Page 10 - Best of the Month

Before the 20th Century, Sugar was sold as a big rock which required special tools to break pieces off!

In our modern day and age, sugar is found in tiny grains, or even sometimes in a cube form. This method of refining sugar only came into existence at the beginning of the 20th Century. So, what did people do with sugar before?

Sugar used to be refined into what was called a Sugarloaf, a tall cone shape with a rounded top. Although we view it as a funny looking way to refine sugar, historians believe that people in Jordan have been making sugarloaves since at least the 12th Century!

Typically, the bigger the sugarloaf, the lower the grade of sugar. If you wanted a lot of sugar that wasn't very sweet, then you would buy a big loaf. However, if you wanted a really strong sweet taste, you would buy a very small sugarloaf. A small sugarloaf was approximately 5 inches high and 5 inches in diameter at the base. A large sugarloaf was anywhere from 10-14 inches in diameter at the base, and up to 30 inches tall!

If you've got a sweet tooth, check out the source to learn how sugarloaves were made!

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Hitler's toilet is in a New Jersey auto shop!

After a crazy turn of events, the authentic toilet of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, is sitting in an auto shop in a small town in New Jersey - along with his sink faucets. But the question remains, how did they get there?

Adolf Hitler owned the world's largest private yacht at the time, the Aviso Grille. The yacht was between 400 and 500 feet long, and Hitler was planning to sail it down the Thames in London and go live in the Palace in Windsor. Well, things didn't turn out that way for Hitler (thank goodness), and the ship was sent to the states after the war ended.

After briefly being used as an illegal museum, the United States government ordered that the ship was to be scrapped because they feared the yacht would become an Adolf Hitler appreciation museum. The ship was scrapped, however, the a scrapyard owner decided he didn't want to scrap some of the finer things in the yacht - like the toilet. The scrapyard owner gave the toilet and faucets to a friend who was remodeling his bathroom, however they ended up in his auto body shop after he found out the toilet's origin!

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Those rounded bumps on the painted lane dividers have a special name!

We see them every day but only know them as “the round bumps on the painted lane dividers that make noise and make my car feel funny when I drive over them”.

Well, good news for you is that you are about to learn their real name. Are you ready? Botts’ dots!Botts’ dots are those round non-reflective raised pavement markers you tend to see at most of the roads you tend to travel in your car every day.

They are named after their creator; Dr. Elbert Dysart Botts, who created these so that they could be used along with reflective, raised pavement markers, to mark lanes on highways and certain roads!

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Compared to the rest of the world, Americans aren't more or less religious. However, they're twice as likely to say they are!

Americans often talk a big game. Usually, they deliver on this. When it comes to religion, that is not the case. Two in five Americans say they regularly attend church. Ninety percent of Americans believe in God and seventy percent have no doubt whatsoever that He exists.

You would think that Americans are far more religious than the rest of the world. You would be wrong. According to social scientists who went beyond the polls and conducted more in-depth research, Americans are no more religious than citizens of other industrialized nations. They just like to think that they are--apparently religion is attached to their sense of identity.

Asking them if they're religious is like asking them if they are good people. They feel that they should be so they say that they are. In reality, Americans are no more religious than citizens of other nations.

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The company that produced the original Tomb Raider game wanted to include a 'Nude Cheat'!

Lara Croft, the main character in the Tomb Raider franchise is seen as a misogynistic sex symbol to most acting feminists around the world, however the argument can be made that the intention was to make a strong independent woman who doesn't need a man to tell her what to do. Although, Core Design, the gaming company responsible for creating the first Tomb Raider game, had originally intended to use sex appeal to lure people to play the game.

The company gave Toby Gard creative control of the game, and he oversaw the creation of all the cut scenes, and even designed the games levels, as well as story boards. However, Core wanted Gard to put a secret cheat in the game known as the 'Nude Cheat' that would allow gamers to play as a naked version of Lara Croft.

Toby Gard, however, shot the idea down almost instantly. He wanted Lara Croft to be seen as a strong heroine, rather than a sexy video game character used to lure in males to raise game sales.

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