Mike
51. Stupid Pilots
In 1986, two Russian airline pilots got into an argument over whether one could land the plane without vision. The main pilot pulled the curtains over the windows, insisting he could. Then, the plane missed the runway, flipped and killed 70 of the passengers.
52. Erwin Kreuz
Erwin Kreuz, a German tourist who planned to visit San Francisco but accidentally disembarked early, and then spent days looking for the Golden Gate Bridge and other Bay Area landmarks in Bangor, Maine. Amused and touched, Maine residents turned him into a local celebrity.
53. Silent Letters
That from 1906-1920, there was a movement in the US to remove all silent letters and irregular spellings from the English language (eg: although->altho), funded by Andrew Carnegie and supported by Teddy Roosevelt.
54. Kenji Eno
In the 90s, video game designer Kenji Eno learned he had blind fans, who played his games with great effort. So he designed a blank-screen game just for them: “Real Sound: Kaze no Regret.” He made Sega send 1000 consoles (w/ the game) to blind people. It is still a popular game for the blind.
55. Jane Goodall
After a Far Side cartoon featured a chimpanzee referring to Jane Goodall as a “tramp”, the cartoonist received a letter from Goodall’s lawyers calling the comic an “atrocity”. Goodall herself later saw the cartoon and loved it, and wrote the introduction to one of the Far Side collections.
56. Pronoia
Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. A paranoid person thinks everyone in conspiring against them, whereas a pronoid person thinks everything is secretly conspiring to help them.
57. Corsets
In the 1920s, one reason corsets went out of style was because they were made of lots of metal which was needed for tools during WWI. The U.S War Industries Board even asked women to stop buying them which helped them save enough metal to build two battleships.
58. Optimus Prime
In 1986, Optimus Prime was actually killed off in the Transformers movie, in order to make way for new and more expensive toys. He was eventually resurrected due to Hasbro underestimating the backlash over his death.
59. Battle of Berlin
The famous photo of the Soviet flag being raised during the Battle of Berlin in 1945 was actually doctored. Photographer Yevgeny Khaldei added smoke to make it seem more dramatic, and also removed one of two watches from a Senior Sergeant’s wrist, as it would have implied looting.
60. Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels had severe depression and mourned his birthday by wearing black clothes.
61. Tank Cowboy
In 2017, a man in Texas purchased a working Sherman tank and parked it outside his house. After sending a “sternly worded letter” and realizing that they couldn’t tow the vehicle, the local HOA began issuing parking tickets on the tank. The owner left it there for two more weeks out of spite.
62. David Dunbar Buick
David Dunbar Buick was a plumber who invented the process for adhering enamel to cast iron, clearing the way for cast iron bathtubs in homes. He would later start the Buick Motor Company.
63. Ants
Ants sleep by taking about 250 one minute naps throughout their day. It totals just under 5 hours of sleep. This allows for 80% of their colony to be awake, working and prepared at any given moment.
64. Englisizing
A 1992 Japanese TV show combined English lessons with gymnastic exercise programs. On the show, three gymnasts would perform synchronized exercises while chanting phrases like, “Hasta la vista, baby,” “Spare me my life!”, “I was robbed by two men!”, and “I have a bad case of diarrhea.”
65. Frank Sinatra
At Frank Sinatra’s birth, the doctor thought he was a stillborn. Blue and not breathing, the doctor laid him on the counter while he attended to Sinatra’s mother. It was only when his grandmother picked up the newborn, ran him under cold water and slapped his back that Sinatra started breathing.
66. Martin Luther King Sr.
Martin Luther King Sr was also a civil rights activist who lived until 1984.
67. John Williams
68. UK Rock Music
Rock music has died out in the UK so much that the Rock & Metal Number One spot consists of practically nothing but Don’t Let the Bells End around every Christmas, and Bohemian Rhapsody for the rest of the year.
69. Swedish Tourism Council
In 2016, the Swedish Tourism Council created a single phone number that connected the caller to a random Swede for you to have a conversation with. In the 79 days it was open, almost 200,000 calls were made with a combined 367 days worth of conversations.
70. Hippo Bites
African surgeons are often advised to treat hippo bites as a crushing injury rather than a penetration wound, due to the severity of damage to bones and internal organs. A majority of hippo attack survivors are left with a disability. Amputations are very common.
71. Jack Cash
Johnny Cash’s brother, Jack, died when he was 14 after getting mangled by a table saw after cutting wood. Johnny, who admired his brother a lot, was heartbroken. According to his sister, Johnny helped dig Jack’s grave.
72. The Office
iTunes helped save “The Office” when it reached four of the top five slots for downloaded TV shows in the platform. That’s when the people behind the show learned that their audience skewed young, rather than the white-collar workers they thought would be watching.
73. Popcorn
Popcorn, being relatively inexpensive, became popular during the Great Depression. It became a source of income for many struggling farmers, including the Redenbacher family. In fact, when sugar was rationed during WWII, Americans ate three times as much popcorn as they had before.
74. The Inca
The Inca did not have a written language but they did store and transfer information via a system of knots in rope that is still being decoded.
75. Jan Davis
Jan Davis, who protested the banning of BASE jumping at national parks due to safety concerns, by BASE jumping off El Capitan. Her parachute failed to open and she died.