100 Amazing Facts - mental_floss on YouTube (Ep.225)

Hi, I'm John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube

And did you know that PETA once asked the Pet Shop Boys to change their name to the Rescue Shelter Boys

That's the first of 100 amazing facts everyone should know that I'm going to share with you today

In 1939, Adolf Hitler's nephew wrote an article called, Why I Hate My Uncle

Now, I haven't read it, but I assume it's like, he forgets my birthday. Also, he's literally Hitler

Anyway, the nephew eventually moved to Long Island. Nikola Tesla said of Thomas Edison, he had no hobby, cared for no amusement of any kind

and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene

Sounds to me like his hobby was annoying you, Nikola. Edison's other hobby, of course, was stealing all of Tesla's ideas

Another pair of famous enemies, the actor who was inside R2-D2, hated the guy who played C-3PO, calling him the rudest man I've ever met

That's why C-3PO doesn't get to be on the wall of magic. In David Hasselhoff's divorce settlement, he retained possession of the nickname Hoff

and the catchphrase, don't hassle the Hoff. 12 plus 1 equals 11 plus 2, and 12 plus 1 is an anagram of 11 plus 2

Speaking of addition, the sum of the numbers on a roulette wheel is 666

J was once slang for foolish person, so when a pedestrian ignored street signs, they were a jaywalker

There's a genus of ferns named after Lady Gaga, which means that 19 ferns start with the word Gaga

You have a 1 in 9.2 quintillion chance of filling out a perfect March Madness bracket

unless you're very knowledgeable about basketball, in which case your chances improve to about 1 in 128 billion

Before Google launched Gmail, Gmail was the free email service Garfield the Cat's website offered to its fans

It was way better in those days. Also, for instance, they didn't make you get a Google Plus account

The giant inflatable rat that shows up at union protests is named Scabby

Our rat is also named Scabby. The Procrastinators Club of America's newsletter is called Last Month's Newsletter

Then members of the club read the newsletter, you know, whenever they get around to it. Shopping tip, touching an item makes you more likely to buy it, and also willing to pay more for it

The Tony Awards started in 1947 as the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theater

Winners received a scroll as well as a cigarette lighter if they were male, or a silver compact case if they were female

The ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic, the Carpathia, was sunk during World War I by a German U-boat

According to a study done at the University of Leicester, the milk yield of cows increases when they're listening to relaxing music

An early ATM was deemed a failure because its only users were, quote

prostitutes and gamblers who didn't want to deal with tellers face-to-face. Hawaiian Punch was originally developed in 1934 as a tropical-flavored ice cream topping

Albert Einstein never learned to drive a car. In 2006, a California pastor urged his congregation to go to bars and try to convince young people to delete their MySpace accounts

Little did he know, of course, that people don't have to be encouraged to delete their MySpaces

Aw man, remember when we all had myspaces? The crazy thing is, there's all these 15 year olds

watching this video right now who are like, no no I don remember that How do the children of today even know who their top eight friends are Anyway when fruit flies are infected with a parasite they self with booze They seek out food with higher alcohol content

In 2008, the iTunes store sold an app called I Am Rich

It cost $999.99 and served absolutely no purpose. Eight copies were sold, and then the app will shut it down in less than a day

John Cazale died in 1978. Every film he appeared in was nominated for Best Picture

Due to a shortage of raw materials like paper and leather and an increase in wartime piety

the United States faced a Bible shortage in 1943. In Colonial America, lobster was not a delicacy

It was actually so cheap and plentiful, it was often served to prisoners. You hear that, Mr. Lobster

You're not so fancy. Between 1900 and 1920, tug of war was an Olympic event

As were art competitions between 1912 and 1948, medals were awarded for architecture

music, painting, and sculpture. According to a Wall Street Journal study, there are only 11 minutes of actual football action during the average NFL game

In 1991, Wayne Allwine, the voice of Mickey Mouse, married Russie Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse

The tallest jockey on record? 7 feet 7 inches. The Indiana Horse Racing Commission once licensed former NBA center Manute Bull to race in a charity event

The nursery rhyme never actually states that Humpty Dumpty is an egg, so for all we know, he's a pterodactyl

Alton Brown, who once appeared on a Mental Floss cover, was the director of photography for REM's 1987 video, The One I Love

In 1997, Bloomsbury printed the first 1,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Today, each of those copies is worth between $20,000 and $40,000. When Canada's Northwest Territories considered renaming itself in the 1990s, one name that gained a lot of popular support was Bob

Carly Simon's dad is the Simon of Simon & Schuster. He put his own name in the company name? That's so... he's really... uh, what's the word that I'm looking for

Pleased with himself? Vince Neil has said that Motley Crue decided to add umlauts to its name while drinking Lowenbrow beer

We had no idea that it was a pronunciation thing, he said, plausibly

In 1989, Walmart pulled Listerine off the shelves after a woman claimed it burned her mouth

But after testing, it was restocked because it turns out that's just how Listerine tastes

Woody and the Blowfish performed at Tiger Woods' wedding in 2004, which makes sense

because when it comes to marriage, Tiger Woods was about to blow it

Anybody? Blow? The Blowfish? There's a lot of infidelity in his marriage? No

The American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 handbook classifies caffeine withdrawal as a mental disorder. I just classify it as 11 o'clock in the morning

That's why we keep coffee on the wall. By the way, after coffee beans are decaffeinated, the caffeine is sold to soft drink makers and

pharmaceutical companies. Caffeine, by the way, can be a very effective treatment for low cerebral spinal fluid headaches, as I recently learned

Coffee was banned in Mecca in the 16th century because it was believed to stimulate radical thinking

Last coffee fact, every scene in the movie Fight Club contains a cup of Starbucks coffee

In 1999, the US government paid the Zapruder family $16 million for the film of JFK's assassination

George Washington insisted his Continental Army be permitted a quart of beer as part of their daily rations

And speaking of booze college students spend more than billion on alcohol per year more than they spend on textbooks When asked who owned the patent on the polio vaccine Jonas Salk said Well the people There is no patent Could you patent the sun

To which several pharmaceutical companies replied, Wait, can you patent the sun

The letter J is the only letter that doesn't appear on the periodic table

Yet, until I discover an element, Jonium. The Pledge of Allegiance was written as part of a plan to sell flags to schools

Carell wrote Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani, Rock Your Body by Justin Timberlake, and Milkshake by Khalees

When he was younger, Jake Gyllenhaal got driving lessons from a family friend

That friend was Paul Newman. Paul Newman, by the way, both a race car driver and a race car owner

But speaking of celebrity friends, Larry King and Snoop Dogg hang out. Jeopardy contestants stand on platforms that are adjusted so they all appear to be the same height

Richard Gere went to UMass Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship. The light emitted by 200,000 galaxies makes our universe a shade of beige that scientists call cosmic latte

You could fit 75 New Jerseys into Alaska's area, but why would you want 75 New Jerseys

I'm just kidding, people from New Jersey. No, I'm not. In other geography news, Reno is west of Los Angeles

Diapnophobia is the fear of dinner party conversations. I have that one, but then again, I do have most of them

Yawning is so contagious that it can spread from humans to dogs or chimpanzees

In 1916, four years before the Constitution recognized her right to vote, Jeanette Rankin

became the first woman elected to Congress. Speaking of politics, in 1958, Larry King smashed into John F. Kennedy's car

JFK said that he would forget the whole thing if King promised to vote for him when he ran

for president. The very first webcam watched a coffee pot so researchers at Cambridge could monitor the

coffee situation without leaving their desks. Why don't we have one of those

The last time a Republican was elected president without a Nixon or a Bush on the ticket was 1928

For a time, Kurt Vonnegut was Geraldo Rivera's father-in-law. In 1980, Detroit presented Saddam Hussein with a key to their city

In a 1917 letter to Winston Churchill, Admiral John Fisher used the phrase OMG

I personally believe that Abraham Lincoln coined the abbreviation Raffle, but I don't have proof yet

I don't know why I find Abe Lincoln inventing Raffle so funny. He's so tall, I picture him rolling on the floor, that stovepipe hat falling off

A baby can cost new parents 750 hours of sleep in the first year

That seems low, actually. Only two non-humans have ever testified before Congress

Elmo and Ben Affleck. What's that? No, he can't be human. He's too pretty

On a slow news day in 1930, BBC Radio simply reported, there is no news, and then they played piano music

Oh, gosh. Imagine if Fox News did that today. Speaking of slow news, ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen originally wanted to put on a Connecticut sports show featuring Hartford Whalers highlights

We wanted to make a joke here about the Hartford Whalers because Meredith's ex-boyfriend was a Hartford Whalers fan

But then we decided that the Hartford Whalers were enough of a joke on their own. The last time the French government used the guillotine to execute a convicted criminal was in 1977

In 2006, an Australian man tried to sell New Zealand on eBay. The price rose to before eBay shut it down By the way the first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer A collector of broken laser pointers bought it for Canadians eat more donuts per capita than any

other country. There's a city in Turkey named Batman. In 2008, the mayor sued Warner Brothers

for using the name without permission. The necktie originated in Croatia. In 1968, Wilt

Chamberlain endorsed Richard Nixon for president, saying, it's intriguing to know I might have

some hand in shaping the future of this country. Before settling on these seven dwarves we know today, Disney considered chesty, tubby, burpy

deafy, hickey, wheezy, and awful. I have also considered hickeys, or reconsidered, really

In development, Disney's Aladdin was drawn based on Michael J. Fox, and then animators

switched the model to Tom Cruise. The state vegetable of Oklahoma is watermelon

Pull it together, Oklahoma! In 1493, Christopher Columbus thought he saw mermaids

He wrote that they were, quote, not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men

They were probably manatees. Freaking patriarchy personatees! The Scots have a word for that panicky hesitation you get when introducing someone whose name you can't remember

Tartle. The Beatles were offered the roles of the four vultures in the movie The Jungle Book

The average American three-year-old child can recognize about a hundred brand logos

which means that my child is above average. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was almost called something that happened

General George Custer graduated last in his class at West Point in 1861

In 1998, a Georgia teen was suspended for one day for wearing a Pepsi t-shirt at his school's Coke in Education Day

In 1965, a Senate subcommittee predicted that by 2000, Americans would be working 20 hours a week with more than seven weeks of vacation per year

Film critic Leonard Maltin's complete review of the 1948 movie Isn't It Romantic? No

The Iron Man edition of Mr. Potato Head is named Tony Starch

Okay, let's speed it up here at the end. Why can Goofy talk but Pluto can't? Well, according to Disney, Goofy was created as a human character as opposed to Pluto, who was a pet. So yeah, they don't know either

Neil Armstrong's astronaut application arrived a week past the deadline, but a friend slipped it in with the others

On the 2011 Czech Republic census, 15,070 people listed their religion as Jedi

Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest in San Francisco and lost

Before Beverly Hills was known for rich people, it was known because its soil is great for growing lima beans

It's been estimated that 10% of living Europeans were conceived on an IKEA bed

After he won the Nobel Prize, Niels Bohr was given a perpetual supply of beer piped into his house

By the way, in some European spas, you can literally bathe in beer. There are 293 ways to make change for a US dollar

And finally, I return to my salon to tell you that when Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase designed the first $1 bill in 1862, he put his own face on it

Thanks for watching Mental Floss here on YouTube, which is made with the help of all of these nice people. Every week, we endeavor to answer one of your mind-blowing questions

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Well, Nick, you will be unsurprised to learn that it was pizza. Specifically, a Pizza Hut pizza bought in 1994

If you have a mind-blowing question, please let us know in comments. We'll endeavor to answer as many as possible

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