31.
Carrots don’t actually help improve eyesight. It was a lie made up by the British during WWII to hide their radar technology and explain how British pilots always knew where the Germans were coming from.
32.
In 1518 in Strasbourg, a woman started dancing for no reason. Over the course of a month, 400 other people joined her. Soon close to 50 people would dance themselves to death in what became known as the Dancing Plague of 1518. Realistically, people were probably caught up in a case of mass hysteria. Another theory is that the grain they grew locally was poisoned by ergot fungi. Whatever caused it, I can’t imagine the feeling of knowing a family member died because they danced until their heart exploded.
33.
In 1184, a number of nobles from across the Holy Roman Empire were meeting in a room at the Church of St. Peter, when their combined weight caused the floor to collapse into the latrine beneath the cellar and led to dozens of nobles drowning in liquid excrement.
It is referred to as the “Erfurt latrine disaster.”
34.
Fidel Castro loved milk so much that when his cow who holds the world record for most milk produced in a day died, he had her taxidermied, had a marble statue of her built and a full eulogy and obituary written for her in his state newspaper, and Cuban scientists have repeatedly tried (and failed) to clone her. Her name was Ubre Blanca, which means White Udder.
35.
Corn flakes were originally marketed as an anti-masturbation cereal and the man who made them, John Harvey Kellogg, adopted all 8 of his kids and didn’t even sleep in the same room as his wife
36.
Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel but turned it down.
37.
The US and the UK scrapped plots to assassinate Hitler as they believed his poor judgement would bring an end to the war quicker.
38.
The reason there [aren’t] a lot of mummies around anymore? It’s because we ate them.
39.
In Hartlepool, England a monkey was hanged because they thought the monkey was a french spy, they had never seen a monkey or a french person before so they thought that the monkey was speaking french, the monkey was hanged on a beach and there is a statue remembering the monkey
40.
As WW2 revved up, the US realized that fast and cheap was the way to go with manufacturing ships (ex Liberty Ships). But there was a line of escort carriers made with so little armor that some Japanese armor-piercing shells went through the hull and out the other side without exploding, a nice surprise.
