142/500
Who are the World’s Most Prolific Gin Drinkers?

Filipinos are the most prolific gin drinkers in the world. Being the world’s largest gin market, the Philippines is responsible for 43% of total gin consumption in the world. They prefer the locally produced gin called Ginebra San Miguel and go through a whopping 22 million cases per year.

141/500
Why Do You Feel Like Insects are Crawling Underneath Your Skin?

Ever had that random feeling of insects crawling underneath or across your skin? It’s called formication, a type of paresthesia that happens when you feel a sensation on your skin even when there is no physical cause. This tactile hallucination can be caused due to several diseases and withdrawal from certain drugs.

140/500
What was the Straw Hat Riot?

The Straw Hat Riot was a series of riots that took place in New York City in 1922 and lasted eight days. The riots started because men were wearing straw hats past the unofficial due date, September 15, which was deemed socially acceptable.

139/500
Solar Power Technology that Works without Solar Panels

There is a solar power technology that does not involve solar panels. Known as concentrating solar-thermal power, this system employs mirrors that reflect and concentrate sunlight onto receivers for collecting solar energy, which is then converted to heat. The heat is used to produce electricity or stored for later use.

138/500
The Last Reigning Tsar of Bulgaria Became the Country’s Prime Minister

In 1943, Boris III of Bulgaria died at age 49, and his six-year-old son, Simeon, ascended the throne. In 1946, monarchy was abolished in Bulgaria, making Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha the last reigning Tsar of the country. In 2001, 64-year-old Simeon ran for Prime Minister of Bulgaria and won, becoming the country’s leader again.

137/500
The Earliest Sound Recording Device was Created by a French Inventor

The phonautograph was the earliest known sound recording device, and it was invented in 1857 by a French man named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. In 2008, researchers were able to playback these earliest recordings as sound for the first time ever.

136/500
The Blind Warrior from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is Actually a Skilled Martial Artist

Donnie Yen, the actor who played blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, is a skilled martial artist and has a reputation as a street brawler. In the late 1990s, while visiting a nightclub with his then girlfriend, Yen was attacked by a gang. He beat up and hospitalized eight members of the gang.

135/500
The Dullest Time in Earth’s History

There is a period in the Earth’s evolution known as the Boring Billion. Also known as the Dullest Time in Earth’s History, this period existed between 1.8 and 0.8 billion years ago and saw more or less tectonic stability, stalled biological evolution, and climactic stasis.

134/500
Glasgow’s Traffic Cone Removal Budget

The city of Glasgow spends approximately £10,000 every year to remove traffic cones from the head of the Duke Of Wellington statue.

133/500
When Theodore Roosevelt Made a Record for Shaking Hands

On New Year’s Day in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt held an event where he shook hands with 8,510 people in one day and set a Guinness World Record that would hold for over 70 years. The record was broken in 1977, when during a publicity stunt, a New Jersey Mayor shook over 11,000 hands in a single day.

132/500

How Do Oxygen Masks on Planes Generate Oxygen?

The oxygen masks on commercial airplanes generate oxygen by triggering a chemical reaction. When the masks drop in a depressurized cabin and you pull them down, the tugging removes a firing pin and creates a very small explosion in the “oxygen candles.” The oxygen candles contain a combination of sodium chlorate, barium peroxide, and potassium perchlorate, and the explosion initiates a chemical reaction that produces oxygen gas.

131/500
The Contribution of Lewis Fry Richardson to Modern Meteorology

Lewis Fry Richardson was an English mathematician who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather forecasting. The mathematical methods he produced played an important role in the development of modern meteorology. However, at the time, the math was so complex that he needed six weeks to produce a weather forecast of six hours!

130/500
The Incredible Ability of Alaskan Wood Frogs

The Alaskan wood frogs can withstand sub-zero temperatures for over seven months. During the cold winters, two-thirds of their body water turns into ice, their hearts stop beating, and their blood stops flowing. If you pick such a frog up, they would not move. If you bend their legs, they will break. Although they look dead, the frogs are actually alive, and when spring arrives, they can simply thaw and hop away.

129/500
Dairy Queen’s Soft Serve Isn’t Actually Ice Cream

Dairy Queen’s iconic soft-serve does not qualify as ice cream as it only contains about 5% butterfat. Therefore, it does not meet the FDA’s standards, which require ice creams to have at least 10% butterfat. Despite this, the company’s highly guarded secret soft serve recipe has remained unchanged since it was first introduced in 1940.

128/500
What Made Alexander the Great Weep?

Greek philosopher Anaxarchus once told Alexander the Great that he believed there were an infinite number of worlds, which caused Alexander the Great to weep because he had not yet conquered even one.

127/500
The Secret to Making the Perfectly Creamy Nacho Cheese

The secret ingredient used in making creamy nacho cheese sauce is sodium citrate. It is a type of salt that works as an emulsifier and turns an entire block of cheese into a creamy and smooth sauce. Interestingly, sodium citrate’s chemical formula, Na3C6H5O7, also spells out “NaCHo.”

126/500
How to Reduce Food Waste in College Cafeterias?

Researchers have found that eliminating the use of trays from college cafeterias reduced solid food waste by as much as 18%. That is because students tend to pile copious amounts of food onto their treys while browsing without thinking about what they will actually eat. When eating on regular plates, they have to select food more carefully, and they tend to eat all the food they take.

125/500
Man Kicked Out of Darts Tournament Because He Looked Like Jesus

In 2012, a man named Nathan Grindal was kicked out of a darts tournament because he looked like Jesus! Grindal’s resemblance to Christ made the other spectators chant “Stand up if you love Jesus,” and the ruckus got so bad that he needed to be thrown out. The following year, Grindal went to see the tournament again, but the organizers asked him to leave as soon as he was spotted.

124/500
The King of the Netherlands is Also a Pilot

Willem-Alexander, the current king of the Netherlands, has been secretly flying as a first officer for 21 years, and he has continued even after his ascension to the throne in 2013.

123/500
Man Became Famous for Robbing Payphones in 30 States

In the 1980s, a man named James Clark earned the nickname “The Telephone Bandit” by robbing payphones in around 30 states. He taught himself to pick some of the hardest payphone lockboxes, and stole over $500,000. He was even featured on America’s Most Wanted.

122/500
Armadillos as Big as a Volkswagen Beetle Once Roamed the Earth

Glyptodon, now extinct relatives of armadillos, lived during the Pleistocene epoch and were as big as a Volkswagen Beetle. Early humans used to hunt them, and they may have used the tough shells of the dead animal as shelter

121/500
Basketball Coach Got Fired when His Team Won 100-0

In 2009, a Texas high school basketball coach named Micah Grimes got fired after his team won 100-0 and made national headlines. He got fired because the school thought that winning by such huge margins did not “reflect a Christ-like and honorable approach to competition.”

120/500
British Teenager Changed His Name to Make It the World’s Largest

In 2008, a British 19-year-old changed his name from George Garratt to “Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine Hulk And The Flash Combined.” His new name, which was thought to be the world’s largest, upset his grandmother so much that she stopped speaking to him.

119/500
Earnest Hemmingway Survived a Series of Near-Fatal Misfortunes

Ernest Hemingway survived a mortar attack, anthrax, pneumonia, amoebic dysentery, diabetes, two plane crashes, three car accidents, second-degree burns, a ruptured kidney and liver, and a broken skull.

118/500
Do Bigger Breasts Mean Better Tips? Study Finds the Answer

Bigger breasts mean bigger tips for women in the service industry. An experiment, conducted for the MythBusters episode called “Laws of Attraction,” showed a barista with DD size breasts getting tipped almost 40% higher from both male and female customers.

117/500
This Native American Tribe Has Been Living in a Building Complex for 1,000 Years

The Native American tribe of Puebloan people have been living in a multi-storied residential complex made of reddish-brown adobe for roughly 1000 years. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States.

116/500
Why Jack White Saved the Detroit Masonic Temple

In 2013, when the Detroit Masonic Temple, the largest Masonic Temple in the world, was in foreclosure over back taxes, singer-songwriter Jack White of The White Stripes paid $142,000 to save the building. He wanted to help the temple because they had helped his mother by giving her a job when she was struggling to find work.

115/500
Honeybees Can be Trained to Detect Explosives

According to a 2006 study, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), honeybees can be trained to detect explosives. Taking advantage of the bees’ superior sense of smell, the researchers were able to tap into their bomb-sniffing capabilities. Though the study presented positive results, DARPA said it does not see bees having a future in the military.

114/500
Teenager Built a Cheap and Portable Dialysis Machine

In 2015, a Canadian teenager named Anya Pogharian invented a cheap and portable dialysis machine as part of her high school science fair project. The 17-year-old built a functional dialysis machine for just $500. At the time, a dialysis machine typically cost around $30,000.

113/500
The Famous Japanese Festival where Percipients Wear Nothing but a Loincloth

Hadaka Matsuri is a 500-year-old Japanese festival that also goes by the name “Naked Festival.” The participants wear nothing but a loincloth called fundoshi and jostle for lucky objects thrown by priests. The festival takes place in the winter every year, and thousands of men participate in hopes of having good luck throughout the year.