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35 Random Bits of Trivia to Skip Across the Smooth Surface of Your Brain

Skip as they might, these facts have to sink in at some point

35 Random Bits of Trivia to Skip Across the Smooth Surface of Your Brain

July 21, 2024

It’s totally okay that some facts take a little time to sink in. Take it easy on yourself. Those end up being the really good ones. Your brain needs a few minutes to really wrap itself around them, but once it does, that moment of realization can’t be beat. You’ll probably even need a few more minutes to come down from that knowledge high.

So there’s no rush here. Especially because that will probably happen for each of the facts below.

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35

In 1969, Pat Sajak cut off Nixon to play Christmas music. Nixon made a very long pause in a Christmas speech to the troops in Vietnam, so Sajak cut off the broadcast and put on some music. When Nixon resumed talking, Sajak just left the music on, thinking soldiers would rather listen to that than the President. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

34

In Nepal, there are honey hunters who climb granite cliffs to get hallucinogenic mad honey. It's produced by Himalayan giant honeybees, who make nests at high altitudes under the overhangs of vertical cliffs, and sells for $60 to $80 a pound on the black market. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

33

In 2013, nine lost Doctor Who episodes turned up in Nigeria. MOHT.M ЕГЕСТ The BBC destroyed its own Doctor Who tapes back in the '60s and '70s, but those episodes have occasionally turned up in foreign markets, which had been sent their own copies. The Nigerian find was X apparently the largest in 30 years. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

32

Little Richard became a preacher after seeing a sign in the sky. VS On a 1957 Australian tour, he saw a fireball in the sky (which was the satellite Sputnik 1) and interpreted as God telling him he should change his ways. Не became a preacher a year later, and went back to making regular music after four years of preaching. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

31

A real buffalo was killed in Apocalypse Now. To get permission from locals to film on their land, the movie crew gave them animals to slaughter for food, including two water buffalo. Francis Ford Coppola decided to film one buffalo's slaughter for the movie. I did not direct it or anything, that was the way they do it, he said in 2019. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

30

When Baby Groot throws up in Guardians of the Galaxy 2, that's James Gunn's nod to his roots. It's his way of acknowledging that he started out in B-movies and isn't afraid to resort to the lowest common denominator which is a baby tree vomiting. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

29

Streaming Despacito used up more power than some countries produce in a year. It was streamed 4.6 billion times from January 2017 to early 2020, which consumed as much electricity as Sierra Leone, Chad, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and Guinea-Bissau make in a year, combined. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

28

The inventor of the USB says his team blew it. by not making the plug work both ways. Ajay Bhatt said that would need more wires and circuits, so it would have been more expensive - they thought about it, but it would have cost too much. Still, 20 years after inventing it, he says that was a mistake and the USB plug was good, but not good enough. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

27

Sharks have been around longer than trees have. Sharks started popping up about 450 million years ago, while trees showed up 100 million years later. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

26

Street dogs in Moscow will sneak up on people holding food and startle them. CRACKED.COM One technique some dogs have for getting food is to sneak up behind a person who is holding some. The dog will then bark, which some- times startles the human enough to drop the food. — Source

25

A Tokyo resident mailed soggy garbage to the people that bullied him in the Boy Scouts. CRACKED.COM Не mailed more than 500 boxes of garbage, including old underwear and rotten tea leaves, to his tormentors. Не wrote a random destination as the address with the bul- ly's return address in order to escape detection. — Source

24

The Cinnamon Challenge could lead to permanent lung conditions. CRACKED.COM Cinnamon powder, when inhaled, can cause in- flammation and perma- nent scarring in the lungs, leading to condi- tions like emphysema and pulmonary fibrosis. — Source

23

There are 5 temples in Kyoto, Japan that have blood-stained ceilings. CRACKED COM The ceilings are made from the floorboards of a castle where warriors killed themselves after a long hold-off against an army. To this day, you can still see the bloody outlines and footprints. — Source

22

The cost of an oil change for a Bugatti Veyron is $20,000. CRACKED.COM The car literally has to be split in half in order to get to the oil inspection area. This includes taking off the heads, inspecting inside the engine thoroughly, and checking to make sure that oil is being applied in key areas. — Source

21

Coca-Cola has a special arrangement with the DEA. NT S 10 e Coca-Cola® UN HCCB CRACKED.COM In order for it to continue to exist in its current form, the company has a special arrangement with the Drug Enforcement Agency to al- low them to import dried coca leaves from Peru in huge quantities. — Source

20

The popular Indian style dish Chicken Tikka Masala was invented in Glasgow, Scotland. CRACKED.COM The dish comes from Ali Ahmed Aslam, proprietor of the Shish Mahal, said to have prepared a sauce us- ing spices soaked in a tin of condensed tomato soup after a customer said his meal was too dry. — Source

19

A Las Vegas replica of the Statue of Liberty was mistakenly used on a USPS stamp. CRACKED COM The USPS mistook the replica for the real one in New York when creating the Lady Liberty forever stamp in 2010, resulting in $3.5 million payouts to the replica's sculptor for vio- lating his copyright. — Source

18

Flavor Flav is a musical prodigy. GRAGKED.COM By the time he started performing with Public Enemy, he was proficient in 15 different instru- ments, from drums to oboe, and co-wrote their first album with Chuck D. — Source

17

Tom Morello makes a cameo appearance in 'Iron Man! CRACKED.COM The 'Rage Against The Ma- chine' and 'Audioslave' gui- tarist was the first terrorist guard killed by Tony Stark when he made the first Iron Man suit in a cave with a box of scraps. — Source

16

There is a special holiday in China where dogs are carried around like royalty. CRACKED COM Dog Carrying Day is a holi- day where villagers in China dress up a dog and carry it around on a throne to honor a legend where a dog saved the village by leading the people to water. — Source

15

One of the most powerful supercomputers is used to model the planet's climate. CRACKED.COM Developed by the Japanese government, Earth Simula- tor runs global climate mod- els to evaluate the effects of global warming and prob- lems in solid earth geophys- ics with nearly 35 trillion ор- erations per second. — Source

14

Hockey goalie Clint Malarchuk's throat got slashed by a skate during a live NHL game. 30 GRAGKED.COM The injury was so bad that 11 fans fainted, two people had heart attacks and at least 3 players vomited on the ice. Clint was back on the ice just a week later, with 300 stitches. — Source

13

800,000 foreigners visit South Korea every year just for the band BTS. NBC NE dc CRACKED.COM BTS is responsible for a ripple effect that includes increased tourism to South Korea, inter- est in Korean culture, movies, and study of the Korean lan- guage, and added approxi- mately $5 billion per year to South Korea's economy. — Source

12

Mao Zedong initiated a campaign to crack down on people with the wrong opinions. CRACKED.COM In the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Mao Zedong in- vited people to openly ex- press their opinions and have free discussions. Once this happened, he cracked down on those who said the wrong things. — Source

11

Rogue planets (planets that don't rotate stars) could outnumber the stars in our galaxy They are hard for astronomers to spot as they don't emit light or much heat. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

10

Stevie Nicks wrote Landslide when she was 27. The song is about growing older, even though the songwriter wasn't even 30. Nicks explains, You can feel really old at 27. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

9

The Hamster Dance was created on a competition between an art student, her friend, and her sister to see who could get the most traffic The creator Deidre LaCarte and her friend later got married. Internet memes have brought people together since their beginning. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

8

NASA's first woman astronaut was asked some truly ridiculous questions. JTCS AND For example, NASA engineers assumed Sally Ride would want a makeup kit in space, so they asked for her help in developing it. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

7

Dave Thomas received his high school diploma when he was 60 years old The very successful Wendy's founder returned to school after dropping out 45 years prior and was voted Most Likely to Succeed in his 1993 graduating class. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

6

The Statue of Liberty almost had a massive phonograph installed inside. That was Thomas Edison's idea, when the statue was still being planned - he wanted to broadcast speeches through the entire bay. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

5

The barbecue stall happens, basically, because the meat sweats a lot. A stall is when meat on a BBQ gets to 150°F or so and then doesn't budge, and it happens because the evaporating moisture continually cools off the meat. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Dinosaurs - at least some of them- laid eggs that were colored. Which is surprising, because scientists thought colored eggs only appeared once birds showed up - - but that's apparently not the case. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

3

The standard pop culture pirate flag is actually just one guy's personal flag. It belonged to John Calico Jack Rackham, who had a pretty uneventful two-year pirate career. His only lasting influence is, well, that flag. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

2

The epic bank heists you see in Westerns almost never actually happened. BANK BANK S DOLLAR There were fewer bank robberies in a roughly 40-year span in 15 states in the Old West than there are in a year in modern-day Dayton, он. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Egyptians liked to mummify animals so much, they almost made some extinct. And if anyone objected, they probably wouldn't have got it - to them, mummification was a great honor. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

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