12 Dorky Bits of Trivia That, Wait a Minute, Now That They’ve Taken Off Their Glasses and Pushed Their Hair Behind Their Ears, Are Actually Kind of Beautiful

“The Killers of Eden” were a gang of Australian killer whales in the 1800s and 1900s who would herd baleen whales to make it easier for humans to hunt them. Human and whale alike honored “the Rule of Tongue” — carcasses would be anchored to the sea floor so the killer whales could eat the tongues (and genitals), before the humans harvested the blubber. They were led by a whale named Old Tom, who died at the age of 90, after narcing on whales for three human generations of whalers.

Ross wanted to try being a traveling art teacher for a year, and promised his wife he’d call it quits if he didn’t make money. His penny-pinching strategy included perming his naturally straight hair so he’d never have to get a haircut.

To shoot the photo for their Animals album cover, Pink Floyd commissioned a huge pig balloon to float up above that power station. They hired a marksman to stand by and shoot it down if it came untethered, but they didn’t hire him back when the shoot unexpectedly went an extra day. Sure enough, the pig got loose, crossed into flight paths around Heathrow Airport, and eventually landed in a field of cows, startling the hell out of them.

Some kids started throwing bottles at a cop car during a protest, so the officer played a familiar ice cream truck song over his loudspeaker. It actually had the desired effect of defusing the situation, but the officer was reprimanded for having a little too much fun on the job.

Twelfth-century sultan Al-Aziz Uthman didn’t know or care much about the pyramids, so he ordered them to be taken down either to build a wall, or to see if there was any cool treasure hiding underneath — historians aren’t entirely sure which. In the 19th century, Muhammad Ali Pasha wanted to use the stones to dam the Nile. Both times it proved too expensive and labor-intensive to pull off.

In 2014, a bunch of salty Shanghai singles pooled their money and bought out all the even-numbered seats in a movie theater; the idea being that couples wouldn’t be able to sit together. I’m sure they’ve all become better adjusted, less vindictive and more laid in the last decade.

During the Apollo 16 mission, Duke left a photograph of his family on the moon, with a handwritten note on the back: “This is the family of Astronaut Duke from Planet Earth, who landed on the Moon on the twentieth of April 1972.” If I were an alien and I stumbled upon that thing? I would absolutely take it as a prompt to track down the Dukes and return their precious heirloom.

In 1880, Switzerland came up with a plan to basically blow its own entire ass up if it ever got invaded. The concept is called the Swiss National Redoubt, and while it’s been tweaked to be more defensive and less suicidal in recent years, they still haven’t removed 100 percent of the explosives they planted. One village is set to be evacuated from 2030 to 2040 so they can safely dispose of the last batch of bombs.

In 1908, a Parisian man’s dog rescued a kid who had fallen into a river, and was rewarded with a slab of beefsteak. He quickly started saving more and more kids, to the extent that people thought there was a serial river-shover in their community. The New York Times headline perfectly sums up the big twist: “DOG A FAKE HERO. Pushes Children Into the Seine to Rescue Them and Win Beefsteaks.”

Lionel Messi has a growth hormone disorder, which caused him to max out below 5-feet tall. When he signed with FC Barcelona, the team agreed to pay for his HGH treatment – as much as $900 per month – and he’s now 5-foot-7.

Guinness commissioned a study that – surprise, surprise – concluded you need at least a couple nights a week with the boys to stay healthy and happy. Couldn’t hurt to knock back a couple ol’ brewskis while you’re at it! Scientifically speaking.

Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond was caught in 2014, because, he believes, “my password was really weak.” He thinks the feds were able to guess a key password, “Chewy123,” to collect damning evidence of his crimes.