The design for the seatbelts we use now was given away by Volvo. Before 1966, seatbelts were not mandated. During this period, seatbelts just secured the lap but offered no upper-body protection. When Nils Bohlin of Volvo invented the three-point seatbelt design, he gave away the patent for free to keep drivers safe.
100 Mind-Blowing Mandated Facts
There are pink lakes in Australia. On the western coast of Australia, a pink lake called Lake Hillier can be found. It gets its colour from the algae present in the area which mixes with the lake’s salt content to create a pink colour. Despite the vibrant pink colour, it is safe to swim in this lake. The Russians arrived 12 days late to the 1908 Olympics. This was mainly because they were following the wrong calendar. After this incident, the catholic nations mandated the use of the Gregorian Calendar.
Christmas is cancelled. A Christmas-themed one from the brilliant Joanna McCunn on that old chestnut, did Cromwell ban Christmas… In 1644 the Puritan parliament declared every last Wednesday of the month would be a legally mandated fast day. Christmas Day fell on the last Wednesday of the month so no feasting was to be allowed that year. Time should be spent in even more solemn humiliation, repenting of your sins for making Christmas a time of carnal and sensual delights in the past. In 1647 they went the whole hog, banning all celebrations of Christmas and Easter for good! (Charles II reversed this when he came to the throne in 1660).
The length of a year on Earth can also get a bit complicated. The original Roman calendar was a bit of a mess, so much so that in 46 BCE Julius Caesar mandated a 445-day-long year to help bring the calendar back in sync with the seasons.
Daylight saving time ended on a national level after the war, but individual states and municipalities kept it going until World War II. At the end of World War I, the entire nation went on what was effectively a year-round daylight saving time. After World War II, the entire nation was again picking and choosing daylight saving time. It’s been reported that in Iowa, back in 1964, there were 23 different combinations of dates that communities turned on and off daylight saving time. In 1966, the government officially mandated a standardised daylight saving time for the entire United States, though individual states could opt out. Until 2007, daylight saving time ended in October. It’s been reported that the candy industry lobbied to wait until after Halloween to change the clocks back an hour.