🚨 Warning: This article contains mentions of murder, rape, and other sensitive topics. 🚨
1.In 2004, Parisian police were participating in a training exercise in a restricted part of the Catacombs, the underground burial chamber in France. While underground, the officers found a sign that read “Building site, no access.” When they went deeper into the tunnels, they found a camera recording them, which led them to a cavern that had been turned into a movie theater with a giant screen, chairs, and a large selection of movies. After digging deeper, the officers found a restaurant and a bar set up in another nearby cavern. No one knew who had set up the theater and restaurant, and the only clue was a mysterious note reading “Do not try and find us.”
2.Lynyrd Skynyrd's lead singer Ronnie Van Zant predicted his own death several times. Van Zant frequently told people he would die before his 30th birthday with his boots on. Van Zant died in a plane crash just three months before he turned 30.
To make the story even more chilling, the band released an album just three days before the fatal crash, which also claimed the lives of three other members of the band. The cover art depicted the band engulfed in flames, and the album included the song "The Smell," featuring lyrics like "Angel of darkness upon you," and "The smell of death surrounds you." After the crash, the band's record label decided to withdraw the controversial cover, and replaced it with an image of the band against a black background.
3.Ever wondered why Oreo refers to the filling in their cookies as “creme” instead of “cream?” Turns out, the FDA doesn’t allow manufacturers to use the word “cream” to describe a food that doesn’t actually contain any cream or dairy, so Nabisco decided to use the word “creme” instead. But good news for vegans who love Oreos: because the cookie doesn’t contain any dairy or animal products, it’s technically vegan! While the company can’t claim that the cookie is truly vegan due to the possibility of cross-contamination during production, the company officially removed all ingredients derived from animal products from the cookie in 1997.
4.In 1980, the New Jersey State Assembly voted to name Bruce Springsteen’s song “Born To Run” the state's official theme song. Additionally, Springsteen, a New Jersey native, was to be named "New Jersey Pop Music Ambassador to America." The initiative was introduced by Carol Miller, a New York-based radio host who heard that the state was seeking out a theme song. The bill failed once it reached the Senate after they realized The Boss is actually singing about running away from New Jersey in the song.
5.Dolphin calves are normally born tail-first instead of head-first like most mammals to prevent them from drowning. Dolphins typically only give birth to one calf at a time, and their pregnancies last between 10 and 18 months, depending on the species.
6.Richard Lee McNair is a convicted murderer who has been able to escape from prison not once, not twice, but three times. McNair, who was arrested in North Dakota in 1987, was first able to escape from a county jail by swiping a guard's lip balm. He rubbed the chapstick on his handcuffs and was able to slide out of them and jump out of a third-story window. While McNair was caught soon after, it didn't dissuade him from more escape attempts.
In October 1992, McNair broke out of the North Dakota State Penitentiary by shimmying through the ventilation system. He was on the lam for months until he was recaptured in Nebraska in July 1993. After being sent to a maximum security prison in Louisiana, police thought that McNair was locked up for good. In April 2006, McNair hid in between mailbags and was carted out of the federal prison. When approached by a police officer, McNair, who was wearing athletic shorts and a tank top, said he was just a civilian out for a jog. The officer believed him, paving the way for McNair to elude law enforcement and make it all the way up to Canada. Weeks after he reached Canada, he was stopped by authorities in a stolen car, but he was able to elude them. In August 2007, he was caught once again in Canada, this time in a stolen van. McNair was tackled by an officer and was taken back to prison, where he has remained since.
7.Sonkajärvi, a small town in Finland, hosts an annual wife-carrying championship during which husbands must carry their wives through a series of obstacles. The prize? Their wife's weight in beer. Although the contest is a Finnish tradition, other countries like the United States, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom have all adopted the sport. In recent years, the rules have deviated a bit, and teams are no longer required to be a legally married couple. In some competitions, if the wife does not meet a minimum weight requirement, the husband must wear a rucksack to make up the additional weight.
8.Just like how you're either left- or right-handed, most people are also either left- or right-eared and eyed. Many people prefer to hear things through their right ear, and if stimulus is passed through both ears, the brain will prioritize what is heard through the right ear. Brain scientists believe that things heard through the right ear is given precedence through the left hemisphere of the brain, which is where auditory cues are processed. In the case of being left- or right-eyed, your dominant eye is typically the eye that more accurately relays information about location and gives more input to the visual part of your brain. While there are no official links between dominant hands and dominant eyes, studies show that 90% of people are right-handed and 67% are right-eyed.
9.Richard Dawson, one of the original Family Feud hosts, had a habit of kissing female contestants. This habit earned him the nickname "The Kissing Bandit". TV execs tried to get Dawson to stop kissing the women, but Dawson refused, saying he kissed them to wish them good luck because that's what his mother did to him when he was a child. Eventually, Dawson asked his audience to weigh in on whether they thought the kissing was appropriate. Over 200,000 people wrote in, with the overwhelming majority in favor of keeping the kiss for good luck. In 1981, Dawson kissed Gretchen Johnson when she appeared on the show. The two fell in love and married in 1991. The pair stayed together until Dawson's death in 2012.
10.In Alaska, wood frogs don't pee for the entire winter, which typically lasts for eight months. The frogs recycle urea, which is the main waste in urine, into nitrogen, which keeps the frogs alive as they freeze while hibernating. The nitrogen protects their cells and tissues, allowing them to thaw out and resume business as usual once winter ends.
11. If you thought you knew how big each country was, you might wanna think again. Even though Gerardus Mercator created the revolutionary map we all know in 1596, it's a bit difficult to accurately turn Earth's sphere into a 2D rendering. In most cases, the Northern Hemisphere actually ends up appearing much larger than it actually is, while the distortion typically shrinks countries near the equator.
12.People are outraged out how Turning Red is teaching children about periods, but this isn’t the first time Disney has released menstruation-related media. In 1946, Disney released The Story of Menstruation, a short that was sponsored by Kotex, which manufactures period products. The clip, which was often shown in schools for decades following its debut, faced criticism for discouraging the use of tampons. Additionally, the clip depicts period blood as white instead of red, and never references reproduction or sex. Jim Korkis, a Disney historian, notes that the overall theme of the short discusses periods as "a hygienic crisis, rather than a maturational event."
13.On August 28, 2003, Brian Wells, a pizza delivery man, entered a PNC Bank in Erie, Pennsylvania and slipped the teller a note that demanded $250,000 in 15 minutes. Wells lifted up his shirt to show that he had a bomb attached to him. The teller told Wells that it was impossible to open the vault that quickly, and instead gave him about $8,000. Wells left, even nabbing a lollipop from the bank. He was caught by police about 15 minutes later, and told them that he had been kidnapped and forced to rob the bank.
Just minutes after the police caught Wells, an explosive collar locked to his neck detonated, instantly killing him. The entire incident was shown on live TV coverage. After Wells died, police searched his vehicle and found notes that comprised a scavenger hunt. Police attempted to follow the hunt in order to find out if someone coerced Wells to follow through with the robbery.
In 2007, an FBI investigation concluded that Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong and Kenneth Barnes were behind the plot. While it still remains unclear how Wells knew the pair, investigators found a note in Wells’ home that connected him to Barnes. Wells’ family is adamant that he was just a pawn in the robbery attempt, while law enforcement reported that he was aware of the entire plot and had not been kidnapped as he claimed, but thought that the bomb around his neck was fake and would serve as an alibi if he were caught. Diehl-Armstrong and Barnes were both sentenced to prison for the crime.
14.Woolsey Hall at Yale University has a rather unique feature. When President William Howard Taft became an instructor at the university in 1913, the school had to construct an extra-wide seat to ensure Taft would be able to fit. Taft was also a huge baseball fan, so the school built a custom bench behind home plate to accommodate him. Taft topped out at about 355 pounds during his administration. After the university crafted the special seating arrangements, Taft lost 80 pounds by cutting bread, potatoes, and alcohol out of his diet.
15.Schoolhouse Rock, the children's show known for teaching kids history, math, science, and more, was created by David McCall, an ad exec who noticed his son had trouble memorizing his multiplication tables, but could easily recall the lyrics to his favorite Rolling Stones songs. He believed that if children were taught important topics through song, they would be more likely to remember them. He teamed up with Bob Dorough, a jazz pianist and vocalist, and the first song, "Three Is A Magic Number" was released in 1971. Schoolhouse Rock became a phenomenon, and dozens of songs were released from classics like "I'm Just A Bill," which taught children about the legislative process, to "Conjunction Junction," which covered grammar basics.
16.Back in the day, Irish women used to drink Guinness while pregnant, citing the health benefits of the brew, from its fiber levels to its high folate content. While it’s no longer recommended to drink while pregnant, some women still swear by drinking beer while breastfeeding, as beer is a galactagogue, or a lactation stimulant. In Ireland, breastfeeding women were once given a bottle of Guinness a day in maternity hospitals. It's now advised that breastfeeding mothers drink non-alcoholic barley beverages to promote lactation. Guinness has even made statements to steer clear of the myth: "I'd like to say once and for all, it's not something we support or recommend," Domhnall Marnell, a Guinness ambassador told CNN.
17.Like a lot of literary icons, Beatrix Potter, the children’s book author who penned classics like The Tale of Peter Rabbit, kept a journal. Potter's mother didn't like how outspoken her daughter was, so Potter decided to write entirely in code so that her mother could never read what she wrote. Upon Potter's death, the journal was recovered, but the secret code was so complex that many thought it would never be decoded. A Potter super-fan got their hands on the diary and was finally able to crack the code after 13 years. They discovered Potter wrote in a "mono-alphabetic substitution cipher code," which meant that every letter was replaced with a symbol. The translated journals were later published.
18. Careful where you step! The peacock katydid is able to quickly camouflage itself to resemble dead leaves, but if it feels threatened, will pop its wings up to reveal its eye spots. If that's not enough to ward away predators, each peacock katydid has a unique pattern to prevent predators from being able to recognize and remember what the insect looks like.
19.Scientists have recently discovered the largest radio galaxy to ever exist. The galaxy, named Alcyoneus, after the son of Ouranos, who was the Greek primordial god of the sky, stretches over 16 million lightyears through space, and was discovered about 3 billion light-years from Earth by a mere “stroke of luck.” Alcyoneus is 100 times larger than the Milky Way.
20.Donald Henry Gaskins was notorious for terrorizing his South Carolina town. Gaskins, who was nicknamed "Pee Wee" because of his small stature, quit school at age 11 and teamed up with two of his former classmates. The group became known as "The Terrible Trio", burglarizing homes and assaulting and threatening children. After raping one of his friend's younger sisters, Marsh was caught and sent to reform school, but he escaped. He went on to commit another murder and was sentenced to jail, where he killed a fellow inmate in order to receive respect from the other prisoners.
After Gaskins was released, he was unable to avoid trouble and was in and out of jail for the next several decades. He considered killing others his weekend pastime, and even became a hired hit man. Gaskins drove around in a hearse with a sticker that read “We haul anything, living or dead,” and carried their bodies to his private cemetery on his property. People in his town didn't believe that Gaskins was actually dangerous, and just thought he was strange. He received the death penalty for his crimes and was executed in 1993. It’s estimated that he killed between 100 to 110 people.
21.While I’m still getting over the fact that William Shakespeare’s wife was named Anne Hathaway, I’ll do ya one better: when they got married, Anne was 26 and Shakespeare was only 18 years old, an age difference that was quite unusual for the time.
