Mental Floss: Instant Knowledge (40 page)

USEFUL FOR:
impressing preschool teachers, scientists, or any six-year-old with shoes

KEYWORDS:
natural inventions, inspiration, or cockleburs

THE FACT:
The idea for Velcro, one of the greatest inventions in the world (at least for anyone whose ever struggled with tying their laces), started as a thorn in someone’s side, literally!

Isaac Newton beneath the apple tree. Archimedes shouting “Eureka!” in the bathtub. And Georges de Mestral going for a walk in the woods. The greatest discoveries often stem from mundane observations, and while gravity (Newton) and measurable density (Archimedes) are cool and everything, nothing beats the sweet music of parting Velcro. Mestral, a Swiss engineer, returned home after a walk in 1948 to find cockleburs stuck to his coat. After examining one under a microscope, he noted that cockleburs attach to clothes and fur via thin hooks. Eureka! It took de Mestral eight years to develop his product. But in the end, the twin nylon strips worked precisely like a cocklebur on a coat—one strip features burlike hooks and the other thousands of small loops to which they attach, forming an unusually sticky bond.

(Czechoslovakia’s Quiet Riot)

USEFUL FOR:
impressing your history teacher, chatting up rebels or revolutionaries, and instigating shy rabble-rousers the world over

KEYWORDS:
velvet, silky smooth, and revolution

THE FACT:
Few people believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. Václav Havel and his bloodless revolution might be the best argument for it.

This brave poet and playwright was jailed repeatedly in the 1970s for writing works critical of the communist government in then-Czechoslovakia. With civil unrest rising, he was jailed in February 1989, but kept turning out influential plays, poems, and essays, and even winning literary awards. Set free in May, he helped stoke a peaceful resistance movement known as “the Velvet Revolution.” Havel became the focal point of a largely peaceful revolution, where large crowds of nonviolent demonstrators showed their disapproval of the ruling communists. Havel addressed crowds that sometimes numbered almost a million. By the end of the year, the communist government was out and Havel had been elected president. He served as president of Czechoslovakia—and later, when the country split in two, of the Czech Republic—for 13 years, retiring in 2003. The tally? Poetry 1, communism 0!

(as in chugging way too much of it)

USEFUL FOR:
barroom banter, killing other people’s buzzes, and chatting up teetotalers

KEYWORDS:
I am soooo drunk right now

THE FACT:
Sure, there are beer-drinking contests, so why not vodka-drinking contests? Well, here’s why.

In 2003 a bar in the southern Russian town of Volgodonsk decided to hold just such a competition. After all, Russians are famous for their ability to hold their vodka, and annual consumption is over 15 liters
per person
. The winner would get…well, more vodka. Ten liters of it, to be exact. Sadly, the winner never got to claim his prize. After downing 1.5
liters
of vodka in under 40 minutes (which is about 51 shots) the vodka champ passed away, about 20 minutes later. What about the runners-up? The five other contestants got treated to full luxury stays in intensive care. Scarily enough, many of the ones who weren’t hospitalized actually showed up at the same bar the next night.

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties, barroom banter, and anywhere that liquor and film buffs pleasantly mix

KEYWORDS:
W. C. Fields, chickadee, or I’ll drink to that

THE FACT:
Of all the alcoholic comedians, the bulbous-nosed W. C. Fields (né William Claude Dukenfield) was by far the least embarrassed by his indulgence.

Fields started his career as a juggler, but found fame with his impeccable wit and comic timing, first on Broadway and then in the movies. Although also noted for his dislike of children (“Any man who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad”) and his ostentatious immorality (he claimed to religiously study the Bible—in search of loopholes), Fields is probably best known for his drinking. At his peak, Fields downed two
quarts
of gin daily. “I like to keep a bottle of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy,” he once remarked. Fields died on his least favorite of days—Christmas—in 1946.

(on drugs)

USEFUL FOR:
cocktail parties and impressing your history teacher (as well as the kids who never attended his class)

KEYWORDS:
Nazis, cocaine, chewing gum with a kick

THE FACT:
As strange as it sounds, during World War II Nazi Germany definitely led the pack in its use of amphetamines, cocaine, and other “performance-enhancing” drugs.

In fact, amphetamine pills were included in every German soldier’s first-aid kit, and Nazi researchers developed chewing gum that delivered a dose of cocaine with each piece. But that wasn’t all! According to a book by German author and criminologist Wolf Kemper on the subject,
Nazis on Speed
, one of the compounds tested by the Nazis in 1944, D-IX, was actually a cocaine-based compound that included both amphetamine and a morphine-related chemical to dull pain. The experimental drug was tested on prisoners of war, and Nazi doctors found the test subjects could march 55 miles without a rest before they collapsed. The Nazis hoped that the drug could put some fighting spirit into their armies, which were by that time being defeated on all fronts, but luckily the war ended before production could begin.