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‘Deadloch’ Is the Best Australian Crime Drama Spoof You Will Probably Never Watch, But Should

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This Is the ‘Righteous Gemstones’ Line That Was Too Filthy for Edi Patterson to Deliver

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28 Brain-Busting Facts To Bust That Brain With

By:: Cracked Writers; Brian C. Miller

October 01, 2021

28 Brain-Busting Facts To Bust That Brain With

It's hard to believe, but there are still many things we don't know about our brains. Despite being the most complex organ in the body, scientists are still discovering new information about how it works on a daily basis.

We all know that one person who just loves to be the life and soul of the party. The one who always has a story to tell, a joke to share, and is never at a loss for words. And while we may admire their charisma and endless energy, we can't help but wonder how they do it. How does someone have so much energy? What kind of battery does their brain run on?

Well, it turns out that there's more than meets the eye when it comes to those lovable chatterboxes. In fact, their brains are working harder than most people's brains. So if you're looking for some inspiration to get your own brain moving, then look no further! Here are some amazing facts to bust the brain with.

28

Tolkien started (then immediately abandoned) a sequel to Lord of the Rings. cheezer CRACKED.COM Set a century or two after the War of the Ring, this new story called The New Shadow followed two men named Borlas and Saelon who talk about The Dark Tree. Tolkien had ideas about men forming gangs and acting like orcs, and about evil politicians, and religious conspiracies, but found the whole thing sinister and depressing and ultimately pointless. After 13 pages, he just stopped. — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

27

A university was (kind of) fooled into hosting the filming of Animal House. CRACKED.COM AF William Beaty Boyd turned down a chance to let The Graduate be filmed at UC Berkeley, where he was vice chancellor, thinking it would do more harm than good. A decade later, as president of the University of Oregon, Boyd was given another chance with a new film and lept at the opportunity. Не must have assumed this was a similarly Oscar-nomination worthy film, but it turned out to be the total sex-farce Animal House. — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

26

The oldest person to sign the Declaration of Independence was Benjamin Franklin, at 70 years old. Which is almost as cool as if he'd signed it one year earlier. Nice. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

25

It would be no exaggeration to call the disaster at Chernobyl power plant one of history's greatest whoopsies. It released 400 times more radioactive material into the atomsphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

24

The province of British Columbia in Canada is absolutely massive, covering about 365,000 square miles. In fact, the single province of British Columbia is larger than 85% of the countries in the world. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

23

The BMW 507 two-door convertible sold so poorly it almost bankrupted BMW entirely in 1959. BMW 507 Only around 250 were made, and today they fetch a pretty price. To the tune of over $2 million at auction. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

22

Almost half of Alaska's population is located in a single city: Anchorage, Alaska. Prices And if it ever starts to get overcrowded, well, the good news is: they've got plenty of space to spread out. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

21

Someone showed up at Miss World one year, pretending to be Miss Uzbekistan. UZBEKISTA CRACKED.COM In 2013, the Miss World beauty pageant proudly announced that Uzbekistan was joining the competition for the first time. The contestant was named Rakhima Ganieva, and she claimed she'd won some kind of national qualifying competition, despite Uzbekistan not holding those. The Uzbekistan president's daughter said of Ganieva, if there had been a process to choose a young lady for this competition, I can assure you that a much more beautiful model would have been chosen. Ganieva didn't make it past the first round but — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

20

We used to have an ice rink made of smelly pig fat. CRACKED.COM Humans have been ice skating for thousands of years, but creating our own frozen rinks is a relatively recent invention. The first iteration of the ice rink was in 1844 and involved a pool of pig fat mixed with salt, in the heat of London's summer. Even the opportunity to engage in the graceful and manly pastime of skating, as ads put it, didn't convince people to put up with the smell for long. The Glaciarium, as it was called, quickly went out of business. — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

19

The Mona Lisa originally looked super different before we cleaned it way too much. GRACKED.COM In 2007, an engineer named Pascal Cotte got a chance to digitally scan the Mona Lisa in unprecedented detail, and spotted enough tiny traces of eyebrows and lashes that they had to have existed at one point, but people cleaned the painting so much over the years that they rubbed away. Cotte also dug up other details of the painting's hidden layers, claiming that originally, she was holding a blanket, smiling more widely and doing something or another with the fingers of her left hand. — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

18

The guy from Goodfellas was kicked out of witness protection. CRACKED.COM Despite Goodfellas ending with Ray Liotta's character Henry Hill in witness protection and seemingly on the straight-and-narrow, the real Henry Hill was arrested for meth possession (as the movie's end card states). Hill also remarried while still married to his first wife Karen, and racked up arrests from public intoxication to resisting arrest, forcing the feds to drop him from witness protection. Decades later, in 2005, now 60 years old, Hill would be arrested again for trafficking cocaine and for more meth charges. — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

17

Christopher Nolan dropped a $500,000 camera into the ocean. IMAX CRACKED.COM To get clear footage of a plane crashing for the 2017 movie Dunkirk, Nolan and his team placed an Imax camera into the stunt plane they were sinking. They built a special frame around the camera, so that even when it hit the water, it would stay totally protected. But the plane sank into the water instead of floating, and water broke through the frame and filled the camera. It spent 90 minutes in seawater before divers could bring it back up. Luckily, celluloid (the film used in this — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

16

New York blew up 1,000 acres to chase away birds (and failed). CRACKED.COM Tired of the thousands of crows that ate their crops and pooped on their Ford Tudor Sedans, the good people of Montezuma, NY hatched a plan to eliminate their winged nemeses in 1949. The crows roosted every night in a 1,000 acre section of swampy wilderness, so the farmers and hunters made hundreds of bombs from dynamite and shrapnel and wired them together to go off that night. Somehow the birds knew to stay out of the swamp, and when the bombs went off not a single — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

15

L. Ron Hubbard was a total screw-up in the navy. CRACKED.COM The sci-fi author and future founder of Scientology commanded a ship with 60 people during World War II, until the military removed him from command. His first dumbass move was thinking he spotted a Japanese submarine off the coast of Oregon, where he proceeded to fire into the water and call blimps and the coast guard for backup. The military concluded there never was a sub there. The next month Hubbard parked his ship off of Mexico, where he had no authorization to anchor, and began training exercises where — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

14

Many today think of the xylophone as the instrument of grade-school music class and dancing skeletons. But it was a very popular instrument in ragtime music... which is now mostly played by ice cream trucks. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

13

The Ancient Greeks believed that the scent of thyme gave those who smelled it courage. ЭФФЕКТИВНАЯ COBPEME TIME - how - und - - The greek word thumos means bravery, and it's from this word that thyme got its name. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

12

Because of their highly sensitive skin, salamanders are used by scientists to estimate pollution severity. Salamander population levels can provide a good idea of the general health of an environment. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

11

You're likely aware of his baseball legacy, but did you know Jackie Robinson co-founded a bank? Addes Freedom National Bank was founded in 1964, and continued operations until the recession of 1990. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

10

Unfortunately for some of the most overdone stand-up premises around, eggs do have a link to Easter. Adopted from Ukrainian pysanka, cracking the egg symbolizes both the opening of Jesus' tomb and rebirth. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

9

Completed in 1884, the Washington Monument remains the world's tallest obelisk today. Though part of that may be due to a massive decline in people's interest in building large obelisks. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

8

In olympic gymnastics, women are required to have music for their floor routines, while it's banned for men. Which means outdated gender norms are the reason we can't watch guys doing flips to Smash Mouth. CRACKED.COM — **Source:** **12 Cool Facts To Pack Into Your Pumpkin**

7

Lunchables were invented to get rid of the world's lamest meat. TACOS CRACKED.COM Oscar-Meyer launched Lunchables 30 years ago to solve one very concerning problem: Consumers weren't buying enough bologna. Originally, Lunchables were designed for adults, who were already used to eating from pre-packaged TV dinners. After a little research, Oscar-Meyer realized it was easier to market towards children, who would be easily distracted by the build-your-own nature of the package, and the salty and sweet treats included, to care about the flavorless meat disks that came with it. — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

6

The skeletons of a Bigfoot researcher and his dogs are displayed at the Smithsonian. CRACKED.COM When scientific researcher Grover Krantz died in 2002, his remains were studied and his bones were sent to the Smithsonian, along with the remains of his three dogs, as per his wishes. The museum put Kranz in their exhibit called Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake, despite being alive in the 20th and 21st century. The plague identifies him as an anthropologist, which is accurate, but it doesn't get into his avid Bigfoot-chasing activities, which included casting footprints, writing five different books, — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

5

A prank at the Oscars led to 'Pulp Fiction' со writer to take a break from films. CRACKED.COM Pulp Fiction со writer Roger Avary decided to get revenge during the 1995 Oscars for the pranks he was subjected to by Tarantino. Avary approached a cameraman and paid him $500, telling him to cut away if Tarantino actually did win an award that evening. Pulp Fiction won Best Original Screenplay, and as promised, no shot of Tarantino was filmed. Avary took a long break from filmmaking and would later refer to the temptation to prank as a dark side of his — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

4

A scientist promised to bring his kids the next time he won the Nobel prize ... and did. CRACKED.COM American engineer John Bardeen only brought one of his children with him to accept his Nobel prize for physics in Sweden in 1956, but promised the King he would bring all his kids along the next time he won a Nobel. In 1972, he won the Nobel Prize in physics again, and brought all of his children with him. One year later, the king, Gustaf VI Adolf, would die at 91 years of age. Only four people in history have won — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

3

The Prime Minister's house is a memorial to pollution. LO CRACKED COM Decades after sustaining damage from bombs being dropped during WWII, 10 Downing Street in London had to have a major renovation. Part of the renovation included getting a close look at the brickwork for the first time in centuries. The building had been black for as long as anyone could remember, but now they discovered the bricks were really yellow, beneath a thick layer of muck from hundreds of years of British smog. They cleaned the bricks so they appeared yellow once again, and then they painted over — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

2

Carl Sagan sued Apple for calling him a butt-head. CRACKED.COM After Carl Sagan threatened Apple for code-naming their new computers after him, Apple changed the name to ВНА, or Butt-Head Astronomer. Sagan made good on his threat and sued Apple for libel, but a judge threw the case out for not meeting the legal criteria. Sagan then went back to the original complaint and sued for using his likeness. Apple caved and settled, and developers chose a new codename for their computer: LaW, or Lawyers are Wimps. — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

1

Louie, Louie cheated the songwriter, but in the end, everything turned out okay. Richard BERRY Louie Louie CRACKED.COM Richard Berry sold the original Louie, Louie and a few other singles to his label, for $750, when they didn't catch on in the 1950's. In the decades that followed, it was one of the most recorded songs of all time, but Berry thought he gave away his rights to it. It turned out that the law actually protects songwriters in these cases, and in 1982 he regained ownership of half the song and made $15,000 in royalties. Then he figured life — **Source:** **16 Random Facts Better Than Anything You Learned In School**

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