Trivia

1. There is a restaurant in Pittsburgh called the Conflict Kitchen that only serves foods from countries that the USA is currently in conflict with.
2. Jin Yuzhang, the rightful emperor of China, works in local politics and is a member of a local council.
3. Between the time it was discovered and the time it was unclassified as a planet, Pluto didn't even complete one revolution around the sun.
4. The trained tomb guards for the Tomb of the Unknowns are identified by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Guard Identification Badge, the second least awarded badge in the U.S. military, surpassed only by the Astronaut Badge.
5. In an alternate ending to *Breaking Bad*, Walter White wakes up as Hal from *Malcolm in the Middle*.
6. Ernest Hemingway was a fantastic cook, famed for his pan-fried hamburgers and bacon wrapped trout.
7. The word evolution does not appear once in *On the Origin of Species* by Charles Darwin, instead he uses the word "transmutation".
8. All US astronauts are required to learn Russian as part of their extensive training, and have to be able to run the ISS using Russian language training manuals if necessary.
9. Steven Spielberg submitted *Schindler's List* as his final film project to pass the advanced filmmaking class (FEA 309) at Cal State Long Beach. He finally earned his degree in 2002, 34 years after he dropped out of the school.
10. In *the Matrix*, Neo's passport expires on September 11, 2001.
11. When at a job interview at Google, they don't ask for test scores, as they don't believe there is a correlation with test scores and success.
12. There are no known recordings of George Orwell's voice and only one known video of him.
13. Bob Ross painted a grayscale landscape after meeting a color-blind man who thought he would never be able to paint.
14. The Krups Type 223 Coffina Super coffee grinder was used as a prop in *Alien*, as a piece of scientific equipment on the *Nostromo*, and in *Back to the Future* as the Mr. Fusion.
15. Test audiences for *Good Night and Good Luck* thought the actor playing Joseph McCarthy was too over the top, not realizing that the film used actual archive footage of Joseph McCarthy.
16. Of all the highest points per country, the lowest is a golf course on Addu Atoll of the Maldives. It is 7.9 ft above sea level.
17. The astronauts aboard Apollo 11 couldn't afford the life insurance policy for an astronaut, so they hatched an alternate plan. Prior to their mission, the three signed hundreds of autographs while under quarantine for their families to sell if anything were to happen to them.
18. Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone, survived: a three story fall, a gunpowder explosion, drinking a bowl of sulfuric water, a near-poisoning due to furniture varnish, and falling into a speeding river - all before the age of nine.
19. Every President with a beard has been a Republican.
20. *Sesame Street* in Nigeria has a version of Cookie Monster named Zobi the Yam Monster. Since not many Nigerian children have access to cookies, the producers decided to give Zobi an insatiable craving for one of the country’s staple foods. He often shouts out, “Me eat yam!”.
21. The cast and crew of the *the Martian* presented a Mars rover used in the film to Jordan in return for the hospitality they received while filming there, and it is now exhibited in Jordan's Royal Automobile Museum.
22. Jeremiah Denton, an American POW in North Vietnam, blinked his eyes in Morse code, spelling out "T-O-R-T-U-R-E", during a televised press conference in which he was forced to participate.
23. The American flag present on the deck of the *USS Missouri* during signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender was the same flag that Matthew Perry flew when the U.S. Navy's Far East Squadron sailed into Tokyo Bay to force the opening of Japan's ports to foreign trade.
24. In 2007, the White Stripes preformed a one-note concert on George Street in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
25. Edmund Bacon, the father of Kevin Bacon, co-designed LOVE Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.