Pavlik Topchik

15/12/2021

Eric Brader, his emergency room physician, told McKnight he should send it into the Guinness Book of World Records, but McKnight brushed it off as a joke. Brader was so impressed by the feat that he sent in the paperwork anyways, which was approved in 2003, but didn't make the cut until its 2008 edition.

10/12/2021

At the Bank of Philadelphia on Aug. 1, 1798, a sum of $162,821 was stolen from the vault. There was no sign of forced entry so it was thought to be an inside job. Patrick Lyon was imprisoned as the prime suspect, as he had been the carpenter that worked on the vault doors.

08/12/2021

If you've ever been accused of "living under a rock," you'll feel right at home in Setenil de Las Bodegas in Spain. Many of this tiny town's 3,000 residents live and work and play in a gorge beneath a huge rocky outcropping, where homes are built right into the rock. It provides so much shelter that historians think this area has been occupied by human settlements since the Stone Age.

08/12/2021

08/12/2021

Greenland Sharks are known to be some of the oldest living animals in our world. Researchers did carbon dating on a Greenland Shark that was caught in 2014 and found it to be around 392 years old. Further testing revealed that our fishy friends could be up to 500 years old. Yes, that would mean that our geriatric friends would have been alive when Leonardo Da Vinci painted the "Mona Lisa."

02/12/2021

According to Guinness World Records, the first person to be charged with speeding was Walter Arnold of the English village of Paddock Wood, Kent. On Jan. 28, 1896, Arnold was spotted going four times the speed limit in his 19th-century Benz—but since the speed limit at the time was just two miles per hour, that meant he was not going too fast by today's standards. The constable had to chase him down on his bicycle, issuing a ticket for £4 7s and earning Arnold the speedy distinction. For more trivia to impress, here are 40 Random Obscure Facts That Will Make Everyone Think You're a Genius.

30/11/2021

Fin whales are basically the Barry White of the ocean. The deep, bellowing songs that males use to attract mates are considered to be the loudest of all marine life and can be "heard up to 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away," according to Scientific American. They can also be used to sonically map out the ocean floor thanks to the fact that the sound can reach depths of 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) under the water, which bounces back and provides researchers with accurate measurements. Beyond that, a 2021 study in Science showed how using a fin whale's song can be far more useful and have less of a negative impact on sea life than using a large air gun, which is the typical tool researchers rely on.

02/11/2021

The 1933 Double Eagle was a $20 U.S. coin made of gold that never went into circulation. A few of the coins were made, but most were destroyed—save for nine that were presumed stolen by U.S. mint workers. After years circulating the globe and falling into the hands of a few notable owners—including the king of Egypt—one of the coins was auctioned off at Sotheby's in 2002 for a stunning $7,590,020. That made it the most expensive coin ever sold at auction.

01/11/2021

The British royal family may be the most famous royal family on the planet, but there are still plenty of other nobles out there. In total, there are 28 royal families who rule over a total of 43 countries around the world, including Japan, Spain, Swaziland, Bhutan, Thailand, Monaco, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Liechtenstein.

01/11/2021

01/11/2021

29/10/2021

Europe has been experiencing serious dry spells and extreme heat since 2015, which has caused major droughts. Research done led by the University of Cambridge (and published on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website) looked at isotopes in the rings of old European Oak trees in Central Europe which formed over thousands of years to try to pin down the cause. They discovered that the dry spells are a "result of human-caused climate change and associated shifts in the jet stream," according to EurekAlert!

28/10/2021

Earthquakes can range from minor tremors that are barely noticeable to building-toppling ground-shakers that cause massive destruction. But it's an inevitable part of life for those who live in countries such as China, Indonesia, Iran, and Turkey, which are some of the most earthquake-prone places on the planet. However, according to the USGS, Japan records the most earthquakes in the world.