Approximately 25,000 workers died during the building of the Panama Canal, and approximately 20,000 of them contracted malaria and yellow fever.
14
The first coast-to-coast telephone line was established in 1914.
33
Leonardo da Vinci was dyslexic, and he often wrote backwards.
77
Mahatma Gandhi used to travel with his goat so that he could have fresh milk.
11
Romans used a plant called Silphium as contraception. They had so much sex that they drove it into extinction.
24
After Germany surrendered in WW2, people in Moscow partied until the entire city actually ran out of vodka.
66
Allegedly, Chrysippus, the Greek philosopher, died of laughter after getting his donkey drunk and watching it try to eat figs.
47
In 1518, a "dancing plague" struck Strasbourg, Alsace, whereby hundreds of people danced fervently in the streets over the period of a month. Some suffered heart attacks or strokes, and many others died from sheer exhaustion. It remains unexplained.
19