In 1799, a boy found a 17lb. rock in a creek in North Carolina and used it as a doorstop. It was actually gold.
34
Beethoven, was told by a music teacher that he had no talent for music. In fact, this teacher once remarked, “As a composer he is hopeless.”
184
Ice cream cones were popularized in America during the 1904 World’s Fair in Saint Louis when an ice cream vendor ran out of cups and asked a nearby waffle vendor to roll up his waffles to hold the ice cream.
17
France’s King Louis XIV was offered biological weapons by an Italian chemist. He not only refused, but also paid the chemist an annual salary to never reveal the technology to anyone else.
21
The oldest stone tools found are dated from 2.7 - 2.9 million years ago. The species that made these tools is unknown.
13
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.
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