16 Facts About Science, Food, and How Jack From ‘Titanic’ Probably Stank
![16 Facts About Science, Food, and How Jack From ‘Titanic’ Probably Stank](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/4/7/812447_320x180.jpg)
We’ve all seen the movie “Titanic” and know that Jack Dawson (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) was a hero who sacrificed himself for Rose DeWitt Bukater (played by Kate Winslet). But what you may not know is that Jack probably smelled pretty bad. You see, at the time the movie takes place (1912), there were no refrigerators onboard ships, so people typically ate spoiled food. And if you've ever smelled spoiled food, then you know it doesn't smell very good. In fact, it smells so bad that… well, we'll let you read the rest of this post to find out!
For 15 months, a little island in the South Pacific had the highest concentration of badasses under the age of 18 per capita of any place on the planet. When you consider that they came from Tonga, a Polynesian island where they probably learned to hunt, fish, and lift weights since they were born, it's easy to think a group of teenage males managed to survive on an abandoned island after being shipwrecked. This and other tales can be found below:
![WHEN TWITTER WENT PUBLIC, CONFUSED INVESTORS BOUGHT THE WRONG STOCK. DOX 44.92 / TWTR LISTED +44.9000 NYSE 1890172.69% - O Goldman Sachs TWTR E Morgan Stanley JPMorgan NK COND EXHIEN Oa fo 45.10 SUN SE Barclays NYSE 44.00 - NO can GRIA 19.9700 GEL 89835 4.4000 3252 One month before Twitter went public, CRACKED.COM investors thought they spotted some shares in the wild. Twitter was going to trade under the code TWTR, and they saw shares for sale using the code TWTRQ. The stock started the day at less than a penny. In a few hours, it rose 1,800 percent.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/5/812465.jpg)
![RESEARCHERS STATIONED IN ANTARCTICA HAVE A RITUAL THAT INVOLVES TEMPERATURE EXTREMES, AND NUDITY. CRACKED COM When the temperature hits a hundred below at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica, researchers at the station have the chance to join the 300 Club. First, you spend ten minutes in the sauna, cranking the temperature up to 200 degrees (93 Celsius). Then you run out of the station, in nothing but boots, to the South Pole. You circle the exact pole-the idea is that you run through all 24 time zones in a matter of seconds. Then you dash back into the](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/4/812464.jpg)
![SIX POLYNESIAN TEENAGERS THRIVED ON AN UNINHABITED ISLAND FOR OVER A YEAR. GRACKED.COM In 1965, six boys ages 13 through 16 in Tonga stole a boat and sailed off, hoping to sail to Fiji. After getting caught in a storm, they drifted to a rocky uninhabited island named Ata. The boys stayed on the island for 15 months, eating fish and birds, but after they discovered the remains of a century-old settlement, with crops and chickens, they started farming. After being rescued by a passing Australian ship, the country rejoiced at the miracle of the returned boys. And also arrested](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/3/812463.jpg)
![WINSTON CHURCHILL DEMANDED ORANGE CATS, INTO PERPETUITY. CRACKED.COM Churchill's secretary, Jock Colville, gave an orange cat to him for his 88th birthday, and Winston named it Jock. Churchill had a soft spot for the cat. Не left his residence, Chartwell, to the National Trust, and he decreed that there must always be a marmalade cat named Jock, with a white bib and four white socks, in comfortable residence there. And so the National Trust made good on his demand. They've maintained the home for almost 70 years, and they've kept a series of cats with that description, all named Jock.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/8/812458.jpg)
![RICK JAMES GOT HIGH AND DESTROYED A SALVADOR DALÍ SKETCH. GRACKED COM While hosting a dinner party at his manager Shep Gordon's beach house in Maui, Rick James had his likeness sketched on a napkin by one of his guests: Salvador Dali. James was pretty happy, even more happy was Shep Gordon, who figured this priceless gift probably could fetch some money. The next morning, James did what he normally did first thing each day - he lit up a joint. Не headed to the beach and dove into the water. Then he suddenly realized he was wearing the same shorts as](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/0/812460.jpg)
![DAN RATHER ONCE WALKED OFF-SET, LEAVING NOTHING TO AIR FOR SIX MINUTES. CRACKED.COM When CBS' live coverage of the 1987 US Open for Women's Singles in tennis was going to go two minutes long and cut into Dan Rather's time covering the Pope's visit to the US, Rather balked and said if they couldn't broadcast at 6:30 sharp, he wouldn't be there to broadcast at all. True to his word, when the evening news aired at 6:32, there was only a blank screen for the next six minutes. Some affiliates popped in a game show rerun, and they went on](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/9/812459.jpg)
![ONE РОТ OF SOUP IN BANGKOK HAS BEEN BOILING FOR 47 YEARS. GRAGKED.COM There wasn't any kind of refrigeration in medieval times, so keeping the pot constantly simmering was a way to prevent a stew from going bad. This was called a perpetual stew, and we've had these stews brewing even in modern times, thanks to tradition. In Bangkok, there's a restaurant called Wattana Panich that's been passing the same broth from one day's menu to the next for 47 years. It now has the special flavor that you can only get from 40 years of festering beef squeezings.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/2/812462.jpg)
![THE FIRST AIRSHIP FILLED WITH HELIUM CRASHED SPECTACULARLY. SHENANODAH CRACKED COM A storm yanked the USS Shenandoah too high in the atmosphere on September 2, 1925, and the wind ripped much of the ship apart. It crashed to the ground, killing 14 of the 43 aboard-roughly the same proportion of people who'd die in the Hindenburg disaster 12 years later. The multiple sections of the airship landed across Ohio. A farmer who owned one crash site made $8,000 in today's money charging people to take a look, and he was afraid the police would shut him down, but they told](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/4/812454.jpg)
![MACY'S THANKSGIVING PARADE BEGAN AS A CHRISTMAS PARADE CON THANKSGIVING). CRACKED.COM The very first annual Macy's parade, in 1924, was a Christmas parade, meant to unveil Macy's giant Christmas display and drive customers into the store. They scheduled the event for Thanksgiving because that's when Macy's wanted the Christmas shopping season to begin. It would be just a couple years before Macy's shifted to people marching in costume to giant balloons or cartoons. 1926 had a balloon-themed float, and the big balloons debuted in '27. They proved a lot more manageable than the original parade's other attraction: bears and camels,](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/7/812457.jpg)
![ONE ELEVATOR WAS SO PERFECT, THEY PUT THE INVENTOR IN PRISON. CRACKED.COM Yuri Kondratyuk (real name Aleksandr Shargei) built a massive, 13,000 ton grain elevator in his southern Russia town, all made of wood without a single nail. In 1930, the government put him on trial, saying that if he made it without any nails, he wanted it to collapse, and sent him to the Gulag. Once he was out, he put together a plan for a wind turbine that everyone said was so huge, it made no sense at all. Then, after he died, Russia used this plan to](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/2/812452.jpg)
![PRECIOUS HELIUM USED TO BE EVEN MORE PRECIOUS. CRACKED.COM Ships like the Hindenburg used hydrogen instead of helium not because we hadn't yet figured out hydrogen is flammable, but because helium used to be so rare. The first helium airship, the USS Shenandoah, used the majority of all the helium humanity had extracted. We have access to a lot more helium now, and we in fact have more than we did even a few years ago, because we've now spotted a few new massive sources. So the total amount of the element in the Earth is still finite and will](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/6/1/812461.jpg)
![THERE WAS A BRITISH FAMILY YOU COULD PAY TO LEARN WHAT TIME IT WAS. CRACKED.COM Every morning, starting.in 1836, John Henry Belville set his pocket watch to London's Royal Observatory's time, which created Greenwich Mean Time. Then he went into town, and hundreds of clients paid him to look at the watch and set their own watches accordingly. John kept this going for 20 years, then his wife Maria took up the mantle for another 35 years, and finally came his daughter Ruth, widely known as The Greenwich Time Lady, who did the job for 50 more.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/1/812451.jpg)
![WE GET NFL BROADCASTS TODAY THANKS TO EVERYONE HATING THE MOVIE 'HEIDI.' CRACKED.COM On November 17, 1968, with a minute still left on the clock, the broadcast of the New York Jets and the LA Raiders game suddenly ended, and the scheduled screening of the 1968 movie Heidi began. Angry fans flooded the station's phones, blocking calls from NBC executives to tell the station to put the game back on, and the dramatic ending of the game that saw both teams make touchdowns within nine seconds of play was never televised. After this, the NFL insisted on a deal that](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/5/812455.jpg)
![BEN FRANKLIN ELECTROCUTED TURKEYS (AND HIMSELF). CRACKED.COM Back in 1751, Benjamin Franklin's early experiments with electricity involved using the miracle force to kill turkeys, and then to cook them. His first few trials were unsuccessful because the birds, once zapped, would get right back up again after a short rest. Higher bursts of electricity were more effective, and he found this kill method produced meat that was uncommonly tender. Не also, accidentally, sent a similar bolt right through himself which briefly blinded him, filled him with pain, and left him motionless for ten minutes.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/3/812453.jpg)
![CANADIAN CHILDREN MARCHED TO PROTEST THE RISING PRICE OF CANDY. ON DONT Don't не BUY DO WAS LOWER DONT 89 BARS Buy Dire 58 HE WAS PRICES To 8c BA 8 ABAR Ç Succe Be EAT WE ARE SMART A Sucket Bi Doral / BUY 84 DO BARS DONT 86 A SUCKER LET THE SUCKER CRACKED.COM PAY 89 In a small town in British Columbia in 1947, a group of schoolchildren started The Chocolate Bar Strike to protest the 3 cent rise in chocolate bar prices. Their cause spread across the country, with kids and teens marching with signs. The climax](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/6/812456.jpg)
![HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ON THE TITANIC HAD TO SHARE A SINGLE BATHTUB. CRACKED COM On the Titanic, first class cabins had their own bathrooms, naturally, but in third class, all 700 passengers had to share just two bathrooms, with two just two tubs for everyone. One was for the 200 or so women, while the 450 men all had to share the other single tub. One bathtub among 450 people was actually a step up from what many of them had at home, which was zero bathtubs and just a sponge for scrubbing.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/4/5/0/812450.jpg)