Yet as much as we might like to throw shade, Cruise is one of the world’s most beloved actors. Japan loves him so much, in fact, they gave him his own holiday on 10 October. And it’s hard to argue with his very successful career. In 1996, Cruise became the first actor to star in five consecutive movies that grossed over $100 million in the United States. His many accomplishments range from inventing the “movie star run” to earning his pilot’s license in 1994 and even saving lives in real life....

10The Toddler On A Swing It was maternal affection personified: a mother tirelessly pushing her young son on a park swing with no end in sight. But as hours passed, the warmth of that image faded. The mother continued swinging her child into the night . . . and into the next morning, followed by another night and another morning. Police were called in the early morning hours of May 22, 2015 to investigate....

SEE ALSO: 10 Politically Incorrect Vintage Cartoons 10‘Baby It’s Cold Outside,’ The Affirmative Consent Version If you’re a well-adjusted person who spends plenty of time off the Internet, you might have missed the controversy about Christmas song “Baby it’s Cold Outside.” Penned in the 1940s, the holiday favorite portrays a dance of seduction between a man and a woman. Innocuous? Sure. Until someone came along and decided the lyrics were about date rape....

This phrase, surprisingly, was used to sell Listerine mouthwash! To promote their product, the manufacturers of Listerine employed the personal experience of girls at the time, who desperately wanted to settle down but seemed always to be left on the shelf. First used in the 1920’s, it portrays a situation and a possible explanation for the lack of success these girls had. Here is the transcript of the ad: Poor Edna was getting on for thirty and most of her girlfriends were either already married, or about to tie the knot....

Some mistakes, however, are so colossal that they can change the world as we know it forever. The fates of nations and millions of people have sometimes hinged on a single bad decision. From the sinking of RMS Titanic to the selling of Alaska to the United States, here are ten big screwups that changed the course of history. 10 The Dutch Not Bothering To Claim Australia Before Captain James Cook, a British explorer, landed on the eastern coast of Australia, the Dutch had sailed to it over 100 years earlier in 1606....

10The Flint Rock Paintings In Flint, Michigan there is a humongous slab of concrete known to locals as “The Block” or sometimes just “The Rock,” which we’re sure has led to endless people mistaking the concrete cube for Dwayne Johnson due to their similar appearance and name. But we digress. For decades, citizens of Flint have been painting things onto the Rock. Why? Well, nobody really knows. All we know is that over the years the Rock has been covered in hundreds of layers of paint featuring everything from declarations of love to political views....

10Melchizedek Probably the single most mysterious figure in the Bible, Melchizedek was a priest-king of Salem (later known as Jerusalem) in the time of Abram (Abraham), suggesting a religious organization, complete with ritual and hierarchy, that predated the Jewish nation and their priestly lineage from the tribe of Levi. He is only portrayed as active in one passage, although he is alluded to once in Psalms, and several times in the New Testament’s Epistle to the Hebrews....

However, the existence of other genders is actually normal among some tribes, nations, and religions, which have recognized more than two genders for centuries. In fact, they may identify up to six different genders. 10 The Hijra Of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, And Nepal Hijras are men who consider themselves to be women. They behave like women, use makeup, and wear female clothes. They are legally recognized as the third gender in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal....

Well, don’t get your hopes up. According to several mediums and psychics, even long-dead ones, 2022 won’t be a year to look forward to—for basically anyone. Read on for some of the most disastrous and truly strange predictions made about the next 12 months. 10 Royal Calamity The British monarchy has had a tough couple of years with scandals popping up all over the place. Queen Elizabeth has had to put out fires left, right, and center—and then her husband died, leaving her to cope on her own....

When your middle school teacher showed you how to find the hypotenuse of a right triangle, you probably didn’t get down on your knees and start worshiping him as a god. But when it first happened in ancient Greece, that was pretty much how people reacted. There was a whole cult behind the man who figured out how to measure the side of a triangle, and—as you might imagine—they had some pretty strange beliefs....

Nevertheless, there are lots of facts you might not know about the US Congress, such as their private subway, their television station, and their fondness for editing Wikipedia. Here are ten surprising facts you didn’t know about the United States Congress. 10 They’ve Had A Lower Approval Rating Than Cockroaches, Dog Poop, And Zombies A 2013 survey of 502 registered voters by Public Policy Polling revealed that Americans have a very low opinion of Congress....

Despite this, some people kill multiple times—whether through mass murders, spree killings, or serial slayings. A handful of these multiple murderers were jailed but given the chance to reenter society later. 10 Mika Kalevi Muranen On April 17, 1994, 23-year-old Mika Kalevi Muranen, a conscript with the Finnish army, returned to the barracks after a holiday. Instead of resuming duty, Muranen stole an assault rifle and traveled to his hometown, Kotka....

But on the Internet, none of those events compared to a gorilla that got killed in May 2016. Today, we’ll be looking back on 10 minor things that the Internet blew out of proportion. 10 Harambe The Gorilla Sparks Death Threats In May 2016, a young boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo, forcing a zookeeper to take the life of Harambe, a 17-year-old gorilla that had grabbed the boy....

10When Do We First Recognize Words? Babies aren’t born knowing how to speak, but they are capable of recognizing certain sounds. Studies done by the University of Helsinki have found that newborn babies will react to the sound of music that they were exposed to in the womb, and other studies have shown that babies that are regularly exposed to certain words—even made-up ones—will recognize these words and react to them once they’re born....

But that’s not what we’re here for today. Here, I want to focus you on some facts about McDonald’s that are positive, amazing, and just plain interesting. Here are ten things about McDonald’s that you probably never knew. 10 McDonald’s Started Out Selling Hot Dogs In the 1930s, brothers Richard “Dick” and Maurice “Mac” McDonald took out a $5,000 loan and started the worldwide corporation which we know today as McDonald’s....

How many wives did Henry VIII have? The answer? Two, not six. Henry’s fourth marriage to Anne was annulled, as the marriage was never consummated, in other words it was seen to that the marriage technically never took place, also Anne happened to be betrothed to Francis, Duke of Lorraine. At the time ‘betrothal’ would bar the individual from marriage. So that leaves 5 wives. Henry’s second marriage to Anne Boleyn was declared illegal by the pope, because the king was still married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon....

The Brazil nut is one of the most radioactive foods in the world; however, don’t think that eating several handfuls of them will give you superpowers. It won’t (we tried). Instead, as one unfortunate obsessive nut eater found, doing this will just make your poop and urine extremely radioactive. The reason for this radioactivity is simple: the roots of the tree that produce the Brazil nut grow so deep into the ground that they absorb massive levels of radium, a naturally-occurring source of radiation....

But it happens that sometimes an alien rock falls to Earth, becomes a meteor, and then, for some reason, decides to leave our atmosphere to continue its journey through space. Below, we will see ten examples of meteors that exhibited this behavior, some of which even became awe-inspiring spectacles. 10 Japan Earth-Grazer2006 As stated in the introduction, meteors generally occur when space rocks burn and disintegrate upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere....

10 The Neolithic Tomb Turned Into A Picnic Table Spain is full of historical monuments. The ones over 100 years old must be registered with the government so that they can be preserved. Despite the laws protecting them, they are sometimes damaged. For example, builders in a Galician village once mistook a Neolithic tomb for a picnic table and “repaired it.” The site had heritage status but had not been marked for some unknown reason....

10A Confused Low-Level Drunk Ends The Cold War Berlin was the temperature gauge of the Cold War—if you wanted to know how close the world was to committing suicide, you just looked to the divided city. And in 1989, things weren’t looking great for the communists. The Iron Curtain was crumbling. Due to a legal loophole, hordes of East Germans were able to flee into Hungary and cross into West Germany from there....