12 Ancient Bits of Trivia Jealously Guarded by Mysterious Temple Guards on the Other Side of a Treacherous Moat and the Steps of Knowledge
At long last, you’re here. The fabled Hidden Temple. The path ahead looks treacherous, but you’ll do whatever it takes — cross a murky moat, try to reason with a big dramatic rock head, get hugged by an adult stranger in a culturally appropriated Halloween costume.
By the grace of Olmec, you might just be able to attain these shimmering trivia tidbits.
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It Cost More to Film ‘Titanic’ Than It Did to Build the Titanic
The film cost $210 million to make, or $337 million adjusted for inflation. The ship itself cost $7.5 million, which would be about $237 million today. And so, the movie cost almost 1.5 times more than the ship.
A Paralyzed Man Tweeted Telepathically
In 2021, an Australian man with ALS was able to tweet with the help of a brain-computer interface.
The Bigfoot of Drug Smuggling
Colombian drug smuggling narco-submarines can be built and deployed from the jungle, making them absurdly hard to intercept. When the U.S. Coast Guard finally nabbed one in 2006, they named it Bigfoot, because they’d suspected these vessels were myths.
Mindy Kaling Was Told She Could Quit ‘The Office’ If She Became a Cast Member on ‘SNL’
She auditioned, and got really close, but was offered a writing position instead. Her boss at The Office, former SNL writer Greg Daniels, stuck to his guns — because she hadn’t landed the cast spot, he wouldn’t let her out of her contract.
The American James Bond Would Probably Be a Mormon
The FBI and the CIA heavily recruit from the Mormon community — they’re often multilingual due to their missionary trips, and they don’t fuck around with drugs and alcohol.
Finland’s Income-Based Speed Ticketing System Is Absolutely Brutal on the Wealthy
A big whig at Nokia was once clocked going 25 kilometers per hour over the speed limit. Because fines are based on the offender’s income, he had to pay about $100,000. That’s thought to be the most expensive speeding ticket in history.
Harvard Has a Tomb for Colors
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The Forbes Pigment Collection at Harvard Art Museum has a preserved array of bizarre, disgusting pigments. The collection includes tyrian purple, which requires a type of sea snail secretion, and kermes, which is produced by grinding blisters created by a specific type of insect.
The FAA Still Requires Airplanes to Have Ashtrays
Smoking on airplanes became illegal in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But a cigarette butt tossed in the garbage could be so dangerous, ashtrays are on the “minimum equipment list” — the checklist of parts that must be in working order for a plane to be allowed to take off.
‘River Monsters’ Ended Because They Ran Out of River Monsters
In stark contrast to shows like Finding Bigfoot, who will make infinite seasons out of zero discoveries, Jeremy Wade decided to end his show after nine seasons because he’d caught every creepy little beast he set out to: “Ten years ago, I had a list in my head, which seemed impossibly ambitious at the time, but everything has now been ticked off.”
Scientists Revived a Tree That Had Been Extinct for Over a Thousand Years
In 2005, an agriculture expert was able to make 2,000-year-old seeds germinate, officially bringing back the Judean date palm. It had been officially extinct for 1,800 years.
A Random 80-Year-Old Lady Once Hosted ‘Saturday Night Live’
In 1977, SNL ran an “Anyone Can Host” contest, asking people to explain why they should be selected, in 25 words or less. Eighty-year-old Miskel Spillman won by writing in: “I’m 80 years old. I need one more cheap thrill, since my doctor told me I only have another 25 years left.” Until Betty White hosted at 88, Spillman was the oldest host in SNL history.
New Cat Just Dropped
A pelt collected in 1989 in South America was originally classified as an ocelot. In 2001, a researcher noticed that it definitely wasn’t one of those, but couldn’t put their finger on what it was exactly. Authorities spent the next 20 years trying to figure it out, and in 2023, they just kind of threw in the towel and decided it belonged to a never-before-classified animal. Welcome to the world, leopardus narinensis, we hope you’re still alive somewhere.
