20 Trivia Tidbits For The Upcoming New Year

We almost had Michael Jackson in “Edward Scissorhands.”
20 Trivia Tidbits For The Upcoming New Year

Did you know that Russia owned Alaska for as long time as the United States? In 1867, Russia decided to sell it to the U.S. so they could focus on other matters. However, before this happened, Alaska was governed by Russia as a colony – not a territory or a state! If you've ever seen ‘Terminator 2’, then you're probably familiar with the scenes of the T-1000, played by Robert Patrick, transforming. What you might not know is that the sound of him transforming was actually created using a condom on a microphone! To get started, they put flour and water into a bowl and added Dust-Off spray until it made bubbles and sounded similar to cappuccino maker machine. Lastly, did ancient Rome fall in 476 AD? Although popular belief suggests this date marks Ancient Rome's end, historians would tell you otherwise – it actually fell in 1453 AD, when the city of Constantinople fell.

McDonald’s ran an ill-timed Olympic promotion.

McDonald's most costly promotion ever was for the 1984 Olympics. M CRACKED.COM The restaurant offered free products every time a US athlete won a medal. When the Soviet Union, the pow- erhouse team of the time, boycotted the event, it let the USA win big.

LA Times

Vanessa O’Brien has been higher and lower than any of us.

Vanessa O'Brien is the first woman to reach Earth's highest and lowest points. GRAGKED.COM She received a Guin- ness World Record for her accomplish- ments in reaching Mt. Everest and the Mari- anas Trench.

WNTV

Marilyn Monroe was a lady in the streets, and a college boy in the sheets.

Marilyn Monroe's hygiene and bedroom habits were pretty gross. CRACKED.COM Monroe rarely bathed, slept in the nude and ate a lot in bed, and shoved what was left on her plate under the sheets before going to sleep.

Rediff

Corn does a body good, if prepared a certain way.

Corn needs to be cooked in lime water before its nutrients can be absorbed into the human body. CRACKED.COM While Native Americans knew this, early New World colonial settlers did not, which resulted in many deaths from malnutrition for those who were using it as a staple food.

ResearchGate

Tiny chairs are carved out of soap by an inmate and displayed in popsicle-stick cases.

An Illinois inmate sells soap carvings for hundreds of dollars at art shows. CRACKED.COM Michael Harms carves tiny, intricately-detailed chairs from soap, dis- played in cases cut from popsicle sticks with nail clippers and dyed with rust from steel wool.

Interesting Ideas

Billy Joel graduated high school at age 43.

Billy Joel received his high school diploma at age 43. CRACKED.COM In 1967, he was playing at a piano bar to help his moth- er make ends meet which interfered with his atten- dance, causing him to miss a crucial English exam. De- cades later he completed his diploma.

Charlie Rose

A football stadium for the Vikings cost over 1 billion dollars.

The Minnesota Vikings' U.S. Bank Stadium cost more than NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. usbank stadium TEAC CRACKED.COME Stadium: $1.129 billion - New Horizons mission: $720 million. To be fair, the stadium brings in revenue, and all the NASA mission did was deepen our under- standing of our galaxy. Snore!

Fox Sports

Pizza Hut China regrets offering a salad bar.

Pizza Hut in China had to stop people from constructing salad towers on their plates. CRACKED.COM The restaurants offered a one-trip salad bar to cus- tomers, but had to take them away because peo- ple were piling on ingre- dients in elaborately en- gineered constructs.

Kotaku

The unstable chemical substance chlorine-trifluoride can set concrete on fire.

Chlorine-trifluoride can set seemingly inflammable objects like concrete on fire. CRACKED.COM In the 1950s, some of it was accidentally spilled in a warehouse and it burned through a foot of concrete while simultaneously re- leasing a deadly cloud of gas that corroded anything it touched.

Gizmodo

A Roman goldsmith was killed after discovering aluminum, as to not make gold and silver less valuable.

A Roman goldsmith may have discovered aluminum 1800 years before modern chemists. CRACKED.COM Emperor Tiberius had the discoverer killed in order to ensure the metal would not di- minish the value of his own gold and silver as- sets.

The Papacy and the Levant

Submarine cloaking is so good that two of them collided by chance.

Two French and British nuclear ballistic missile submarines collided in the Atlantic ocean by pure chance. 59 CRACKED.COM Modern nuclear sub- marines are so well cloaked that the slow moving subs couldn't detect each other just feet apart.

BBC

A faulty pool heater caused a tennis pro to die in his sleep.

A faulty pool heater caused a tennis pro to die in his sleep. oniers caba AB CRACKED.COM A tennis pro was killed by carbon monoxide poison- ing in his friend's guest house.

NY Times

Sarcasm promotes creative thinking, NOT!

Researchers at Harvard and Columbia concluded that sarcasm promotes creative thinking. GRAGKED.COM Both the expressers and recipients of sarcasm need to overcome the contradiction between the literal and actual meanings of the sarcas- tic expressions.

Harvard

There could have been a Michael Jackson “Edward Scissorhands.”

The lead role in Edward Scissorhands was originally offered to Tom Cruise. CRACKED.COM Cruise declined because he wanted a happier ending. Tom Hanks, Gary Oldman, Jim Carrey, John Cusack, William Hurt, Robert Downy Jr., and Michael Jackson had all been considered.

Digital Spy

Canadian scientists brought a horse pox virus back to life, just to make a point.

In 2017, Canadian scientists recreated an extinct horse pox virus. GRAGKED.COM This was to demonstrate that the smallpox virus can be recreated in a small lab at a cost of about $100,000, by a team of scientists with- out specialist knowledge.

NCBI

A condom covered mic made the T-1000 come to life.

The T-1000 transforming noise from 'Terminator 2' was made with a condom on a microphone. CRACKED.COM The mic was stuck into a goop made from flour, water and Dust-Off spray, which would make bubbles and sounds similar to a cappuccino maker.

Film Sound

Russia owned Alaska as long as the US has.

Alaska used to belong to Russia. GRACKED.COM It was sold to the United States in 1867. Russia governed Alaska as a col- ony for almost as long as the U.S. has now gov- erned Alaska as a territo- ry and state.

Alaska.gov

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