20 Things We Were Pleased To Learn, Forgive Us, We're Sick

Everyone in South Korea ages one year on the same day.
20 Things We Were Pleased To Learn, Forgive Us, We're Sick

The following is a list of some very strange facts that will definitely leave you feeling a bit stupefied and maybe even a little bit amused. The intention here is to enjoy this list of interesting facts to the fullest, as one might enjoy a good joke or an entertaining anecdote. But enjoy this list of interesting facts only if you are ready for it to be funny and only if you are ready to learn new things. If you are not in the mood for laughing and learning, then perhaps you should go ahead and skip this page and read the rest of the book in silence. I won't blame you. In fact, I would advise you to do exactly that. Skip to the next page, read it, and laugh all you want. But if you are reading this book with a mind open to learning and a heart ready to appreciate humor, then keep on reading and have fun. Here goes the list…

Auto, tire and oil companies dismantled the largest electric rail system in the world.

Los Angeles once had the largest electric rail system in the world. CRACKED COM Automobile, tire, and oil companies bought and dis- mantled it, along with mass transit systems in 44 other US cities. The mass transit systems were replaced with freeways and buses.

Curbed

New York City is not the location of the “Hey Arnold!” TV show.

'Hey Arnold!' was not set in New York City but in a fictional city called Hillwood, Washington. 3 CRACKED COM Craig Bartlett has stated that the city the show takes place in is some- where in the Pacific North- west, and is an amalgam of three cities that he lived in: Seattle, Brooklyn, and Portland.

Bustle

A fake Chinese bank operated for a year and stole millions of dollars from customers.

A fake branch of a genuine bank in China operated normally for more than 1 year. CRACKED.COM By the time authori- ties closed the estab- lishment down, all the money that customers put in (~$32 million) was gone.

Telegraph

Doritos started as the stale leftovers from Disney vendors.

Doritos were originally Disneyland trash. GRACKED.COM A restaurant named Casa de Fritos invented Doritos by re- purposing stale tortillas they bought from a local vendor. The chips proved to be so popular they were eventually rolled out nationally by Fri- to-Lay in 1966.

Business Insider

A Qur’an was handwritten in Hussein’s blood.

Saddam Hussein had a Qur'an printed in his own blood for his 60th birthday. CRACKED.COM It took two years and 27 li- ters of blood for the calligra- pher to complete all 114 chapters. The project was the result of Hussein re-embrac- ing his religion after his son Uday survived an assassina- tion attempt.

The Guardian

A 100 foot deep flood killed 20,000 villagers after a volcano erupted.

In 1985, a volcano in Colombia that was covered in glaciers erupted, instantly melting the glaciers. CRACKED.COM Two hours later, a 100 feet deep flood of rock and wa- ter traveling 39 feet per second leveled an entire nearby village named Armero, killing 20,000 out of its 29,000 residents.

USGS

Skin cells call white blood cells to kill them before they turn cancerous.

Sunburn happens when skin cells put a hit out on themselves. CRACKED.COM Your skin gets sunburned because your skin cells put up a protein flag on their surface that tells your white blood cells to come kill them so that they don't become cancerous.

Untamed Science

Dogs can get testicle implants.

Testicle implants exist for dogs. GRACKED.COM Inventor Gregg А. Miller won the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine for Neuticles - ar- tificial replacement testi- cles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firm- ness.

Neuticles

Disney World eliminates all of its mosquitoes.

There are almost no mosquitoes in Disney World. GRACKED.COM Even though it is in a swampy territory abun- dant with bugs, they have a sophisticated mosquito surveillance program to try and elim- inate them quickly.

MentalFloss

Authentic Nazi uniforms were used in ‘Indiana Jones.’

Many of the Nazi uniforms in 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' were authentic. CRACKED.COM Most of the uniforms worn by the Nazis in the Berlin book burning scene are not costumes. A cache of old uniforms was found in Ger- many and obtained by Cos- tume Designer Anthony Powell to be used in the film.

WhatCulture

Some cities in Europe have self-cleaning public bathrooms.

Cities in Europe offer 'Sanisettes': private, self-contained, self-cleaning, public bathrooms. TOILETTES ROOSERI SSI OTION 223 COM 5 - CRACKED.COM After the user has exited, a wash cycle begins and the entire floor and toilet fixture are automatically sprayed, scrubbed and disinfected. Sometimes, people become trapped in them.

BBC

There used to be 4 billion American chestnut trees.

America used to have 100 feet tall chestnut trees from Maine to Florida. CRACKED.COM There used to be 4 bil- lion American chest- nut trees, but they all disappeared because of a fungus that kills them as saplings.

Timeline

Modern head lice are descended from gorilla lice.

The common head louse has a cousin that only infects gorillas. CRACKED.COM It is speculated that mod- ern human lice are de- scended from gorilla lice that parasitized early hu- mans that slept in gorilla nests or butchered gorilla corpses.

NCBI

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