Why the 13th Floor Is Missing in So Many Buildings

One thing is certain: when it comes to ensuring nice weather for the world's largest party, the Chinese cannot be accused of being subtle. The Chinese government authorized the use of 1,104 cloud seeding missile launches from 4:00-11:39 p.m. on Friday night to reduce the possibility of rain ahead of the 29th Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing

There are currently hundreds of deceased people in the U.S., including baseball legend Ted Williams, whose bodies are frozen in liquid nitrogen in hopes that future technology will be able to revive them.

In 1887, Susanna Salter became the first female mayor in the United States, elected in Argonia, Kansas. Her nomination was initially a prank by men opposing women in politics. However, she won by a landslide and served effectively, inspiring the women’s suffrage movement and breaking barriers for women in leadership.

While employed by Volvo in 1959, Swidish engineer Nils Bohlin created the three-point safety belt. Volvo first had the design patented, but soon as they discovered its importance as a new safety measure, they made the patent open to everyone. Millions of lives were genuinely spared by Volvo’s gift to the world.

Volcanic eruptions can devastate cities, change the world's atmosphere, and devastate economic systems. They can create molten lava rivers, mudslides, suffocating ash, and poisonous gases that cause chaos around the world for years. A volcanic explosion's effects can be massive, from its size to its death toll to its economic cost. Here is ten world’s most destructive and dangerous volcanic eruptions in history.

In 1978, Pilot Frederick Valentich and his plane disappeared in Australia. His last communication was “Melbourne that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again… (two seconds open microphone)… it is hovering and it’s not an aircraft…”

Before women were allowed to enroll in medical school, Margaret Ann Bulkley studied medicine and assumed the identity of Dr. James Barry for 56 years while dressing as a man. After 46 years of service as an army doctor officer, her secret was not made public until after her death in 1865.

During WWII, a German captain and an engineer flushed the submarine's high-tech toilet incorrectly, causing the vessel to rapidly fill with water. British planes patrolling the sea attacked them as the submarine was brought to the surface. While many members of the crew were killed in the attack, the captain escaped!

This clay tablet, written in cuneiform, is the oldest known written customer complaint about the delivery of poor quality copper ingots. Originally from ancient Babylon, the tablet dates back to 1750 BCE, and it was written by a customer named Nanni to a merchant named Ea-Nasir. It is currently housed in the British Museum.

Louis Le Prince, the inventor of motion pictures, vanished without a trace in 1890. Thomas Edison quickly claimed the title of "first and sole inventor of cinema," even taking Le Prince's son to court to dispute it. A few years later, the son also dies under mysterious circumstances.

Treadmills were originally a punishment used to harness human power on a giant wheel used to grind grains, hence the name "treadmill." The History of Treadmill

Before alarm clocks were invented, there was a profession called a knocker-up, which involved going from client to client and tapping on their windows (or banging on their doors) with long sticks until they were awake. It lasted into the 1920s.

Riley Horner, an Illinois teenager was accidentally kicked in the head. As a result of the injury, her memory resets every two hours, and she wakes up thinking every day is June 11. Riley keeps detailed notes of events happening throughout the day, and sets an alarm on her phone every two hours to remind her to review them. Riley also keeps a calendar in her room to remind her what day it is? As she wakes up every morning confused, thinking it's still June 11.

Australian blood donor James Harrison has been one of our most impressive and valued donors, having donated for 60 years. Know his story, how he was a pioneer of our Anti-D program, and why this matters.

A protestant man and a Catholic woman who weren't allowed from being buried together in a graveyard in 19th-century Holland turned their graves into a monument showing them holding hands across the wall separating them.

A man survived a sunken ship for nearly three days, 279 feet underwater and in complete darkness, while listening to fish eat the bodies of his shipmates.

Stephen hawking says humanity won't survive without leaving earth. In fact, human beings may have less than 200 years to figure out how to escape our planet

Thomas Baker instructed his team to leave him with a pistol and eight bullets propped up against a tree after he was injured. Later, American troops discovered the now-deceased Baker in the same location, lying next to eight dead Japanese soldiers and carrying an empty pistol.

Due to the steep mountains that surround it, the town of Rjukan, Norway, doesn't receive any natural sunlight from September to March. They placed large mirrors in the town square to reflect light. The mirror follows the path of the sun and moves every 10 seconds to create a 600m squared light pool.

Ancient Babylonians did math in base 60 instead of base 10. That's why we have 60 seconds in a minute and 360 degrees in a circle.

In 2013, a homeless man named Billy Ray Harris discovered a $4,000 engagement ring in this cup. A woman had dropped while giving him some change. He returned the ring to her two days later. To thank him for his honesty, she set up a fund with the goal of raising $4,000 for him. It earned more than $185,000.

in 1984 an contestant made it onto the game show Press Your Luck. He discovered using his stop-motion VCR that the presumed random patterns of the game board were not random and memorized the sequences. On the game he was on, he won 45 consecutive spins. winning $110,237 in cash & prizes.

David Vetter lived his whole 12 years in sterile “bubble”. He was “outside” for 20 second after being removed from his mother’s womb. He never touched any human.

Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr was also a mathematician and the inventor of frequency hopping spread spectrum, a technology still used for bluetooth and wifi

A Russian cargo plane was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan with Seven crew members aboard. After being held captive in Kandahar for over a year, the crewmen were able to overpower their captors, retake their plane and fly it out of Afghanistan to safety.