8th-century hatmakers used mercury in felt hats, causing tremors, hallucinations, and general lunacy. Hence: Mad hatters

 

“Under the weather”

Sailors who felt sick were sent below deck to recover. They were literally “under” the weather. Sea sickness or not, it stuck

 

“Pleased as punch”

This one comes from Punch and Judy puppet shows. Punch was a violent little guy who found joy in chaos, and oddly enough, he was always thrilled

 

“Bite the bullet”

Before anesthesia, soldiers literally bit bullets to endure surgery. Nothing like dental trauma and an amputation to top off a rough year on the battlefield

 

 

In the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, seven-year-old Myca Dinh Le and six-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were filming on location in California in an area that was known as Indian Dunes near Santa Clarita for a Twilight Zone: The Movie segment directed by John Landis. They were performing a scene for the Vietnam sequence, in which their characters attempt to escape out of a deserted Vietnamese village from a pursuing U.S. Army helicopter. The helicopter was hovering about 25 feet above them when a fireball from special effect pyrotechnic explosions reportedly caused damage to the helicopter rotor and caused the tail rotors to separate from the aircraft causing the helicopter to plummet and crash on top of them, killing all three instantly. Morrow and Le were decapitated and mutilated by the helicopter rotor blades, while Chen was crushed by a helicopter skid. Morrow's daughters sued several parties for negligence and wrongful death and were each awarded an out-of-court settlement of $850,000 by Warner Bros. Studios. Landis and four other defendants, including the helicopter pilot Dorcey Wingo, were charged with involuntary manslaughter but were ultimately acquitted after a ten-month trial. The parents of Le and Chen also sued and settled out of court for $2 million each. Landis violated California's child labor laws by hiring 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen without the required permits. Landis and members of his staff were responsible for a number of labor violations connected with other people involved in the accident, which came to light afterwards. Morrow's remains are interred in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. The epitaph for his grave, written by

 

it cut off the article at the end.

 

David Mann, with the new Satellite he bought to replace the Valiant that was wrecked by a rogue trucker.

 

No, the GAU-21 isn't an M134 Minigun, but it's still damn cool and has a long, rich, lethal history...

 

In Strasbourg, France, hundreds of people started dancing uncontrollably for days… some reportedly danced to their deaths. The cause remains a mystery, with theories ranging from mass hysteria to ergot poisoning.

Authorities even hired musicians to keep the dancing organized. It’s one of the strangest cases of mass psychogenic illness in recorded history

 

The War of the Oaken Bucket in 1325 started when Modena stole a wooden bucket from Bologna. The seemingly silly act sparked a bloody conflict that led to over 2,000 deaths. Modena kept the bucket AND it’s still on display today.

Proof that wars can start over the pettiest things… as if we needed that

 

Everything that can vibrate has a natural frequency, a specific frequency at which it oscillates most easily and in the absence of disturbance. The relationship between natural frequency and weight (mass) is inverse: increasing the mass of an object will decrease its natural frequency, and decreasing the mass will increase its natural frequency. Why? Well, because natural frequency is determined by both the mass and stiffness of a system, and a higher mass for a given design generally makes it harder for the object to oscillate at a given frequency…

When designing something, if you get natural frequency wrong you can have big ass problems. If the external force's frequency approaches the system's natural frequency, a phenomenon called “mechanical resonance” occurs. This causes the system to vibrate with a much larger amplitude, potentially leading to excessive stress, material fatigue, and even structural failure…

In many physics textbooks, the failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940 is blamed on natural frequency or presented as an example of forced mechanical resonance, but it’s more complicated than that. The bridge collapsed because winds produced "aeroelastic flutter", which is another thing altogether, that was self-exciting and unbounded...

 

In 1814, a massive vat of beer exploded in a London brewery, flooding the streets with over 320,000 gallons of beer. Several buildings were destroyed, and at least eight people died. Some tried to drink the beer straight from the gutters. It was a tragic and surreal moment in brewing history

 

 

Total fatalities from commercial jet crashes:

Boeing: 1,293 deaths

Airbus: 104 deaths
In 2023, both manufacturers had zero fatal accidents — the safest year for commercial jets.
Since 2021, Airbus has had no fatal crashes involving its own aircraft. The only recorded accident was the Haneda runway collision in 2024 resulting in 6 deaths, all from a Japanese Coast Guard plane, not the Airbus A350..
Source : Aviation Safety Network, IATA Safety reports!

 

 

Like the dummy hanging. ha ha song was done pretty darn nice.

 

Tennis balls are yellow because of Color TV.

 

TV Yellow is a guitar finish color, primarily associated with Gibson Les Paul models like the Les Paul Junior and Les Paul Special. It's a pale, semi-translucent yellowish hue that allows some of the wood grain to show through. The name, "TV Yellow," is thought to have originated from its use on early black and white television sets because it "popped" better during a broadcast, but also has a resemblance to the "Limed Mahogany" finish used on some TV cabinets back in the day...

 

england did not start transitioning to metric system until 1965.
and some imperial measurements are still popular there, one being the measure of distance using the mile to mark roads instead of the kilometer.

 

 

 

 

The river rapids ride concept was proposed by a dude named Bill Crandall who was general manager of Astroworld theme park in the '70s and early '80s in Houston. Astroworld introduced the world's first river rapids ride, Thunder River, in 1980 and popularized a concept which can now be found at most major amusement parks. The ride was developed by Intamin for Astroworld, and despite being an incredibly popular attraction, Astroworld's Thunder River (being a prototype) was initially plagued by issues that were corrected in the first few seasons of operation. The boat bumpers were re-designed, portions of the wide river channel were narrowed or barricaded to prevent boats from bottle-necking or getting caught in a backflow, and a planned whirlpool effect was scrapped...

 

 

 

All of the planets in our solar system, if laid side by side, would fit between the earth and the moon