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30 General Now-You-Know Facts They Didn’t Teach in School

By:: Timon DJ Spajic; Cracked Writers

October 30, 2023

30 General Now-You-Know Facts They Didn’t Teach in School

Like Blink-182 said: School sucks (we know). Yea, there’s the whole getting up early thing, bullies, homework and lame teachers. On top of that, though, it’s all the things that don’t happen at school that really bum us out. For example, think of all the radical now-you-know facts that they never teach you in the hallowed halls of the public school system. Case in point: We bet you didn’t know about our boy Ken Allen, the orangutan, who not only escaped multiple times from his zoo enclosure, but actually taught other animals how to escape as well.

Here’s more about that and 29 other interesting tidbits about pop culture, art, science and more…

30

Very soon, quantum computing might be able to totally break Bitcoin's security. Bitcoin only works because, to crack its security, you'd need insane computing power - and quantum computers could easily provide that by 2027 or so. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Technology Review

29

Ken Allen the orangutan escaped from his ZOO enclosure multiple times The Hairy Houdini would stroll around looking at other animals in the zoo. Не taught other orangutans how to escape. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — BBC

28

Lions are actually surprisingly fast. 27% Their top speed is just over 50 miles per hour. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — NatGeo Kids

27

Greek and Roman sculptures were painted in bright colors The pigments have faded over time. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — The New Yorker

26

25

James Earl Jones didn't speak for eight years. After moving across the country as a child, he began stuttering due to the trauma of being separated from his mother (she didn't come along) and of almost being left behind by his family. Не stopped speaking, because other kids made fun of him - - until, in high school, an English teacher had him read poetry out loud. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Smithsonian Magazine

24

A man punched a hole through a $10 million Monet painting Не was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Не is banned from art galleries until 15 months after his release. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Art Net

23

David Lynch's 2006 Oscar campaign involved sitting by the road with a cow. DER LAURA Не was convinced Laura Dern should be nominated for an Oscar for her role in his movie Inland Empire - and he sat at a roadside corner in Hollywood, next to a cow and a big picture of her, where he'd talk to people who stopped by and explain what he was doing. It didn't work. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — The Independent

22

Composer Alex North didn't know his music was cut from 2001: A Space Odyssey until he saw the premiere. Stanley Kubrick used classical music (which was originally just a placeholder), and never bothered telling North that he dropped his soundtrack. North was shocked, and always believed Kubrick had totally undervalued him. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — ClassicFM

21

The phrase pull out all the stops comes from the pipe organ. Each set of pipes has a knob called a stop. Pulling them all out makes the biggest sound. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Answers.com

20

At $5,000 a pound, saffron is easily the world's most expensive spice. It's because each pound takes approximately 75,000 flowers, which must each be hand-picked. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Britannica

19

The Flintstones was groundbreaking for its time. x HOME It was the first show to depict a couple sleeping in the same bed, and also dealt with heavy issues like suicide and infertility. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Icy Tales

18

Casting director Janet Hirshenson saw Wallace Shawn's performance in My Dinner With Andre and cast him in The Princess Bride. Her fondness for how Shawn said the word inconceivable played no small part in the decision. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Showbiz Junkies

17

Arnold Schwarzenegger has said I'll be back in other movies besides the Terminator franchise. Eleven other movies, to be exact. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Wikipedia

16

When asked to be in a 2012 Olympic sketch with Daniel Craig as James Bond, Queen Elizabeth agreed immediately. Her only condition was to choose her line, which was, Good evening, Mr. Bond. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — NBC Sports

15

Tokyo Drift couldn't secure certain permits but filmed scenes anyway. RECARD Universal Studios hired a fall guy to go to jail instead of the director. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Digital Spy

14

In 1956, Thomas Patrick stole a plane in New Jersey and landed it in front of a New York City bar. TRUCK RENTAL Two years later, he repeated the feat after a patron didn't believe the original story. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Know More

13

It's possible that we got the stock image of the witch from medieval beer makers. Women beer makers wore pointy hats to stand out, made beer in cauldrons, and used broomstick-like signposts. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

12

In the 1870s, people in a town in the West staged fake gunfights and robberies. It was basically a show for passengers who were coming to town on the new railroad - it might have all been a ploy to boost tourism. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

11

In medieval England and Scotland, public insult battles were all the rage. It was called flyting, and it was basically the rap battle of its day - people would insult each other in all kinds of funny and clever ways. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

10

Back in the day, Jamaica used to be the base of operations for Jewish pirates. Today, if you go to Kingston's Hunts Bay Cemetery, you can find tombstones that have the skull and crossbones sign plus Hebrew text. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Velociraptors probably. weren't actually cunning, cooperative pack hunters. It's a popular image in both pop culture and science, but some scientists now think they attacked the same prey but didn't cooperate much. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Source

8

A burger can contain the meat of many COWS - even dozens and dozens. It's very rare to get a burger with meat from just one cow, because that's way too expensive. And McD's burgers, say, have meat from over 100 cows. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Washington Post

7

If you melted down the Statue of Liberty, the scrap value would be pretty low. It contains 31 tons of copper and 125 tons of steel, which would bring $227,610 (but that does make it the world's 3rd most expensive statue). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Popular Mechanics

6

There was a mystery on the Apollo 10 mission that's never been solved. NASA Owas NASA Six days after the 1969 mission started, as the astronauts prepared to leave the moon's orbit, a turd floated by. All three astronauts denied it was theirs. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Vox.com

5

Ty Warner hid $24 million from the IRS and got away with probation The judge only gave the billionaire behind Beanie Babies two years probation and community service. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — Chicago Mag

4

Ed Sheeran's childhood friend was financially struggling so he wrote Thinking Out Loud with her The song has since been streamed almost 2 billion times on Spotify and has gone triple platinum in the UK. She never has to worry about money again. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — NME

3

The quality of air on cruise ships is worst than the most polluted cities. Every day, cruise ships create pollution equal to one million cars. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — The Independent

2

If NASA's funding stayed at Apollo levels, they were planning a manned mission to Mars by 1983 The Space Task Group planned to develop a lunar orbit station in 1978 and a lunar surface base in 1980. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — The Space Review

1

Pluto was a planet for less than one of its own years Pluto's orbit takes 248 Earth years. It was only considered a planet for 76 years. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM — NASA

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