- In 2006, an Australian man tried to sell New Zealand on eBay. The price rose to $3,000 before eBay shut it down.
- In Japan, letting a sumo wrestler make your baby cry is considered good luck.
- Prairie dogs say hello with kisses.
- The medical term for ice cream headaches is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.
- Sleeping through winter is hibernation, while sleeping through summer is estivation.
- Marie Curie’s notebooks are still radioactive. Researchers hoping to view them must sign a disclaimer.
- The Scots have a word for that panicky hesitation you get when introducing someone whose name you can’t remember: tartle.
- Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can. When he passed away in 2008, his ashes were buried in one.
- In 1979, Japan offered new British PM Margaret Thatcher 20 “karate ladies” for protection at an economic summit. She declined.
- In 1493, Columbus thought he saw mermaids. They were “not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men.” (Experts think they were probably manatees.)
