15 Trivia Branches On The Tree Of Knowledge

No, that's not George Washington's junk in your textbook, I promise.
15 Trivia Branches On The Tree Of Knowledge

Our world is a beautiful place, full of lush meadows and towering mountains and mighty rivers and vast oceans. It's also an absolutely crazy nutso-mindjob of place full of history, which, as far as we can tell, is a hit-or-miss subject. On top of all that, you add human beings, who went and made the evolutionary mistake of developing consciousness and society, and, well, some truly bizarre things emerged. 

 

You know some guy went to jail for libeling a Pixar movie? You know how impossible it is to guess which one? And look, this isn't InfoWars, but you know there must be some global conspiracy when not one but TWO dentists create a quick and easy way to spin pure sugar into a treat that children and adults alike will happily shovel into their rotting mouths. We've got all that and plenty…checks notes…exactly 13 more things that are weird to contemplate:

 

 

New York's 'Mad Bomber' Pauses Bombings During World War II, And Then Picks It Right Back Up. CRACKED.co To exact justice from Consolidated Edison after being injured on the job, George Metesky placed a pipe bomb against ONE of their windows in 1940. The bomb never went off, and he tired again the following year. When America entered WWII, George told the police, I will make no more bomb units for the duration of the war. My patriotic feelings have made me decide this. After the war, he really ramped things up. Often, the bombs injured no one, except when
Texas Censored George Washington, For An Imaginary Wardrobe Malfunction. CRACKED COM The superintendent of Muscogee County in Georgia thought the red dot on Washington's pant leg in the painting Washington Crossing the Delaware was probably the General's penis, so he ordered teachers to paint over the appendage (in 2,300 textbooks) by hand. Another Georgia county had teachers rip the offending page right out. In 2002, Texas had publishers blur Washington's groin. The offending red dot is a ribbon attached to Washington's pocket watch
Someone Claimed 'Kung Fu Panda' Was His Idea (And Wound Up In Prison). CRACKED.co After seeing a trailer for Kung Fu Panda in theaters, Jayme Gordon sued Dreamworks claiming they stole the idea from a story he made decades prior, titled Kung Fu Panda Power. As proof, Gordon offered a series of drawings he'd made of his characters in the '90s, but the drawings were traced from a Disney coloring book from 1996. When investigators looked further, Gordon destroyed the evidence. He was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud and had to pay amWorks' legal fees, totaling $3
The Texas Legislature Was Tricked Into Honoring The Boston Strangler. CRACKED.CO COM To screw with his fellow Texas legislators on April Fool's Day 1971, Tom Moore introduced a resolution to honor one Albert DeSalvo- The Boston Strangler. In his proposal, Moore listed several vague facts about DeSalvo that made him sound respectable enough. Moore said DeSalvo had been officially recognized by the state of Massachusetts (i.e., had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison) for his noted activities and unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology (i.e., killing and terrorizing people). The legislature approved the resolution, unanimously.
NASCAR Recruits Athletes... TO Change The Cars' Tires. ES LOWE LOWES Lou ER STO MPRO 18 CHOPALE CRACKEDG KOROBALT NASCAR pit crews were usually staffed with experienced mechanics, until 1990 when one Chevrolet team realized the crew member changing the tires doesn't need to know all things car related- just how to do this one job. So unlike other racing teams, this one assigned each pit crew member to a single job. They soon had the quickest stops in all of NASCAR. Other teams followed suit, realizing it was easier to have an entire pit crew full of college athletes
The McRib Was A Military Experiment Gone Horribly Right. CRACKED.CO .COM To help boost troop morale by making soldier rations look more appetizing, the US Army had One of their scientists, professor Roger Mandigo, come up with a process of combining meat scraps into a familiar shape. The National Pork Producers Council approached Mandigo to use his technique for fast food pork sandwiches and pitch it to McDonald's. McDonald's then hired Rene Arend, a Luxembourg chef who'd prepared meals for royalty, to craft the first McRib, basing it on Southern BBQ pulled pork.
A Dentist Invented The Cotton Candy Machine... Twice. THE WONDERFUL ELECTRIC CANDY M MACHINE WHICH TOOK THE PRIZE FOR NOVELTY OF INVENTION AT THE WORLD'S FAIR. ST. LOUIS. MO.. 1904 THE CANDY MADE BY THIS MACHINE IS ABSOLUTELY PURE. Granulated sugar is poured into the spinner and is in. CRACKED.COM stantly changed in At the end of the 19th century, John Wharton contacted dentist William Morrison to design a machine that would spin sugar because the doctor had experience with inventing stuff. When the two debuted their new candy at the 1904 World's Fair in st. Louis, they called it fairy floss.
Air Conditioners Weren't Originally Made To Cool You Down At All. CRACKEDO ICON In 1902, a New York printing company was having summer problems, with the humidity making their paper go all wonky, and they called in American engineer Willis Carrier to help. He designed a device whose heat pipes pulled humidity out of the air. That device happened to fill the room with blessed coolness at the same time. Carrier realized that was a pretty big plus, and as he adapted his new air conditioner, he focused more on the cooling.
One Man's Nose Protected The Subway From Gas (And Elephants). CRACKED.COM James smelly Kelly was a foreman at the Board of Transportation in 1920s New York, and he led a team checking subway tunnels. The top priority for him and his five assistants was sniffing out gas, which could poison people or ignite. One time, he visited a subway stop and announced the source of the smell there: elephants. Years before, New York's theater district had hosted circuses, and they'd buried loads of elephant dung. Now, a burst pipe had mixed with the fossilized dung and deposited the foul mixture
An Italian Banker Moved $1 Million From Rich Clients To Poor Ones. CRACKED.COM To combat new restrictions on who qualified for loans during the 2009 financial crisis, Italian bank manager Gilberto Baschiera borrowed money from large accounts to help out the smaller ones. This modern-day Robin Hood assumed that once these folks were given help they would eventually be able to pay off the loan, not realizing that is one of the reasons for the crisis in the first place. After taking over $1 million by 2016, he was finally caught and sentenced to two years in prison (he never
Old-Timey Robbers Blinded Their Victim With Molasses. CRACKED Books about New York crime refer to a 19th-century Molasses Gang, consisting of three members. The first member would ask a grocer for change and take a look at the contents of his wallet. The next two members would come in and ask the grocer to settle a bet by filling their hats with molasses to see who had the bigger head. They would then shove the syrup-filled hat onto his head, rendering him unable to see as they relieved him of his cash.
A Football Conspiracy Was Exposed By An Errant Flare On The Field. just CRACKED.COM Chile was down 1 to O against Brazil for the World Cup qualifiers in 1989, when suddenly a Brazil fan shot a flare onto the field. Chile's goalie, Roberto Rojas, went down and was bleeding so badly that the Chilean team stormed off. It was later revealed that Rojas and the team doctor had always planned for Rojas to cut himself with a razor hidden in his glove so they could force a do-over if the team needed it, and the flare was the perfect - and
In The '90s, The Military Tried Giving Soldiers Skateboards. CRACKEDG COM As a response to the embarrassing 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, where US forces had to fight in a city and later withdraw, the military launched Operation Urban Warrior. This new form of combat included remote-controlled bulldozers, an airborne aerostat communications relay system, and soldiers being trained to ride skateboards. We don't see a lot of info on skateboard use after this, but the experiments did lead the military to make better-quality elbow and knee pads.
We're Never Again Going To Get A TV Episode As Watched As The 'Seinfeld' Finale. CRACKED.com 78 million Americans watched the final episode of Seinfeld live in 1998, six times as many as watched the Game Of Thrones finale in 2019 - one of the biggest TV events in recent memory. There were no seasons-long character arcs to close, no plot threads to tie up, it was still a just show about nothing. It captivated so many people that other TV stations didn't even bother to run programming during that time slot.
GPS Was Terrible In The '90s... On Purpose. CRACKED The US military developed GPS in the 70's strictly for their own use, but after a Korean aircraft was shot down over Russia after being mistaken for a spy plane, president Regan ordered the military to release the technology for civilian use. The military injected errors into everyone's GPS with something called selective availability, which meant you would know what country you're flying over but nothing accurate enough for weapons technology. In 2000, the US military simply turned off selective availability after airlines told them it was screwing with their planes.
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