In 1940, the Nazis sent 12 spies to Britain to pave the way for an invasion. However, the plan failed due to the ineptitude of the agents. None of them were that fluent in English and they lacked basic knowledge of British customs.
Facts
In Alaska, it is illegal to be drunk…
In Alaska, it is illegal to be drunk in a bar. Per state laws, a person who is already drunk may not “knowingly” enter a bar to drink more, or remain in the bar that got them drunk in the first place.
In an effort to set the world record…
In an effort to set the world record for the longest drift, BMW used one M5 to refuel another M5 (5 times) by drifting alongside it.
A man from Kansas challenged his wife…
A man from Kansas challenged his wife from Iowa to a sword fight over custody dispute, asked the judge for a three-month delay in order to obtain Japanese samurai swords for combat, then was ordered to take a sanity test.
Even though Philo Farnsworth…
Even though Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of electronic television, was disappointed by it for most of his life, he changed his mind the day he saw Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon thanks to his invention, telling his wife “this has made it all worthwhile”.
In 1989 two brothers flew ultralight…
In 1989 two brothers flew ultralight planes over the Berlin Wall into East Germany to rescue a brother they’d left behind when they escaped years earlier. They landed at a park inside the DDR, picked up their brother, and flew back to West Berlin in less than 20 minutes.
Goran Kropp rode a bicycle 6,000 miles…
Goran Kropp rode a bicycle 6,000 miles from Stockholm to the base of Mount Everest in 1996 with his mountain equipment, successfully climbed it solo and without bottled oxygen, and then cycled back home.
The firm Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658…
The firm Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees on 9/11. The CEO, who was taking his child to school that day, later distributed $180 million to the families and offered jobs to all children of the victims. 57 of those children were employed by Cantor Fitzgerald as of 2016.
The Bose Corporation’s majority owner…
The Bose Corporation’s majority owner is MIT. In 2011, the company’s founder, Amar Bose donated the majority of his shares to the university which was his former employer and alma mater. An annual cash dividend is paid out to “advance the research and education mission of MIT”.
It took 750 artists making over 2…
It took 750 artists making over 2 million sketches to create the 1937 Disney animation, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The final movie was comprised of 250,000 individual drawings.