that at the ancient Olympics, cheating athletes would be fined and the fines used to build bronze statues at the entrance of the Olympic stadium, each inscribed with the name of the cheater and how they cheated

somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are the Disappointment Islands. Named by John Byron in 1765, because he found the natives to be hostile towards him.

The surface layers of the vaginal wall are made of mucosal tissue—similar to the tissue that lines your mouth, nose, and digestive tract.

Freddie Mercury’s introductory scatting vocal on "Under Pressure" was improvised during an experiment suggested by David Bowie, as Brian May recalls it: "David said, 'Okay, let’s each of us go in the vocal booth and sing how we think the melody should go and we’ll compile a vocal out of that.'"

in 400 BCE Persian engineers created an ice machine in the desert.

that a drop of water spends an average of nine days in the atmosphere before falling back to Earth. If it should fall in the ocean it may take it over 3000 years before evaporating again.

The Golden Raspberry Awards has made retractions on two occasions. Bruce Willis had his Raspberry category retracted once it was discovered he was suffering from aphasia. Shelley Duvall's nomination was retracted because of Kubrick's mistreatment on The Shining.

that if two pieces of similar metals touch in a vacuum like outer space, and if both pieces are perfectly flat and polished, they will indeed fuse to effectively make one new piece. Atoms in the metals share electrons and bond permanently. This is called cold welding.

Hummingbirds have an exceptional memory due to an enlarged hippocampus. This allows them to remember the exact location of specific hummingbird feeders along their migration path from North America to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America.

that Jimmy Carter, at 97, is the oldest living President, the longest-lived President, and also has the longest retirement ( 41 years ) of any President

Medieval myths surrounding salamanders being resistant to fire were due to salamanders habit of hibernating in logs… putting another log in the fire = salamander scurrying from the fire … leading people to believe they were “born of fire”.

of the 'Fry and Turnbull effect' on prostate cancer in the UK. In 2008 news presenter Bill Turnbull and broadcaster Stephen Fry both had a prostate cancer diagnosis and urged other men to come forward for help. It caused a 36% increase in patients receiving treatment the following year.

that in 2006, FBI agents attempted to arrest prison guards at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tallahassee, after having learnt the guards were trading drugs for sex with female inmates. One of the guards opened fire with a personal handgun, killing one agent and wounding another.

the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca was so terrifying to Rome that they would use the phrase "Hannibal is at the gates" whenever disaster struck. When the romans finally defeated Hannibal, they built statues of him in the streets of Rome to advertise their defeat of such a worthy adversary.

In 1990 a courier was robbed on a street in London, England. The robber made off with bearer bonds to the value of £292 million. Today, this is equivalent to £758 million - or $1.086 billion USD. This is still the highest amount ever stolen in a street robbery.

The Carmen Sandiego Show (1991-1995; 295 episodes) was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.

that in 1956, the Comics Code Authority tried to prevent a story from being printed because it involved a black astronaut, even though this was never actually forbidden by the Code. Fortunately, the publisher managed to get the CCA to back down by threatening to take the matter to court.

that the Allstate "Mayhem" actor Dean Winters, died for about 3 minutes, and was then revived. The infection that caused this also led to two toes and a thumb needing to be amputated.

Chicken Parmesan is not an Italian dish, it was invented in America by Italian immigrants and the first published recipe was in a NY newspaper in 1953. The dish became wildly popular in Australia where its served with salad and fries, although they hotly debate if the fries go under the chicken

that when a poisonous gas leak was found at 11:45pm immediately before the Bhopal disaster in 1984 that killed thousands, a decision was made to do something about it after the 12:15am tea break.

an Orange County man named Jeff Reitz went to Disneyland every day for over 8 years, 2,995 consecutive days, and only stopped because of Covid on March 14, 2020.

the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was founded by FDR's New Deal in 1933. In its 9 year existence the CCC employed nearly 3 million men, planted over 3.5 billion trees, and established more than 700 state parks. It was the most rapid peacetime mobilization in US history.

that the oldest ship in the world still afloat is the USS Constitution. Built in the 1790s to serve as one of the first ships of the brand-new US Navy, she served for approximately 80 years before being removed from service and converted into a floating museum.

that in response to fans demanding the show Metalpocalipse be continued, Adult Swim set up a live stream of the a fax machine printing the petition to bring back the show… only for the faxes to be dropped straight into a trash bin.

Sushi grade and Sashimi grade fish is actually super frozen fish, not fresh fish. It is frozen below -60f. in the usa, there is no regulation, and any supplier can claim sushi grade fish.

cyber criminals with the help of A.I voice cloning software, used a deepfaked voice of a company executive to fool a Emirati bank manager to transfer 35 million dollars into their personal accounts. The bank manager had recognized the executive's voice from having worked with him before.

a donut shop in Portland, Oregon was told by the FDA to stop adding medicine to food because it included Nyquil and Pepto Bismol to its donuts.

that Billings, MT has the highest rate of depression in the United States (31% of the population).