20 FUN FACTS

Here we present 20 curious facts, that perhaps you did not know

• 
  1.- In 1998, Sony had the opportunity to buy the rights to almost every Marvel 
  character for $ 25 million. They chose not to, save for Spider-Man, which they
   bought for 7 million. The reason? They did not consider the rest of the Marvel
   characters to be 'relevant'

• 2.- The Nazis burned all of Sigmund Freud's books. When he found out, the 
  well-known psychologist “praised” the progress: “In the Middle Ages they 
  would have burned me. Now they are happy to burn my books.

• 3. In 1959, a South Carolina librarian called the police because a 9-year-old
   black boy did not want to leave. The boy later earned a Ph.D. in physics from
   MIT and died in 1986 as one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger. 
  The library that in the past did not let him pick up books now bears his name, Ronald McNair. (Source)
  
  4. Angelina Jolie tried to hire a hit man to kill her when she was young, because 
  she believed that murder would be easier for her family to cope with than suicide.
   The hit man in question ended up talking to her and managed to convince her
   to wait a month and be able to seek treatment for her depression. (Source)
  
  5. In 1880, the director of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory was so frustrated
   with his team that he often said, "My Scottish maid would do a thousand times better!" 
  And he did. The director hired his maid, William Fleming, who became a team manager
   for decades, classified dozens of stars, and discovered the Horsehead Nebula in the 
  Orion Constellation (Source)
  
  6. Singer Billy Joel never sells the front row seats to see his true fans in front of him. 
  He usually gives them to people with cheap tickets, to show that the front row is not 
  always for rich people. (Source)
  
  7. Carrie Fisher sent a package containing a cow's tongue to a producer who had 
  abused a friend of hers. The actress sent a note along with the package that said: 
  "The next thing I send will be something of yours in a much smaller box" (Source)
  
  8. Lionel Royce, a Jewish actor, lost his job in Nazi Germany. Without giving up, 
  he went to the Alps, grew a beard and dyed all his hair by bathing in hydrogen peroxide. 
  He returned to the stage posing as an actor from the countryside, and was praised 
  by the Nazis in his career for the "superiority" that he demonstrated with his "Aryan blood." (Source)
  

  9. After Nintendo's failure to launch its Wii U console, company president Satoru Iwata 
  cut his salary in half for half a year so that his employees wouldn't have to suffer the 
  consequences of a mistake he knew yours. (Source)
  
  10. Arnold Schwarzenegger was not allowed to dub his own role in "Terminator" into 
  German, his mother tongue, because his accent was considered very "village" by Germanic 
  standards, and the production company considered that it would be very ridiculous to have 
  a killing machine from the future going back in time to talk to a villager. (Source)
  
  11. Kate Winslet keeps her Oscar in the bathroom so that her guests can hold it up and
   improvise their own thank you speeches without feeling observed. (Source)
  
  12. There is a restaurant in New York that does not have renowned chefs or cooks,
   as it employs grandmothers. Every day, a grandmother from a different part of the world 
  designs her own menu, which is offered in the restaurant. ()
  
  13. In 2015, when Queen Elizabeth II of England visited the set of "Game of Thrones" 
  she refused to sit on the Iron Throne because, according to protocol, as a queen she is 
  prohibited from sitting on a foreign throne. ()
  
  14. In 1992 Nirvana gave a concert in Buenos Aires where people did not seem satisfied with
   the opening act, Calamity Jane, a female group that they threw mud and trash at. Kurt Cobain
   was so concerned that he sabotaged the concert by playing the group's lesser-known songs and 
  made a pretense of playing “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” his biggest hit, but never did. (Source)
  
  15. “Lose Yourself” was the first rap song to win an Oscar for Best Original Song, but Eminem, 
  its author, neither saw the ceremony nor showed up to pick up the award because as he believed 
  he was not going to win, he stayed taking care and watching cartoons with her daughter. It was the
   first time in 14 years that the award winner did not perform at the gala. (Source)

  16. In Iceland there is a tradition called Jólabókaflóðið, where everyone gives each other books on
   Christmas Eve and they spend the night reading them and eating chocolate. (Source)
  
  17. The psychologist László Polgár launched an interesting theory: any child can become
   a prodigy in any field if you work with them from the time they are very young. As an 
  experiment to prove it, he trained his daughters in the art of chess from the age of four. 
  The three girls became chess prodigies; the youngest, Judit, is considered the best player in history. (Source)
  
  18. As a teenager, actor Chadwick Boseman, star of “Black Panther,” received a letter 
  confirming a place in a prestigious theater program at Oxford University, but could not
   afford to go. He obtained a scholarship through a private benefactor whose identity he did 
  not know. The patron turned out to be the Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington, who was able to 
  thank in first person for his gesture at the premiere of "Black Panther." ()

  
  19.- One of the odd bits of knowledge which visitors  to Chile sometimes pick up
   is that it is the only country in the world to span three continents.
  
  20.- Shakespeare incorporates more than 1000 words into English.