Places & Culture

In November 2017, the Tsukuba Express line in Japan issued a formal public apology after a train departed Minami-Nagareyama station 20 seconds ahead of schedule. Not 20 minutes. Twenty seconds. The statement read: "We sincerely apologize for the great inconvenience." Not a single passenger had complained.

Argentine farmer Pedro Martin Ureta spent over 20 years planting thousands of cypress and eucalyptus trees across his Pampas farmland in the shape of a guitar — a tribute to his wife Graciela, who dreamed of seeing one from the air before she passed in 1977. The guitar spans roughly one kilometer and is visible on Google Earth. Ureta, who is afraid of flying, has never seen his finished creation from above.

Barbra Streisand sued a photographer for $50 million to remove an aerial photo of her Malibu mansion from the internet. Before the lawsuit, it had been downloaded exactly 6 times. Two of those were her own lawyers. After the lawsuit, 420,000 people viewed it in a single month. She lost the case and paid $177,000 in legal fees. The entire phenomenon of trying to suppress something and making it more famous is now called "The Streisand Effect."

Kandovan’s cone-shaped homes are carved from volcanic rock—and people still live inside them.

In Portugal, it's illegal for your employer to contact you outside of working hours — companies face fines of nearly €10,000 per violation.

Latvia has the largest gender imbalance in Europe. Women outnumber men by over 130,000 — in a country of just 1.86 million people.

On very long, boring roads in Australia, they put up trivia signs to keep drivers alert. One sign asks a question, and a few kilometres later another sign gives the answer.

In Japan, there's a bar for people thinking of quitting their jobs. The drinks are free.

The town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, has been on fire since 1962. An underground coal seam ignited, creating sinkholes that vent toxic gas, forcing nearly everyone to leave. The fire still burns today and could continue for 250 more years.

Japan has over 21,000 businesses that are more than 100 years old, more than any other country. Among them is Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, a hot spring hotel founded in 705 AD that holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest hotel in the world.

In Japan, there's a phone booth called the 'Wind Phone' where people can speak to deceased loved ones. It has received over 30,000 visitors since 2011.

In Sweden, blood donors receive a text message whenever their blood is used to save someone's life.

Every baby born in Finland gets a government-issued cardboard box. Inside: clothes, diapers, sleeping bag, mattress, and supplies. The box itself is the baby's first bed. Finland started this in 1938 — and its infant mortality rate dropped from one of Europe's worst to one of the world's best.

Dunkin' Donuts rigged nearly 500 city buses across Seoul with hidden scent atomizers. Every time the Dunkin' jingle played on the radio, the bus filled with the smell of fresh coffee. Commuters would step off — right next to a Dunkin' location. Store visits near bus stops jumped 16%. Coffee sales shot up 29%.

The Sentinelese are a people who live on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean called North Sentinel Island. For thousands of years, they have refused all contact with the outside world. Using only stones and arrows, they have successfully repelled all invaders and remain one of the last uncontacted tribes in the world.

On 2nd Nov 2017, President Trump's Twitter account was deactivated for 11 minutes by a departing Twitter employee.

In 2000, the KKK adopted a stretch of highway near St Louis, the MO government responded by renaming the road the “Rosa Parks Highway.”

In 2008, a 13-year-old boy in Florida was arrested for excessive farting in school.

In 2006, the CEO of Whole Foods reduced his salary to $1 a year, donated his entire portfolio to charity, and set up a $100,000 fund for staff facing personal problems.

After being dumped for being poor by his ex-girlfriend seven years prior, a Chinese man spent $40,000 booking four entire IMAX cinemas for first-day showings of Transformers 4 - just to prove her wrong.