Sylvia Shults's Blog, page 10

Today I Learned …

Duncan Robb, of Chesterfield, England, flew his girlfriend to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for what he thought was a concert by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, only to discover that it was a performance by a bagpipe cover band, the Red Hot Chili Pipers. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)

Today I Learned …

Mel Blanc did the voice of Barney Rubble in 65 episodes of The Flintstones from his bed. In 1961, Blanc spent 70 days bedridden following a serious car crash, but even though he was so badly injured he was wearing a full-body cast and was unable to sit up, the TV show’s crew managed to record episodes by arranging microphones around his bed. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)

Today I Learned …

Vincent Van Gogh’s “yellow period”, during which he painted The Starry Night, was probably the result of doctors treating his epilepsy by giving him digitalis — a medicine extracted from the foxglove plant — a side effect of which adds a yellow tinge to everything the patient sees. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)

Today I Learned …

Actor Kit Harington (who played Jon Snow in the TV series Game of Thrones) is a descendant of Robert Catesby, one of the Gunpowder Plot leaders who tried unsuccessfully to blow up the English Parliament in 1605. Harington actually played Catesby in the British TV series Gunpowder. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)

Today I Learned …

A giant tortoise named Abu that escaped from Japan’s Shibukawa Animal Park was found two weeks later — just 500 feet away. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)

Today I Learned …

Globally, spiders eat twice as much meat as humans do each year — 800 million tons of insects compared to humans’ 400 million tons of meat and fish. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)

Today I Learned …

Every Titanic fan has heard the theory that the sailors in the crow’s nest didn’t have binoculars, which is why they didn’t see the iceberg until it was far too late to avoid hitting it. The commonly held rumor is that the binoculars were left behind in Southhampton — but this isn’t true. The binoculars WERE on board Titanic. They were actually in the crow’s nest, exactly where they were most needed. But they were in a locker … and no one had the key. Second Officer David Blair was supposed to sail on Titanic, but he was reassigned to a different ship at the last minute. He forgot to leave the key when he left Titanic. The key was in Blair’s pocket. (from How Stuff Works)

Now I’m A Multi-Award Winning Author…

… because I recently found out that the wildly popular Gone On Vacation just won first place in the Best Books Awards for Spring 2024! Check it out! K thx bye!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/gone-on-vacation-sylvia-shults/20456275?ean=9781958589021

Today I Learned …

Prince Yogi Ram, a Hindu astrologer from Lakewood, NJ, was killed in Cincinnati Ohio when a train hit his car on April 9, 1959. Strewn around the tracks were copies of his book Astrological Forecast, which said April 9 was an “unlucky day.” The astrologer’s fellow mystics had warned him that 5 was a deadly number for him. After the fatal accident, some noted that he was killed by train number 25 on US Route 5 at 5:05. The dead astrologer had 55 cents in his pocket and his wreck was coroner’s case number 5500. (from Horror in the Heartland: Strange and Gothic Tales From the Midwest, by Kevin McQueen)

Today I Learned …

White-faced capuchin monkeys greet each other by sticking their fingers up each other’s noses. (from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)