1Gary Gygax
American game designer Gary Gygax's wife was convinced he was having an affair so she followed him to a dimly lit basement and burst into the room only to find him and his friends hunched over hand-drawn maps. Gary would go on to invent the role-playing game "Dungeons and Dragons."
2. Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Tom Hanks have regular ‘colonoscopy parties’ where they prep together overnight and share one car on the ride to get their colonoscopies the next day.
3. The reason paper cuts are so painful because, at a microscopic level, the paper is actually quite rough. A knife makes a straight cut, but paper acts like a saw blade and does more damage to cells and nerve endings. Paper also leaves behind tiny fibers and chemical residues, irritating the wound even more.
4. Sodium Citrate is the secret ingredient to make any cheese into smooth, creamy nacho cheese sauce. Coincidentally, Sodium Citrate's chemical formula is Na3C6H5O7 (NaCHO).
5. The scientists who first discovered the platypus thought it was fake. Although indigenous Aboriginal people already knew of the creature, European scientists assumed an egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed, venomous mammal had to be an elaborate hoax.
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15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
6Chad Varah
A priest named Chad Varah started the first suicide hotline in 1953. He did so after the first funeral he conducted early in his career, which was for a 14-year-old girl who took her own life because she had no one to talk to when her first period came and believed she had contracted an STD.
7. A retired Navy Seal named Don Shipley has spent much of his post-service life exposing individuals who falsely claim to be SEALs. According to the FBI, there are over 300 times more impostor Navy SEALs than actual SEALs.
8. Teddy Roosevelt regularly staged boxing matches in the White House, taking on anyone he could - including professional boxers. He only stopped boxing when his eyesight was permanently damaged by a punch from his military aide, Colonel Daniel T. Moore.
9. In 1833, Britain used 40% of its national budget to free all slaves in the Empire. The loan for the Slavery Abolition Act was so large that it was not paid off until 2015.
10. Florida repealed its helmet law in 2000. In the 30-months after, helmet use in Florida dropped from 99% to 53%. The number of riders under 21 who were killed (despite still being legally required to wear a helmet) nearly tripled, from 35 to 101. Hospitalizations increased by 40%.
