21.
For the film Stargate, Kurt Russell was paid twice his going rate because he was the only actor at the time to have “zero unlikability” in a global poll.
22.
In 1930, Chandra, an Indian student showed mathematically that massive stars explode into a supernova and then collapse down into neutron stars, or black holes. Before that Scientists assumed that all stars collapsed into white dwarfs. Chandra’s theory was ridiculed as ‘absurd’
23.
In 1996, a Hong Kong ganster “Big spender” kidnapped the son of the richest man in Asia and demanded a ransom of $160 million for his return. After receiving the money, the gangster later phoned up and asked for advice on how to invest the money.
24.
In 1966, Bill Cosby tried to get 16 year old folk singer Janis Ian blacklisted from tv because he thought she was a lesbian and therefore unsuited for family entertainment.
25.
The Seiryu Miharashi station in Japan is a train station with no entrances or exits, no roads or paths to connect it, all it serves is a platform for the train passengers to step out and admire the valley
26.
In 1927, during the worst flood in the history of the Mississippi River Valley, Herbert Hoover and the Red Cross set up “concentration camps” comprised of African Americans forced to work at gunpoint on the levee, and created a media campaign to cover it up.
27.
In east Africa, movies are often watched with a “VJ” or “video joker” who provides live narration over the movie for translation, contextualization or comedy purposes.
28.
Introduction of iodized salt in 1920s increased national IQ average by 3.5 points in a decade and in certain states which had high levels of iodine deficiency previously, saw avg IQ increase as much as 15 points within the first decade.
29.
Masks on airplanes generate oxygen by triggering a chemical reaction. If pressure in the cabin is disturbed and masks drop, tugging the mask causes a firing pin to ignite a small explosion in an ‘O2 candle’ where Sodium Chlorate and Potassium Percholorate combine to make Oxygen gas.
30.
That there were only 66 years between the first ever powered flight and the moon landing. The Wright Brothers successfully flew a plane for the first time in 1903; in 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon.
