In life you will never stop learning, each day is a rollercoaster of education. The best part about this rollercoaster ride is that it can be free as long as you are curious enough to stay on it and enjoy it. In this article, we collected stories that were never taught to us in school. Many of these stories are worth teaching not because they bring you practical knowledge, but because they teach you the complexity of life. Nothing is black and white, going out of your comfort zone is important, thinking outside the box is power and anything is possible if you put effort into it. Life is beautiful and just like on a rollercoaster all of its tight turns and steep slopes are worth it! Sit back, get your reading glasses and enjoy this rollercoaster!
1. Mama Marge, Papa Homer.
Many creative geniuses build characters in their stories based on people they have met in their life. This is natural phenomenal if you really think about it. There is one cartoon family that we all love and are well familiar with that has just that.
Matt Groenig, the very talented creator of no other than “Simpsons” had a father named Homer and mother Marge! But that’s not it, his sisters were Lisa, Maggie, and Patty! Makes you wonder what other funny character similarities are there!
2. Entertainment vehicle.
The great Rod Serling, who created the amazing science-fiction fantasy The Twilight Zone, much like having artistic creativeness had commercial creativeness. Due to the censorship, that he has experienced while creating his previous projects, he decided to adopt a new marketing strategy for this project.
Rod decided to sell the series as a pure entertainment vehicle rather than as a TV Show. The Twilight Zone, being well ahead of its time, delved into complex and very much controversial social/political issues.
3. Go Away Green
Disneyland, perhaps every kid’s dream place, takes its park and the theme rides very seriously when it comes to design. So much so that things like trash bins, fences, and administrative buildings, are all coated in a color known as “Go Away Green”.
This particular green is made in such a way that objects painted with it fade into your color spectrum. Your eyes will simply miss it completely unless specifically looked for.
4. What's Up, Doc?
Picture this phrase, with the familiar voice, “What's Up, Doc?”. That is the great and powerful Mel Blanc, the voice of everyone’s favorite Bugs Bunny and hundreds of other characters. Characters that brought joy and laughter in life when we were kids.
Unfortunately, Mel Blanc didn’t have the easiest of lives but made the most out of it! The famed voice actor started smoking at an early age of 9, survived a car accident followed by a two-week coma, and recorded the Flintstones in a full-body cast! Unfortunately, he passed shortly after recording “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”.
5. Science Guy.
Bill Nye is not your average television presenter. He is a genuine mechanical engineer with a degree from Cornell University. Despite being known as a TV persona he actually has dedicated his life to science.
In his early professional life, he has worked as an engineer for the Boeing Corporation and Sundstrand Data Control. During his employment, he invented a hydraulic component used on the 747 airplanes! In addition, he holds three patents for other inventions!
6. Dedicated.
Ever felt being super dedicated to your work? Well, Danny DeVito certainly does in all his works. Every movie he is in is just hilarious and great entertainment. But with his character in The Lorax (2012) he took it to a new level.
The amazing actor decided to do the voice of his character in six languages! In addition to the original English version, he did the dub in German, Italian, Russian, Castilian Spanish, and Catalan!
7. Oliver.
Ever seen an ape who prefers walking upright? Meet Oliver, a chimpanzee from the central Congo region. As a young animal in the 1970s, he rose to popularity for his distinct look behavior.
Oliver, like many men, became bold and freckled. On top of that, he liked to pour himself a cup of brandy. Due to his mannerisms that closely resemble those of humans, he was once believed to be a "Humanzee".
8. Finnish sauna.
Can you imagine a battlefield, war is raging, gunshots are all over and there is a wooden sauna in the midst of the chaos. The sauna is a tradition in Finnish culture that dates centuries back and plays a central part in society.
During World War Two, Finnish soldiers lit up any usable saunas they came across. And when they didn’t find one, they built their own saunas using logs or just the forest terrain.
9. Crocus sativus.
The beautiful purple flower, that sounds like a Harry Potter spell, Crocus Sativus gifts us with the world's costliest spice, Saffron. The spice is mainly used as a seasoning and coloring agent in food, with 90% of it being collected and produced in Iran.
In order to get 1 kilo of the mystical spice, it takes 150,000 flowers! Talk about the quality quantity ratio! Many botanists still disagree on the region the flower has originated and study it to a detailed degree.
10. Obsessed.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the father of beautiful works like Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker hated to conduct by his own admission. Just like many artistic geniuses had some serious neurosis issues.
Tchaikovsky early in his life became extremely obsessed with the fear that his head was going to fall off when he is conducting. He battled his fear all his life, to a point where he would hold his head with his left hand while conducting. Guess what? His head never fell off and his works are classics that are beyond legendary.
11. Ears on their bellies.
250 million years ago, mass extinctions of marine and terrestrial life occurred. This event is known as the End-Permian. And that is right about the same time a little group of insects scientifically called Caelifera appeared.
Or as we all know them, Grasshoppers! With ears on their bellies, bodies full protein, spiting liquid as self-defense mechanism thees weird insects existed long before Dinosaurs! As a matter of fact, the grass-loving creatures are older than the grass itself!
12. Legit tough guy.
The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Do we have to go on to prove that Ernest Hemingway is just a true legend of a man!
Hemingway was also a legit tough guy. In the 1940s when war across the world was raging, he used his fishing boat to hunt German U-boats in the Caribbean. And his weapon of choice? A few Thomson machine guns and hand grenades. The US Navy even gave him unlimited gasoline supply!
13. Japan creats new land
We all know that Japan is a very creative nation that often is the early adopter and creator of amazing technologies. But did you know that the Japanese are creating new land?
That’s right, create. Japan burns its garbage and uses the ash in land reclamation. Using this method, in the past decade alone, Japan created roughly over 250 square kilometers (96 square miles)! Many of these new small artificial islands act as Breakwaters and have parks build on them.
14. Badass Lady.
Polish-born physicist and chemist, has created groundbreaking discoveries with her research on radioactivity. Discoveries that saved countless lives and paved the way for modern medicine. This lady is just badass! Not just because she won a Nobel prize.
But also because she developed a mobile X-Ray station and assisted army surgeons on the frontlines of World War One! Roughly over a million soldiers were examined with her machine, numerous amputations were prevented and lives saved.
15. GED at 60.
They definitely didn’t tell you in school about successful people who were high-school dropouts. Well, Dave Thoms, the man that gifted us with the delicious Wendy’s, was one. He was never proud of it but it didn’t stop him in life.
The founder of Wendy’s understood the importance of education and the responsibility of influence he has on younger people. So at age 60 he divided to go back to school and got his GED!
16. Raising prices.
As we mentioned earlier, Japan is an interesting country with a captivating culture. Akagi Nyugyo makes great popsicles and ice cream. For 25 years they made a point of not raising prices on their prices to keep consumers happy!
But at a certain point in its history, the ice cream manufacturer was forced to raise the prices. From 60 yen to 70 yen. With that raise, they made a commercial to publicly apologize for this. How come Netflix never tells us sorry every year they raise the price?
17. Killer instincts.
Probably all of us think that our pets are the funniest furry creatures. But did you know that your sweet furry cat or dog is a predator with killer instincts?
You know that circle cats and dogs make right before they start snoring, barking in their dreams, and sleeping in a weird position? Believe it or not but that is their survival instinct. They lay in the direction of the wind so they can smell predators approaching!
18. Divas with stunning hair.
Icelandic horses are beautiful divas with stunning hair cuts. They are small, often just pony-sized but they are long-lived and hardy horses! If you saw one it’s probably because they don’t travel much.
Icelandic horses are strong animals and in their natural habitat have very few diseases. If they ever leave Islands the country’s law prevents them from returning. This is to prevent the beautiful creatures on the island country to get any diseases from the outside world.
19. Monorail Force One.
Ever seen Air Force One where the plane gets hijacked with President Harrison Ford? Well, Walt Disney beat the movie makers to it, sort of. This happened back in 1959 when then Vice-President Nixon visited the theme park.
Walt Disney was showing the honorable guest the cool rides they had to offer and on a hot day like that one invited the Vice-President for a ride on an air-conditioned Monorail. The Monorail took off with the two inside before the secret service got a chance to board it!
20. Casual silence.
Do you ever talk to yourself in your head? You know, like giving yourself this inner speech. If you don’t, no need to worry. Not everyone talks to themselves while just sitting there in a casual silence.
A study made by Soviet psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, showed that some people, mostly children very little or no monologue at all. Instead, these people have a form of visual thinking. They see their thoughts as images and not a voice!
21. Across the street in Canada.
Canada and the USA are two close countries, not just geographically but culturally and historically. The only time they went to war was in a South Park episode. But just how close?
Well, close enough for you to cross the street from the US and be in Canada. That street is Canusa street. There are houses on both sides of the street. But you can’t just walk across, you have to report to the border crossing office that you are going to your neighbor across the street to get some milk.
22. Feet for ears.
Remember those big ears Jambo had? Well, he didn’t use just them to hear, he used his feet as well. That’s right, feet. Elephants can hear both through their ears and feet. The sounds they hear with their feet help them stay away from danger!
Elephants exchange information by emitting sounds that are low-frequency and that are able to travel dozens of miles underground and through the air. Other elephants can hear the vibration of those sounds via fat pads called digital cushions that are on their feet!
23. Ten Dollar bet.
Lee Arthur Smith, a former American professional baseball pitcher proudly holds a spot in the Hall of Fame. With athletic talents and a magnificent career that spans 18 years, one can easily think that he started playing as a small kid.
But the all-American pitcher didn’t start playing the sport until he was a junior in high school! He wasn’t even that interested in the sport, he just wanted to win a $10 bet. And the rest is history.
24. ADHD?
We hate to break it to you but if you are super dialed in on a task and just can’t stop focusing while doing it, you have ADHD. Potentially. The thing with ADHD is it’s not just 'short attention span'.
Another symptom for having ADHD is “'Hyperfocusing”. We are used to understanding ADHD as a deficit of attention when in reality it’s a syndrome where you have trouble regulating your attention span on a task. And it goes both ways.
25. What are you?!
Europe's museums and archeological sites are filled with spiky metal dodecahedrons. Historians have been theorizing for decades what can these weird looking metal objects be but still have no real clue. There are no historical records found anywhere that can explain what they really are. Some have been found as far as South-East Asia!
The list of speculations of what they are is a page long, some think they are candlestick holders, coin measuring devices for counterfeit detection, or something related to knitting. It’s amazing how we know more about the Pyramids, Coliseum, Sphinx, and The Great wall but has no clue what these things are.
26. Fat Teddy.
October is known to be the month of Beer Festivals around the world. But in Alaska’s Katmai National Park it’s the bears that get to show off their “beer belly”. The park authorities have decided to make it a tradition and hold “Fat Bear Week” every fall.
The National Park visitors get to vote who they think is the fattest bear in October that fishes along the Brooks River. Along the riverbank, there are cameras installed that make sure to capture all the bears before and after they have their feasts and get fat. There is even a Hole of Fame on the pars website!
27.
When we think of the first people, primitive Neanderthals with wooden bats and Flintstone clothing come to mind. But the truth is that Neanderthals were not that primitive as we traditionally think of them.
But contrary to the traditional belief, researchers now think that they were highly intelligent. Recent discoveries showed that they knew more than just hunting tool development and hiding in caves. They also knew how to treat wounded and even perform amputations!
28. Plato didn’t know.
In the 4th century, BC Aristotle was sitting on a bench under a tree, looking on the ground and feeling puzzled by the shade he saw. There were hundreds of sades all being crescent-shaped. He couldn’t help to wonder why Plato didn’t teach him about this.
Well, the thing is, Plato didn’t know this himself. When a solar eclipse happens the leaves on the trees act as pinhole cameras. This results in them sort of projecting a crescent-shaped shadow.
29. Not user-friendly.
Do you know that nice taste of cold strawberry milkshake? And then all of a sudden it feels like someone flicked your nervous system and pain is the only thing you taste. Well, that’s your teeth being….teeth.
Mother nature didn’t think too much about the user experience when designing our teeth. Ant that is why our teeth can only experience one sensation, pain. All of the nerves around your teeth are programmed to only respond to pain.
30. Hope Not.
Whose funeral planning takes five years to make and several times to re-plan? No, other than Sir Winston Churchill. The plan was over 415 pages long, which is longer than the first book of The Hunger Games.
The plan was given an ironic name, ‘Hope Not’. After Churchill suffered a stroke the committee that made the plan was sure they will need to implement it in the near future. But they were very wrong, Churchill would survive for 12 more years and outlive several of the pallbearers from the plan. And as for the committee? They had more work to do.
31. A little mutation.
It seems like everyone became a specialist on the immune system in 2020. While we don’t think we are anywhere near that, we do think that this fact is pretty fascinating. Your immune system is capable of producing highly specific antibodies.
The highly specific antibodies are produced by your immune system with a little mutation help. Well not that little actually, the mutation rate of your antibody production is raised to 1,000,000. And if that is not enough, the system makes them compete with each other.
32. The Vision.
When you think of the past of a country like Austria, progressive liberal views are not what comes first to mind. But that is exactly the vision Habsburg Emperor Joseph II had in mind. He made sure that his vision bears light and held strong reforms across the empire.
He removed restrictions against Jews, weakened the power of the Catholic church, banned feudal labor, and gave more religious freedom to Protestants and Orthodox. Unfortunately soon after his passing, all of his reforms were abolished.
33. Start with the seat.
Adjustable seats are in cars, planes, boats, and even behind your desk. We don’t give much thought to it, they are just there. But that wasn’t always the case. Surely not before the 1950s.
In the ’50s the US Airforce decided to make a cockpit that would be just perfect for the average pilot’s body. The engineers did all the planning and measuring, to be exact, they measured 4000 pilots. Only to realize that none of them had “an average body”. So they decided to start with the seat design first.
34. Work of mother nature.
The beautiful states of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois are states with magnificent nature and have something in common. The Driftless Area, an astonishing work of mother nature that is worth the visit.
The region has a distinct terrain with deep canyons, beautiful cliffs, and rare plants that only exist in this part of the world. All of this is a result of the continental glacier minding his business and not messing with these places millions of years ago.
35. Wasps venom.
If you've ever been stung by a wasp you know it stings. If you've ever been heartbroken you know it stings. Guess what, it’s the same chemical that gives us the pain.
To be exact, it’s a hormone produced by our brain called Serotonin and acts as a neurotransmitter that stabilizes our mood, feelings of well-being, and happiness. If you were to inject it into your skin you would feel extreme pain. By chance, Serotonin is the main ingredient in Wasps venom.
36. Leif did it first.
Christopher Columbus discovered America. Not really. Columbus was the first European that properly documented visiting America thus history remembering him as someone discovering it. Someone from Europe, with a famous last name, five hundred years earlier visited America and actually settled there.
Leif Eriksson, a Viking explorer from Iceland, discovered a land he called Vinland, now known as Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. He discovered it by accidentally sailing off course. Some short time after Viking have abandoned that land, archaeologists still debate as to why.
37. Davy the OG.
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. No, he did not. Humphrey Davy did. What? Yes, a British chemist way before Edison's birth invented a lamp called the Davy lamp. A basic lamp with a wire gauze chimney enclosing the flame and some chemical reactions produced light.
Of course, the light bulb Edison invented was the most practical, affordable, and had commercial success. But next time you hear people arguing who was greater, Tesla or Eddison, tell them Davy was the OG.
38. The abolishment.
Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer, great statesman, the 16th president of the United States, and an absolute legend of a man. He is widely credited for abolishing slavery, and he did, he just didn’t do it singlehandedly.
The abolishment of slavery wasn't that straightforward. The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by him. But it wasn't drafted by him alone. It was done collectively by his administration that consisted of like-minded individuals.
39. That 20/20 vision.
If you credit having your 20/20 vision to every carrot added to your meal you might be wrong. Carrots are rich in beta carotene that your body makes vitamin A from. And vitamin A is a vision-enhancing vitamin.
But that is only if you don’t have enough of it in the first place. So if you are deficient in vitamin A due to a poor diet eating carrots will probably help you out. But most people already have sufficient levels of the vitamin from their average diets.
40. Hundred Dollars Ben.
Thomas-Francois D'Alibard discovered electricity and he didn’t have to get hit by lightning while flying a kite in a rainstorm. You are probably thinking that Benjamin Franklin. And you are not wrong for doing that.
In history books, we read that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity. But in reality, he was one of the first people to observe it carefully, closely, and put it all wording on paper. And the lightning strike? Most likely a tale, as he would have been probably killed on the spot.