al decades. — Source

24

Nostradamus wrote a cookbook that contained a recipe for love jam. SA AN LTV ETEATR CRACKED.COM The jam would cause a wom- an to be overcome with desire if a man were to have a little of it in his mouth, and while having it in his mouth kissed a woman... and expelled it with his saliva, putting some of it in the other's mouth. — Source

23

Supernovae explode on an average once every 100 years in a galaxy. CRACKED.COM Assuming there are 170 billion galaxies in the universe, there are 53 supernovae exploding every sin- gle second. — Source

22

Japan passed its first anti-stalking law in 2000 after a student was murdered. CRACKED.COM 21-year-old Shiori Ino went to the police about a stalk- er but had been turned away multiple times and falsely portrayed her as a promiscuous flirt in the media before finally being murdered. — Source

21

George Clooney keeps a photo of himself as Batman. CRACKED.COM The actor looks at the photo of his time in the rubber suit 'As a cau- tionary reminder of what happens when you make movies for com- mercial reasons'. — Source

20

The first superhero, Superman, owes a lot to a character that debuted 5 years before him. CRACKED.COM 'Doc Savage' was a pulp fiction Superhero known as 'The Man of Bronze,' and had a 'Fortress of Solitude' in the Arctic. Не was known as a Su- per Man, and his name was Clark. — Source

19

Cold Stone's No Drip ice cream doesn't melt because it contains Instant Pudding Mix. CRACKED.COM Someone at Cold Stone came up with an idea for an ice cream that would have the texture of Jell-O pudding. The modified food starch that sets instant pudding caused the resulting blend to gel rather than liquefy. — Source

18

McDonald's has a deal with Coca-Cola to get the best deal. M CRACKED.COM As a matter of company policy, Coke sales teams are prohibited from selling syrup to other restaurants for less than what McDon- ald's pays, even if that means losing business to Pepsi-Cola. — Source

17

In 1877, a 35-year-old attorney from Montana named George Cowan had the worst luck ever. CRACKED COM Не was shot 3 times in the head, crawled through Yel- lowstone, got burned in a forest fire, had surgery to remove the bullets, got thrown from a carriage, and his bed broke while re- ceiving care afterwards. — Source

16

The largest black hole ever found shines with the brightness of a hundred trillion stars. CRACKED.COM TON 618 is a hyperlumi- nous quasar that possesses an ultramassive black hole that consumes galaxies' worth of matter. It is great- er than the mass of all the stars in the Milky Way gal- аху combined. — Source

15

The visual effects for the 1988 film Willow were later used in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. CRACKED.COM Industrial Light & Magic creat- ed visuals for Willow which led to a breakthrough in digi- tal morphing technology. The techniques developed for se- quences where characters morph into different animals were later used in T2. — Source

14

Operation London Bridge is a detailed procedure that outlines what happens when the Queen dies. CRACKED.COM Immediately after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, her secretary will inform the Prime Minister via a se- cure phone line by saying London Bridge is down, thus initiating Operation London Bridge. — Source

13

In 1881, an Egyptian obelisk named Cleopatra's Needle was erected in NYC's Central Park. CRACKED COM A capsule buried beneath holds the 1870 census, a Bi- ble, a Webster's Dictionary, the complete works of Shakespeare, a guide to Egypt, and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. — Source

12

The oldest existing photograph of a US President was bought at an antique shop for 50 cents. CRACKED COM The image is from August 1843, of a then 76-year-old John Quincy Adams who did not ар- prove any of the photos taken that day-but a daguerreo- type from that sitting surfaced at an antiques shop in 1970, priced at 50 cents. — Source

11

A type of shrimp only found in one pond was obliterated by land development. UNTER STARBUCKS COFFEE ON CRACKED.COM The Florida fairy shrimp was discovered in 1952 to be a unique species of fairy shrimp specific to a single pond in Gainesville, Florida. When re- searchers returned to that pond in 2011, they realized it had been filled in for development. — Source

10

Herbs and spices can be different parts of the same plant. CRACKED GOM Herbs come from the leaf of a plant, while spices come from other parts such as roots, bark, and seeds. So cilantro is an herb (coriander leaf) while coriander is a spice (cori- ander seed). — Source

9

The secretive '7 Society' at the University of Virginia is so mysterious, members are only revealed after their deaths. MCCONNELL UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. 1910 A MEMBER OF THE SEVEN SOCIETY 7 CRACKED.COM Members receive a wreath of black magnolias in the shape of a 7 placed at the gravesite, and the bell tower of the University Chapel chimes at seven-second intervals on the seventh dissonant chord when it is seven past the hour. — Source

8

Human error led to one of the worst engineering disasters in US history. GRACKED COM The chief engineer took sole re- sponsibility for the St. Francis Dam collapse in 1928, testify- ing, If there was an error in hu- man judgment, I was the hu- man. Over 400 people were killed when the dam failed in the middle of the night. — Source

7

A teen managed to get an Ivy League education, in multiple universities, for free. CRACKED.COM A teenager named Guil- laume Dumas snuck into Ivy League schools over 4 years, gaining free education from Yale, Brown, Stanford and many others. — Source

6

Apple wanted to make the iPhone back in the '80s. CRACKED.COM The first design of the iPhone was made back as far as 1983, which looks more like the iPad, but with an actual phone attached. — Source

5

An AI controls Hong Kong's subway system. CRACKED.COM Hong Kong has one of the world's most effi- cient subway systems with a 99.9% on-time rate and the entire sys- tem is managed via Arti- ficial Intelligence. — Source

4

Nazis partially succeeded in counterfeiting the British pound to cause hyperinflation. CRACKED.COM Using a German concen- tration camp, they man- ufactured 132 million GBP, which is the equiv- alent of 6-7 billion mod- ern-day pounds. — Source

3

Robert Redford was too hot for the lead role in 1967's The Graduate. CRACKED.COM Redford badly wanted the role but was rejected by di- rector Mike Nicholls because he didn't think Redford could play a loser. 'Let's put it this way, Nicholls reportedly said, Have you ever struck out with a girl? — Source

2

A dog is credited as the writer of Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. CRACKED.COM Screenwriter Robert Towne hated the finished movie so much that he pulled his name off the film and cred- ited his dog as the writer. The dog, Р.Н. Vazak, ended up with an Oscar nomina- tion. — Source

1

A Florida man disappeared into a sinkhole that formed under his house. CRACKED COM In 2013, a man in Florida ran to his brother's bedroom af- ter hearing him scream only to find the entire room and his brother being swallowed by a sinkhole. They were never able to find the body of his brother. — Source

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