1.For a number of years, a serial killer roamed Columbia, killing victim after victim. After the body count had reached 300, the police had just about enough clues to identify the perpetrator, Pedro Lopez, and thankfully caught him. At his trial he pleaded insanity, and was sent to a mental asylum. Just four years later, doctors there declared Lopez sane and released him. His current whereabouts are unknown.
2.After an earthquake in China, the generous tobacco companies stepped in to pay for the rebuilding of the area’s schools. However, there is an ethical question to be asked here. Is it right that a school should now be called ‘Sichuan Tobacco Project Hope Primary School’? And furthermore, should the company have been allowed to paint a huge message on the school’s walls which says Tobacco can help you become an achiever? I’m sure you can guess the answer...
3.President Andrew Jackson had rather a foul mouth and owned a parrot. You can probably see where this is going... one shouldn’t laugh, but his parrot of course picked up a number of his rather vulgar words, and once had to be ejected after repeating a number of them at a funeral.
4.In 2009, KFC decided to promote their brand by giving Oprah viewers the opportunity to print out a coupon entitling them to a free lunch. The com- pany however had underestimated the sheer number of people who would print out the voucher - sixteen million in total - and when massive queues formed, food began to run out and the company tried to backtrack on its promise, customer staged sit-ins and even began to riot.
5.When the shopping trolley was first invented, it was a complete failure - people were used to either carrying a basket around with them, or asking the grocer to fill their bag with their chosen items. The shoppers didn’t seem to want to try this new method, so the inventor, Sylvan Goldman, hired dummy shoppers to walk around his store with trolleys, and had an employee offering one to patrons as they entered - and yet it still took a long time to catch on!
6.In his earliest years at sea, Francois L’Olonnais was almost killed by Spanish pirates. He decided to spend the rest of his life seeking out Spanish vessels in revenge. He captured one and executed every single man but one, who he sent back to Spain with the message ‘I shall never henceforward give quarter to any Spaniard whatsoever.’ He later became an incredibly successful pirate himself, eventually running a fleet of eight ships. However, late on in his career he was ambushed by a Spanish force much larger than his at the time. Having survived the battle, but with few men left, he needed to escape and not run the risk of another encounter with Spanish vessels. He therefore sliced open one prisoner’s chest, pulled out his heart and began to gnaw at it like a ravenous wolf. He then shouted at the other prisoners ‘I will serve you all alike, if you show me not another way’. The craziness worked, and they told him of a route on which he could return to safer waters!
7.Granite contains a number of naturally occurring substances, one of them being that much-loved radioactive element uranium. Because of this, New York’s Grand Central Station gives off more radiation that is permitted at a nuclear power station. Don’t worry if you go there though, the rules about building nuclear power stations are extremely strict, and you’re not going to come to any harm even if you lived your entire life in the station.
8.A publication in America called The Farmer’s Almanac is published every year with long-range weather forecasts that are made up to two years in advance. Despite this, they have a success rate of 80%, which is pretty accurate when it comes to predicting anything more than a few days ahead! To make this feat even more incredible, ask them how they do it - their predictions are based on a secret method devised by the magazine’s founder, Robert B. Thomas, in 1792!
9.During the Second World War, the good people of the great Mosque in Paris looked after many of the city’s Jewish population, supplying them with Muslim identity certificates so they would not be taken away to concentration camps.
10.According to some reports, the crew of the Titanic didn’t fire the correct distress signals after the ship’s collision with the iceberg - instead they re- leased flares at random. The message sent by the rockets was supposed to say ‘distress’ but in fact it signalled ‘I’m having navigation problems; please stay clear’.
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