fact
Fed up with Ontario laws restricting the cross-provincial sale of eggs, the Canadian province of Manitoba copied the Ontario laws, sued itself all the way up to the Supreme Court, and got those laws deemed unconstitutional in ALL provinces. 00
Roughly one out of every three pair of socks you wear was made in a place known as “Sock City”. A small Chinese village in the 1980s it has grown to employ over 100,000 people and produces 8 billion socks a year. 00
Back in 1985, city officials in St. Louis decided that the term ‘bus stop’ sounded too negative, so they voted to rename them ‘bus starts.’ 1800 new ‘bus start’ signs were duly installed. A year-and-a-half later, when it became clear that people were confused by what a ‘bus start’ was supposed to be, the city […]
The current King of the Netherlands has been secretly flying as a commercial co-pilot for 21 years, and has been doing so even after ascending to the throne in 2013. 00
Bai Fangli, “a Chinese pedicab driver”, “donated 350,000 yuan (US$54,958 in 2015) over a span of 18 years to enable more than 300 poor students to continue with their studies”. He “wore second hand discarded clothes”, “lived in a shabby house”, “ate humble food” and donated most of his income. 00
Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice, liked to poke fun at his conservative colleagues. He would greet the Chief Justice with “What’s shakin’, Chiefy Baby?” 00
Whale oil was a key component of automotive transmission fluid until 1972; over 30 million pounds was used annually until its use was outlawed, after which transmission failures rose eight-fold. 00
Botswana’s currency is named Pula which literally means “rain” in their official language. This is because rain is very scarce in Botswana — home to much of the Kalahari Desert — and therefore valuable and a blessing. 00
In 1995, Courtney Love was ejected from Lollapalooza after starting a fight with the crowd for not cheering loud enough. She jumped off stage and began chasing two men. After security carried her off the premises, the festival MC began playing “All Apologies” by Nirvana in retaliation. 00
Ants are self aware. In an experiment researchers painted blue dots onto ants bodies, and presented them with a mirror. 23 out of 24 tried scratching the dot, indicating that the ants could see the dots on themselves. 00