200/701 Steve Jobs’ Trick for Having No Licence Plate
Steve Jobs used to rent a new silver Mercedes every six months in order to avoid using licence plates. Back then, California law used to have a six-month grace period for registering a new car.
199/701 Marriage Proposal in the Form of Japan-Sized GPS Drawing
In 2010, a Japanese artist walked and rode across Japan for four years to create a GPS drawing to propose to his girlfriend. The drawing holds the Guinness World Record for the largest GPS drawing.
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198/701 The Truth Behind the Amazing Smell of Freshly Cut Grass
The smell of freshly cut grass is actually a distress signal that alerts beneficial insects to attack the pest eating the grass.
197/701 Man Awarded for Lung Damage After Inhaling Popcorn Steam
196/701 The Great Banyan Tree that Spans 4.67 Acres
This is the Great Banyan tree – a 270-year-old tree that reaches 80 feet tall and has a 4.67 acre canopy supported by over 3,600 prop roots. Even though the central trunk had to be removed in 1925 due to decay, the tree still stands and thrives.
195/701 Unbelievable Speed of the Fastest Train in the World
189/701 A First Aid Course is Mandatory to Get a Driver’s Licence in Germany
To earn a driver’s licence in Germany, you have to pass a mandatory first aid course to ensure you can assist the injured in case of an accident. Professional drivers, including bus and truck drivers, also must go through the course at state-approved institutes. The course costs between €20 and €50 and lasts around eight hours.
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189/701 A Public Diamond Mine with Over 35,000 Discoveries since 1972!
In Arkansas, there’s a remarkable diamond mine called “Crater of Diamonds State Park” where anyone can dig for diamonds and keep what they find! Since 1972, over 35,000 diamonds have been unearthed by enthusiastic visitors.
188/701 Being a Candidate for Radio Transmitter Saved Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower was originally built as a temporary exhibit for the 1889 World’s Fair hosted by Paris and was destined to be scrapped 10 years later. However, the city officials decided it was a great candidate for radio transmissions and kept it. Now it serves as both a tourist attraction and a broadcast tower.
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187/701 Puerto Rico, the Tip of an Underwater Mountain
Puerto Rico is the tip of a 27,500-foot-deep trench, which is almost as tall as Mount Everest. This trench is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean.
186/701 Friends Reruns Earn the Cast $20 Million Each per Year
For the last two seasons, the cast of Friends earned $1 million each thanks to David Schwimmer’s insistence on negotiating their salaries as a team. Now, they receive $20 million each every year, which is 2% of the $1 billion revenue Warner Bros. still generates for worldwide reruns of the show.
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185/701 Bees and Wasps Do not Live in Antarctica
Antarctica is the only continent on the planet with no bees or wasps.
184/201 Taylor Swift’s Acts of Generosity
Taylor Swift was the reason the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe increased its donation limit of $15,000 in 2015. When she wanted to donate $50,000 to a leukemia patient, she couldn’t and had to do it in four parts instead. Swift has continued to make numerous donations on the platform to those in need.
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183/701 Multiple Survival Adaptations of Scorpions
In 2019, Microsoft Japan conducted a four-day workweek trial. The company’s productivity increased by 40%.
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181/701 The Australian Man who Gave his Life for Research
In 1950, after catching a highly venomous snake called a “taipan” by hand, Australian herpetologist Kevin Budden hitchhiked holding it. He had, unfortunately, been bit while bagging it, so he made the driver swear it will be delivered to the researchers. He died the next day. However, the snake was instrumental in making the first taipan antivenom.
180/701 Robert de Niro’s Italian Citizenship
In 2004, when the Italian government decided to give Robert de Niro an honorary citizenship, the Italian-American organization called the Order Sons of Italy in America called for its cancellation claiming he damaged the reputation of Italians by playing criminal roles.
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179/701 Goldman Sachs’ Prediction for AI’s Effect on the Future
175/701 Sandra Bullock Won Both the Golden Raspberry and Academy Awards Within a 24-hour Span
In 2010, Sandra Bullock accepted in person the Golden Raspberry Award for the Worst Actress for the film All About Steve. The very next day she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Blind Side, making her the first actress to win both in the same year.
174/701 Spanish Train Driver Clocks Out on Time, Leaving Passengers Stranded
In 2016, a Spanish train driver requested the rail company send a replacement to take over at the end of his shift. When the company didn’t follow through, he simply went home after stopping the train at a village station en route to Madrid, leaving 109 passengers stranded.
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173/701 Wearing a Seat Belt Could Have Saved Princess Diana
Princess Diana didn’t die immediately after the car accident. Her death occurred three to five hours later because her heart had displaced to the right tearing her pulmonary vein and pericardium. If she had wore her seat belt, she would’ve had an 80% chance of survival.
172/701 Japanese Beer Cans for the Visually Impaired
Japanese brewers include braille on their beer cans to prevent the blind from mistaking alcohol for soft drinks.
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171/701 Mark Ruffalo Had a Dream About a Tumor that Turned Out To Be Real
In 2000, Mark Ruffalo dreamt that he had a brain tumor. The dream had such an impact on him that he decided to get it checked out, and, sure enough, there was a golf-ball-sized, benign tumor behind his left ear. The surgery was successful but resulted in a year of facial paralysis and a permanent hearing loss in that ear.
170/701 Sumo Wrestlers Pay for Their Size with Years of Their Lives
Indonesian farmers introduce fish into their water-laden rice fields. The rice provides the fish with shelter while the fish eat insects and pests, improve soil fertility with droppings, and increase dissolved oxygen in water. Known as the “rice-fish system,” the process increases rice yields by 10% per hectare.
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167/701 An Angel in Human Form
Known as the “Angel of The Gap,” Don Ritchie lived across from Australia’s famous suicide spot called “The Gap.” For over 50 years, he stopped at least 160 people from committing suicide by gently striking up a conversation, inviting them to his home for tea, or even physically tackling the more determined ones. Years later, some return to thank him for showing kindness when they needed it most.
166/701 Tanzanite Rarer-than-diamond Gemstones
Tanzanite is a blue-purple gemstone only found in one place in the world – Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. They are far rarer than diamonds or any gemstones.
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165/701 Radar’s Inventor Caught Speeding by His Own Invention
The inventor of radar, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, was caught speeding by a policeman using a radar gun. He reportedly remarked, “My God, if I’d known what they were going to do with it, I’d never have invented it!”
164/701 Plane Crashes Are Nothing to Ernest Hemingway
During a safari in Uganda, Ernest Hemingway survived two successive plane crashes. Presumed dead for 24 hours, he was spotted arriving in Entebbe, covered in makeshift bandages and carrying a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin.
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163/701 Tree Stump that Refuses to Sink
For almost 130 years, a 30-foot-long tree stump nicknamed “The Old Man of the Lake” has been floating vertically in Oregon’s Crater Lake. The tree itself is 450 years old, and no one knows why it doesn’t sink.
Carrots were originally purple. The Dutch back then selectively bred them to be orange, allegedly in honor of the reigning House of Orange-Nassau.
160/701 Hippo’s Amazing Ability to Sleep Under Water
Hippos can sleep underwater. They have a reflex mechanism that allows them to automatically bob up, breathe, and sink back down without ever waking up.
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159/701 Space is For Everyone to Explore, Not Possess
According to international space law, space is legally defined as “common heritage of mankind.” It was put in place to protect the right to scientific exploration and prohibit claims of sovereignty by any nation and militarization of space.
158/701 Snowmelt Using Hot Water Pipes Underneath Streets
To melt snow on its streets, the city of Holland, Michigan pumps hot water heated by waste heat through 190 miles of tubing coiled underneath.
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157/701 Penguins Test Waters by Pushing In Other Penguins
156/701 Amazon Drains About 60 Million Gallons Of Water
Every second the Amazon drains about 60 million gallons of fresh water into the ocean. That is 20% of the total global river water discharge, far more than the total amount of water drained by the next seven largest rivers together.
Cruise ships are equipped with morgues aboard with storage for up to ten bodies. This is because around 200 cruisers die every year, especially on ships carrying senior citizens, and the ships are built with that in mind.
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153/701 Why Was Morgan Freeman’s Character Called “Red”?
Remember in The Shawshank Redemption when asked why they call him “Red,” Morgan Freeman’s character replies, “Maybe it’s because I’m Irish?” That dialogue was added as a joke because the original character in the novel was a red-headed Irishman, and they cast Freeman instead.
152/701 Why Walmart Failed in Germany
During the early 2000s, Walmart tried and failed to establish itself in Germany. Some of the likely reasons for this was that Germans found the forced greeting and smiling at customers strange and certain team-building activities came off as silly.
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153/701 An Octopus Has Nine Brains
The octopus has nine brains – one small brain in each arm and another in the center of its body. Each of its arms can work independently of each other to perform basic actions, but when prompted by the central brain, they can also work together.
152/701 Clownfish Start Off as Male but Later Become Female
Clownfish start their lives as males. A female clownfish lives with a group of males and mates with just one of them. When the female dies, her mate will become the next female.
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151/701 There Is A Man Who Must Drink 20 Liters of Water a Day
Marc Wübbenhorst is a German man who must drink 20 liters of water every day in order to not be severely dehydrated. He suffers from a rare case of diabetes insipidus which causes him to urinate excessively.
