During World War II, the very first bomb dropped on Berlin by the Allies killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
100 Mind-Blowing Dropped Facts
Uncle Ben’s rice was air-dropped to World War II troops. German chemist Erich Huzenlaub invented a process of parboiling rice to keep more nutrients in the rice and lessen the cooking time. The “Huzenlaub Process” had another unexpected benefit: It stopped bug infestations. The quick-cook, bug-free rice was a big advantage during World War II, and converted rice (as it was then known) was air-dropped to American and British troops. After the war, the company rebranded itself and became Uncle Ben’s Original Converted Brand Rice, named after one of the company’s best rice suppliers. The product hit grocery store shelves in 1947.
A raisin dropped in fresh champagne will keep bouncing up and down from the bottom to the top of the glass. When you add raisins to a glass of champagne, they’ll sink to the bottom at first. However, after some time, the raisins will move up and down in the glass dancing. This motion is due to dissolved carbon dioxide in the liquid. The CO2 bubbles cling to the surface of the raisins. Thus, the raisin method is used to “revive” flat champagne, as well.
Ben & Jerry’s learned how to make ice cream from a $5 course at Penn State. The titular Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were childhood friends. Although Greenfield finished college, he was unable to pursue med school. Cohen, on the other hand, dropped out of school. In 1977, Cohen and Greenfield completed a course on ice cream making from Pennsylvania State University’s Creamery. One of the fun facts no one knows about this famous product: Have you ever wondered why Ben & Jerry’s is so chunky? Ben Cohen has a condition where he can’t smell or taste anything. Instead, he relied on food textures texture to provide variety in his diet. This led to the company’s trademark chunks in their ice cream.
The premiere of the TV reality show ‘16 and Pregnant’ helped lower the rate of teen pregnancy. Statistics show that the rate dropped by 5.7% within the 18 months that the show was airing. I guess kids do copy everything they see on TV.
A meteor as strong as 10 atomic bombs exploded over Earth and everyone missed it. In 2018, a meteor 10 meters in diameter exploded over the Bering Sea. The massive space rock had a mass of 1400 tonnes and an impact energy of 173 kilotons of TNT – which was about 10 times the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.
Ants can’t die from falling. Because of their body proportions and tough exoskeleton, an ant’s terminal velocity isn’t enough to kill or hurt it on impact. They can survive being dropped from the Empire State Building and walk away unharmed.
America accidentally dropped an atomic bomb on South Carolina in 1958. Talk about clumsy. Here’s one of the scary WTF facts: In 1958, a B-47 plane was headed to the United Kingdom with an atomic bomb even bigger than the Nagasaki bomb. During the flight, one of the pilots accidentally released the emergency pin. However, the critical part of the bomb needed to activate it was still on the plane. If it were already equipped with the bomb, it would have obliterated the entire state and even more.
Space junk is any human-made object orbiting Earth that no longer serves a useful purpose. Scientists estimate there are about 500,000 pieces of space junk today, including fragments from rockets and satellites, and everyday items like spanners dropped during the construction of the International Space Station!
One Japanese man, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, was in Hiroshima for a business trip on August 6, 1945. This just happens to be the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city. He somehow survived with burn injuries and went back home to Nagasaki. Then, on August 9, 1945, another atomic bomb hit that city. Yamaguchi and his family survived this attack, as well.
Abercrombie & Fitch once offered the cast of Jersey Shore significant amounts of money to stop wearing their clothes. The American retailer feared that the association between the questionable reality TV series and their clothes would hurt their image overall. Ironically, the clothing brand’s stock value dropped by 9% on the first day of trading after the offer was sent to the cast of Jersey Shore, but this is said to have merely been a coincidence.
Technology is now influencing baby names. In 2012, at least six girls were named Apple, 49 boys were named Mac, and at least 17 girls were named Siri. However, the number of babies named Alexa in the U.S. has dropped from 6,050 in 2015 (the year Amazon’s Alexa became available) to 3,053 in 2018. Alexa was the 32nd most popular name for girls born in 2015 but dropped to 90th place in 2018.
A chilly year. In 536 AD a series of volcanic eruptions sprayed so much soot into the atmosphere that the temperature of Europe dropped by 2.5 degrees Celsius. This is a drop of halfway to the temperature of the Last Ice Age in one year.
Cold War reaches boiling point. While the world watched the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, they didn’t know just how close they came to destruction. The US Navy dropped harmless depth charges on a submerged Russian submarine off the coast of Cuba to try and force it to surface. The crew, believing that World War Three had begun, argued whether they should launch the nuclear torpedo that they had on board, and came close to a unanimous vote to launch. Luckily, Senior Officer Vasili Arkhipov cast the one vote needed to stop the impending destruction.
Luckiest man in the world? Japanese engineer Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived the atomic bombings in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two. Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip when the first atomic bomb was dropped on 6 August 1945. Despite being only three kilometres away from the blast, Yamaguchi survived, though was seriously burned and temporarily blinded. The following day, he began the journey back to his hometown of Nagasaki, arriving on 8 August. On 9 August, he was a little over a mile from the epicentre of the second atomic bomb when it dropped on Nagasaki. He survived but was injured again, along with his wife and infant daughter.