Pentagon hot dogs
The Pentagon is the largest office building in the world, but what lies at its centre? Until 2006, it was a hot dog stand.
Volume harmony
Take a cone, sphere, and cylinder of equal height and radius. The volume of the cone plus the volume of the sphere is equal to the volume of the cylinder.
Mickey’s first words
Mickey Mouse’s first words were spoken not by Walt Disney but by Carl Stalling, who went on to compose 22 years’ worth of soundtracks for Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.
Fashionable limp
Queen Alexandra had a scar and a limp – and British fashion followed suit.
Cow clicking
In 2010 a satirical video “game” called Cow Clicker accidentally became a viral sensation, despite being one of the most deliberately tedious games ever invented.
Cryptography gardening
If you want to decipher an encrypted message, it’s helpful to plant some plaintext seeds.
Dancing plagues
Sudden bouts of contagious dancing plagued pre-modern Europe – afflicting up to a thousand people at a time.
Iron currency
In the late 19th century CE Sierra Leone and surrounds, high quality iron needles tied into bundles served as currency.
Bee mummies
Worker bees will eject waste to keep the hive clean. But if the waste is too big to carry out, say a dead mouse, it will instead be mummified.
The town of no appendices
Before you move into Villa Las Estrellas you must have your appendix removed.
Piano as violin
Hey, let’s turn a grand piano on its side and play it like a violin! Sure, why not?
Wine immolation
King Charles II of Navarre died when, wrapped in alcohol-soaked linen, he caught on fire.
Sequences in pi
Within the first thousand digits of pi there are six nines in a row. This should not be a surprise.
This chariot always points south
Around 255 CE, a Chinese inventor named Ma Jun created a chariot that could always point south – without using magnets.
Tied to the tracks
The first film to feature a woman tied to train tracks starred one of the earliest female directors and producers, Mabel Normand. She may also have been the recipient of the first pie-in-the-face film gag.
