11 Fascinating Facts You Might Not Have Known

1. 12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and generates $2bn per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect

2. Gary Webb, the reporter from the San Jose Mercury News who first broke the story of CIA involvement in the cocaine trade, was found dead with “two gunshot wounds to the head.” His death, in 2004, was ruled a suicide

3. A man who committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge had left a suicide note that read “I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I won’t jump.”

4. In 1903 after camping with John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt established Yosemite as a national park to preserve its “majestic beauty all unmarred.” As President, TR signed into existence four other national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird & wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests

5. In 1980, Nauru the island nation was considered the wealthiest nation on the planet; in 2017, BusinessTech listed it as one of the five poorest countries in the world.

6. There is a company that secretly takes continuous, rapid, high-resolution aerial photos of crime-plagued cities to help police “rewind” time to view a crime as it happens and then to “fast-forward” the movement of suspects to their present locations.

7. A “devil’s advocate” was a person sanctioned by the Vatican to argue against the canonization of a potential new saint by pointing out their flaws and critically evaluating their miracles. Christopher Hitchens served as a devil’s advocate for Mother Theresa.

8. In Delhi, India, there’s a vigilante group of guys called the “Love Commandos” that protects young couples who are from different castes or religious backgrounds, but have fallen in love and want to marry.

9. An American man was arrested near the border of Afghanistan while hunting down Osama bin Laden with a sword.

10. He posted on 4chan before doing it, asking for advice:

11. People leave pennies on John Wilkes Booth’s grave to give Lincoln the last word