Astronomer Percival Lowell believed that he was the first person to observe canals on Venus, but because of a faulty adjustment of the eyepiece on his telescope, he was in fact looking at the blood vessels in his own eye.
6
Just before the US started bombing Baghdad, nearly $1 billion dollars was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq and is now the largest bank robbery in history.
158
Leonardo Da Vinci made a robotic lion in 1515 that would walk, sway, open its mouth and move its tail - it even had a compartment that opened to present flowers.
22
Genghis Khan exempted the poor and clergy from taxes, encouraged literacy, and established free religion, leading many peoples to join his empire before they were even conquered.
28
Rio de Janeiro was once capital of Portugal, making it the only European capital outside of Europe.
9
