25 interesting facts for an erudite (26 photos)

We continue to fill our brain box with random facts about everything in the world. It's fun and generally good because new information enriches the brain, reduces stress and improves memory. Being a know-it-all is good for your health!





So today you will learn that:

1.



Former world chess champion G. Kasparov called the Hungarian chess player Judit Polgar a “circus doll” and said that women should not play chess, but take care of children.

2.



In January 1960, white jazz pianist Dave Brubeck canceled a twenty-five-date tour of colleges and universities in the American South after twenty-two institutions refused to allow his black bassist Eugene Wright to perform. He also canceled a television show that didn't want to feature Wright.

3.



In Italy, hospital doctors created a fake disease, Syndrome K, to save Jews who had fled to them for protection from the Nazis. A "patient" with Syndrome K was quarantined and the Nazis were told it was a fatal, disfiguring and highly contagious disease. At least 20 lives were saved through this deception.

4.



During the American Revolution, one of the slaves was accused of treason and sentenced to hang. He argued that, as a slave, he was not a citizen and could not commit treason. As a result, he was pardoned.

5.



It is known that the Romans made tombs for their dogs and wrote epitaphs for them. One such inscription read: “I cry as I carry you to your final resting place, just as much as I rejoiced when I brought you home with my own hands 15 years ago.”

6.



To shore up its flagging popularity as a tourist destination, Japan's Kishigawa Railway line appointed a cat named Tama as its new stationmaster in 2007, leading to a huge surge in popularity for the tourist destination. In 2010, a second cat was hired to help Tama.

7.



All Singapore residents over 21 years of age are automatically registered as organ donors. Refusing them will put you at the bottom of the list if you need to transplant them yourself.

8.



In 1721, Scottish resident Maggie Dixon was sentenced to death by hanging. She was hanged, declared dead, placed in a wooden coffin and taken away. She woke up on the way to the churchyard. The law stated that the sentence was carried out, and she lived for another 40 years with the nickname “Half-Hanged Maggie.”

9.



Researchers have taught African gray parrots to "buy" food using tokens. They were then paired up, with one parrot given ten tokens and the other none. Parrots with tokens began to give some of the tokens to their partners so that they could also eat.

10.



There is a kind of symbiosis between wolves and crows. Crows lead wolves to their prey so they can feast on its remains, play “tag” with them, and even develop individual friendships.

eleven.



At the beginning of the 20th century, Danes living under Prussian rule were prohibited from flying the Danish flag. To protest this, they began breeding pigs with a red and white pattern similar to their flag. Now this breed is called the “Danish protest pig”.

12.



Joseph Bazalgette, the man who designed London's sewers in the 1860s, said:“Well, we'll only do this once, and there are always contingencies,” and doubled the diameter of the pipe. If he had not done this, the sewer would have overflowed in the 1960s (it is still in use today).

13.



Ken Allen, a Bornean orangutan at the San Diego Zoo, escaped from his enclosure three times. During his escapes, he never showed aggression towards anyone and usually wandered around the zoo, looking at other animals.

14.



The Curie family is the family with the most Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie received two Nobel Prizes, in physics and chemistry. Her husband Pierre Curie received the Nobel Prize in Physics. Their daughter Irène Joliot-Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

15.



Joseph Strauss, an engineer on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, ordered that netting be installed under the bridge for safety during construction. At that time this was a revolutionary decision. The net caught 19 people who fell and saved them from certain death.

16.



When he became manager of Leeds United Football Club, Marcelo Bielsa learned that the average fan had to work three hours to pay for a ticket to a match. He called his players together and made them pick up trash around the training ground for 3 hours so they could understand how fans work for their passion.

17.



Penguins can drink salt water thanks to glands near their eyes that remove salt from the blood, and then they exhale the excess salt.

18.



The bears at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in Montana have a job: trying to open refrigerators, trash containers and treat containers. If bears can't make more than a tiny hole, the product is certified bear-resistant. GWDC is the only place where products can be certified by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Commission.

19.



Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks featuring a picture of Yoda sitting next to King Faisal signing the UN Charter in 1945. The creator of the image, Abdullah al-Shahri, admitted that he created a whole series of such images, placing popular modern characters on historical photographs using Photoshop in order to “make them less depressive.” But he doesn’t know who put his work in the textbook.

20.



Lithuania withdrew from the 1992 Olympics due to lack of money following the collapse of the USSR. The sponsors of the Lithuanian basketball team were musicians from the Grateful Dead group. They paid for travel expenses and dressed the players in uniforms with their symbols. The team won bronze.

21.



Bill Murray once got behind the wheel of a taxi so the taxi driver could play the saxophone in the back seat. This happened after he mentioned that he did not have time for music, since he had to work 14 hours a day. Murray took the driver's seat so the saxophonist could play some tunes.

22.



While filming The Mandalorian in 2019, the crew ran out of stormtrooper costumes. So they contacted the local chapter of a Star Wars fan organization, whose members showed up to the shoot wearing homemade stormtrooper costumes.

23.



After the Chilean government closed the Universidad del Mar due to major financial irregularities, artist Papas Fritas managed to break into its vault and burn $500 million worth of tuition contracts. This has made it difficult to prove that students owe the university this money.

24.



Owls sleep on their stomachs because their heads are too heavy. They do this until they are big enough to sleep upright.

25.



Scientists have used 2,000-year-old seeds to grow an extinct species of date tree. This tree once grew in the Judean Desert - archaeologists found seeds during excavations. Surprisingly, the seeds sprouted and produced male and female individuals of the species. Researchers hope to obtain dates from the biblical era.