Thread: Did you know...?

Originally Posted by Latindancer

In 1984, British comedian Tommy Cooper had a heart attack and died on live television. The audience all assumed it was part of his act and laughed/applauded during his final moments.

Was only thinking of that last night when there was a poster of him in bar.


Pretty sure it's on youtube.

Gives new meaning to the word!

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is buried deep inside a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, in the Arctic Circle. It is a fail-safe seed storage facility, built to stand the test of time and disasters whether natural or caused by Man. In the event of a planetary catastrophe, this vault is designed to preserve the world’s food crops and help restore the plant kingdom on Earth, effectively allowing life to continue.

It was built with that scenario in mind and can withstand earthquakes and explosions.

Small parts of these catacombs under Paris are open to the public, but 99% of the 170-mile long labyrinth full of skulls and bones is forbidden because people will almost certainly get lost and possibly never be found.

Chernobyl, 32 years on. The entire area was abandoned in 1986 after the nuclear disaster. Some parts are open to the public, though a 19-mile exclusion zone is strictly enforced because of high radiation levels.

That's a coincidence, was talking to the kids about the terracotta army just last night...

Qin Shi Huang’s tomb, must be one of the largest tombs ever, not discovered until 1974, and entry is not allowed. This tomb still hasn't been excavated because researchers believe whatever is inside could not be preserved by current knowledge and technology.

NO ENTRY

Pluto’s Gate – Turkey



Originally dedicated to the Roman god of death, Pluto. The cO2 concentration inside the gate, in pools and the bottom form a 'deadly lake' at night when the temperature drops, when the cO2 levels are enough to kill animals and humans.

No end of stories about the super-secretive military base in the middle of the Nevada desert. The US gov denied the existence of Area 51 until 2013 when the Obama admin confirmed that such a place does exist, which might suggest there’s a whole lot of top-secret stuff going on there.

Pizza Facts:

Lombardi’s in New York City was America’s first pizzeria, which opened in 1905.




Only three people in the world have a degree in Pizzaology, one of these is Domino’s founder Tom Monaghan, who also founded the business management program that offers the Pizzaology class.

While pizza was already available in the US since the beginning of the 20th century, its popularity broadened after World War II when American soldiers who had served in Italy brought home a craving for the pizza.

Chicago’s first deep dish pizza was made in 1943 by the restaurant that later became the Pizzeria Uno chain.

The Domino’s “30 minutes or less” delivery guarantee is still offered in some places around the world, including Turkey.

The first frozen pizza hit American supermarkets in 1962, with very basic packaging.



The first computer-ordered pizza was in 1974, when Michigan State’s Artificial Language Laboratory tested its new “speaking computer" by ordering a pizza from a local restaurant.

There’s a pizza museum in Philadelphia called Pizza Brain.



The largest pizza ever weighed 51,257 pounds and was 131 feet in diameter, while the longest was 6,333 feet and created by a team of chefs on Saturday morning at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

Pizza Hut became the first company to deliver a pizza to outer space when it delivered to the International Space Station, in 2001, aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

We know of the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, which lasted just over a year, but what happened during the paranoia and hysteria that led to the execution of 20 people?

In 1689, the Puritan village of Salem was inundated with refugees escaping King William’s War, between New France and New England. The refugees added fuel to rivalry between the wealthy and the peasant farmers. The Village’s minister, Reverend Samuel Parris, was widely disliked because of his greed.


In January 1692, Parris’ 9-year-old daughter Elizabeth and 11-year-old niece Abigail Williams alarmed their friends by throwing fits, screaming, speaking gibberish, and twisting themselves into weird positions; a third girl named Ann Putnam had similar experiences, and a local doctor believed the girls’ calamities were supernatural.



In late February, the three young girls were pressured into admitting that the source of their madness was three women, a Caribbean slave owned by Parris (Tituba), a homeless woman (Sarah Good), and a poor, elderly woman (Sarah Osborne) who were arrested and brought before the local magistrates.

Good and Osborne denied any knowledge or association with witchcraft, but the slave Titula admitted she had been contacted by the Devil himself and was doing his work; this confession was probably made under duress. She also said there were other witches in Salem and that they intended to destroy the Puritans. All three women were imprisoned.

Then rumours and paranoia gripped the town and women of all ages were accused of being witches. The first 'witch' convicted and hanged on Gallows Hill was Bridget Bishop, whose last words were a plea of innocence. As the summer of 1692 wore on, 18 more women were hanged for being witches and many more imprisoned.



Eventually, respected people including Massachusetts Governor William Phips, prohibited the arrest of accused witches. By May 1693, the Governor released and pardoned everyone accused of witchcraft, though by then 20 had been executed, several had died in jail, and over 200 prosecutions were pending.

In 1957, over 250 years after the trials, the state of Massachusetts formally apologised for the events of 1692-93.