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Take that vacation! These facts will be here when you get back

35 Succulent Bits of Trivia That Require Very Little Water or Sunlight

July 07, 2024

Watering and rotating dozens of facts a day got exhausting, so we started fresh with some lower-maintenance facts.

Don’t worry, we didn’t just toss out those leafy green facts. Our hippy-trippy neighbor gave them a good home in that one room with those dangly beads as a door. We just got a little busy, okay? So it’s nice to have a batch of facts that doesn’t need so much attention.

You can forget to water them for a couple weeks, and they’ll still be plump, green and ready for another re-read.

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35

George Lucas was turned down from the US Air Force because of his speeding tickets. CRACKED.COM Lucas tried joining in 1967, after he graduated with a BFA in film, but had too many traffic citations. Не was later drafted into Viet- nam but was once again turned away due to his dia- betes. — Source

34

A single farmer saved the penguin population on an Australian island. GRACKED.COM Foxes nearly wiped out the population of fairy pen- guins, so a chicken farmer named Swampy Marsh sent Maremma dogs to protect them. Over the next ten years, not a single penguin was eaten. — Source

33

The cover of the Nickelodeon Time Capsule was sold at auction for $19,200. MICKELODEON THE FIRST WOILS URLANDA YEAQUEARISMS FLERIDA STUDIOS FOR 123 18г FLE 2147 SHI LIK TEE EL DUY NICKELODEON SOCH THAT BLE CRACKED.COM 5G ZGGL A time capsule filled with books, rollerblades, movies and more was buried at Nickel- odeon Studios in Florida in 1992, to be opened in 50 years. The studio closed and the cap- sule moved, with the 45 lb cov- er being auctioned off. — Source

32

The alien species from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial appears in The Phantom Menace. CRACKED.COM George Lucas included them as a tribute to his long-time friend Steven Spielberg, as well as showing them existing in the same universe. — Source

31

Mickey Mouse is based off of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. CRACKED.COM Walt Disney created Oswald but rights to the character were taken by Universal Stu- dios. Walt created Mickey Mouse as a replacement and made sure all future charac- ters were owned directly by Disney. — Source

30

Getty Images sold unauthórized licenses of photos donated to the Library of Congress. CRACKED.COM Carol Highsmith donated 100,000 of these images and then received a letter from Getty, demanding $120 for displaying them on her personal website. Highsmith sued for $1 bil- lion, but lost. — Source

29

London has paid rent to the Monarchy every year since 1211. CRACKED COM The symbolic ceremony consists of officials hand- ing over a knife, an ах, six oversized horseshoes, and 61 nails to the Crown's Re- membrancer, the oldest ju- dicial position in England. — Source

28

A burglar was caught after his 82-year-old victim drew a caricature of him. CRACKED.COM Australian cartoonist Wil- liam Ellis Green called the police after confronting the intruder, and produced a pen and paper to quickly capture his likeness. The criminal was soon appre- hended. — Source

27

One of the only acknowledgments of The Black Cauldron in Disneyland is in Tokyo. GRACKED COM Tokyo Disneyland once hosted a Cinderella Castle Mystery Tour, featuring encounters with classic Disney vil- lains, ending with the Horned King. — Source

26

The baseball hand signals were invented by a 19th century deaf player. DI S GRACKED.COM William Ellsworth Dum- my Hoy played for sev- eral teams from 1888 to 1902 and is sometimes credited with developing the hand signals used by umpires to this day. — Source

25

A gentlemanly bank robber in the early 20th century stole $2 million over 40 years. CRACKED.COM Willie Sutton never robbed a bank with a loaded gun because he didn't want anyone to get hurt, and al- legedly never robbed a bank when a woman screamed or a baby cried. — Source

24

Gleaning leftover crops was a legally enforced entitlement of the poor in a number of Christian kingdoms. CRACKED.COM Gleaning was a historical practice of collecting left- over crops from farmer's fields after they had been commercially harvested or if they were not profitable to harvest. — Source

23

The parasite which causes malaria in humans wears the membrane of a blood cell to go undetected. GRAGKED.COM Plasmodium Falciparum first infects the liver, de- veloping there for months without any symptoms. Then it in- fects red blood cells to wear as a disguise. — Source

22

European folklore has a smelly bull cryptid called the Bonnacon. CRACKED.COM This mythological crea- ture is said to have in- ward curling horns that are useless for defense, so it sprays caustic poop from its butt to escape pursuers. — Source

21

The 9/11 Boatlift after the 2001 terrorist attacks saved 500,000 people. U. S. COACRACKED.COM When all transport out of the city was shut down, boat owners managed to transport over half a million peo- ple from Manhattan Is- land. — Source

20

The British army created units of short people during WWI. RECRUITING OFFICE HANDERS JON DACE CRACKED CON The British army low- ered the minimum height requirement from 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet in response to protests and created the 'Bantam Battalions.' — Source

19

Ice is a mineral, like quartz, copper, and gold. CRACKED.COM Ice is a naturally occurring compound with a defined chemical formula and crys- tal structure, thus making it a legitimate mineral. Its only limitation is that it is not stable at room tem- perature. — Source

18

Webcams were invented by lazy scientists checking on their coffee. 1080р 601g logi - o GRACKED.COM In 1991, two scientists at the University of Cambridge set up the Trojan Room coffee pot live video so people working in the building didn't have to go all the way to the computer lab to check if there was coffee. — Source

17

In 2009, Airman Colton Read went in for gallbladder surgery and woke up with both legs amputated. CRACKED COM Military doctors punc- tured his aorta and waited 8.5 hours to get him proper medical care. Read isn't legally allowed to sue for damages. — Source

16

Mike, the lowest ranking member of a chimp group became the alpha male of the community overnight. 3 CRACKED.COM Не stole empty ker- osene cans from the researcher's camp, and banged them to scare the other chimps. — Source

15

CIA inserted LSD in the bread of a bakery. GRACKED COM The CIA secretly spiked the bread from a bakery in the French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit with enormous quantities of LSD as part of its cold war mind-control experiments. — Source

14

Socrates condemned the use of the written word because he thought it would cause people to be forgetful. CRACKED.COM Не said, This discovery of yours will create forgetful- ness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remem- ber of themselves. — Source

13

In 2010, Taco Bell secretly reduced the sodium content of its food at 150 Dallas area restaurants by 23%. TACO BELL Drive Thru TACO BELL TK E YOU CANTINA LOVE FOR CRACKED.COM Without telling anyone, they replaced the salt with other spices and other in- gredients. Two months later, they had received ex- actly zero complaints about the changes. — Source

12

Clint Eastwood sat on a script for years until he was old enough to play the lead role. of li cente THE 48TH CRACKED.COM Eastwood bought David Webb Peoples' script for 'The Unforgiven' in 1976 and waited for 15 years un- til he was old enough to play the lead role of Wil- liam Munny at age 61. — Source

11

There is a rare snake that has iridescent rainbow colored scales called a sunbeam snake. GRACKED COM The scales of this Thai- land snake are very smooth and the snake has a texture like rub- ber. Dirt doesn't ар- pear to stick to the scales. — Source

10

India produced the largest volunteer Army in world history during WWII. CRACKED.COM Winston Churchill called the bravery of the 2.5 million men Unsur- passed, with at least 38 Indians awarded the Victoria Cross or the George Cross. — Source

9

The FBI created a fake story that an actress cheated on her husband because she supported the Civil Rights movement. CRACKED.COM The stress of this fake story involving Jean Seberg and a black man caused her to go into labor prematurely and resulted in the death of her baby. — Source

8

Schwarzenegger made 200 times more for 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' than the first film. CRACKED.COM Arnold made $75,000 for his role in 'Terminator', but about 7 years later he made $15,000,000 for the sequel, having achieved his status as an action movie powerhouse with films like 'Commando,' 'Predator,' and 'Running Man.' — Source

7

Darth Vader jellyfish live in the Arctic Ocean. CRACKED.COM The transparent jellies, that are found in depths below 3,300 feet, got their unique nickname due to their body shape closely resembling that of Darth Vader's famous helmet. — Source

6

A Mexican citizen during WWII charged an enemy stronghold through a minefield, blowing off both of his feet. CRACKED.COM Silvestre Herrera, a volun- teer US soldier, continued fighting on his knees, pin- ning down the enemy and allowing his squad to cap- ture it. Не received the Medal of Honor. — Source

5

An extinct Australian language had the same word for dog' as we have in English. CRACKED.COM In the language Mbabaram, the word for dog is 'dog' and it is pronounced al- most identically to the En- glish word. This is purely a coincidence and there is no relation between English and Mbabaram. — Source

4

A town in the UK publicly mocks their mayors if they gain weight. CRACKED.COM High Wycombe in the United Kingdom publicly weighs their Mayor before and after their term to ensure they ha- ven't gained weight at the taxpayers' expense. If they have gained weight they are publicly booed. — Source

3

A green jacket from the Augusta National Golf Club was purchased at a thrift store for $5. CRACKED COM The famed green jack- et had a tag that said it was from the 1950s and was bought from the thrift store in 2017. It sold at auction for $139,000. — Source

2

AT&T was forwarding global internet traffic to the government from secret rooms inside its offices. 641A CRACKED.COM 'Room 641A' houses beam- splitters capable of moni- toring all the internet traf- fic in the US. It was largely thought to be a myth until an NSA surveillance pro- gram revealed its existence in 2007. — Source

1

20 minutes spent on the London Underground's Northern Line is as bad for your lungs as smoking a cigarette. - - صحيفة - J BAKER STRE GRACKED.COM Levels of pollution on the Underground are danger- ously high - as much as 10 times above the guidelines set by the World Health Organization in some parts of the network. — Source

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