An infamous episode of the X-Files was based on something that happened to Charlie Chaplin!

'Home' is the title of an infamous X-Files episode being notorious for being the first X-Files episode for having a parental warning at the beginning of an episode. In it, Mulder and Scully find a family of inbred, mutated freaks in a small town called 'Home.'

The show had shocking images and an atmosphere that resembled the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The script turned a lot of heads at Fox. Some executives even called it immoral. Turns out, the writers based the script on the real life experiences of Charlie Chaplin.

Chaplin was touring England in a musical. He went to stay in an old boarding house. The family who ran it liked him and asked him to come upstairs to show him something not many people saw. There was a man with no arms or legs. Then, they started dancing and the kid flopped around. When they were done, the kid lay on his back and was rolled under the bed.

That anecdote showed up in an autobiography and the writer of the episode thought that he just had to do something like that at some point in his life.

(Source)

Seconds used to be called 'Second Minutes'

Seconds are passing constantly, and we never really pay attention to them unless we are timing something, waiting for something, or we happen to be looking directly at a clock. Like most things in the English language, referring to 1/60th of a minute is known as a 'second'. Although, few people are aware that referring to that particular unit of measurement as a 'second' is actually slang.

Let's rewind to the days of Middle English. In the middle ages, people called 1/60 of a minute 'second minutes' because it is the 'second' operation when dividing an hour by sixty. As time progressed, at some point people became extremely lazy and didn't want to say 'second minutes' so they just started saying 'seconds'!

(Source)

There is a giant salt city 1200ft below Detroit!

Not many Detroit citizens are aware that when they walk of the streets of their humble city, they are walking on top of a 1,500 acres salt mine. The mine stretches from Detroit's metropolitan area, all the way to Melvindale and Allen Park in the South West.

The Detroit Salt and Manufacturing Company shut the mine down in 1983, when the fall of salt prices had caused the company to start losing business. But, the mine was a thriving location in the 1920's all the way up to the 1950's. Allegedly, thousands of citizens would flock to the mines for guided tours, including children on field trips!

The mine, even at it's busiest of times, was according to the worker's clean, and rodent free. One of the reasons the mine was surprisingly rodent free is because rats would have absolutely nothing to eat besides what was left behind by the miners lunch pails. As a result, nothing lived in the mines, nor were there any signs of anything living in past ages.

(Source)

A Japanese artist made a sculpture of himself that was so lifelike people couldn't tell the difference between it and himself!

Hananuma Masakichi learned he was dying of tuberculosis, and being an artist, decided he would leave something behind so everyone would know exactly what he looked like back in the 1800’s. Masakichi decided to make a wooden sculpture that would be extremely lifelike.

He worked on each body part separately, and painted and lacquered the wood to match his skin tone and accurately portray every tendon, muscle, bone, vein, and wrinkle. He crafted glass eyes that are also stunningly realistic. Amazingly, he even plucked a tiny hole for each of his pores! He used his own teeth, hair, and nails also!

By the time he was finished, even when standing right next to his work of art, people had difficulty knowing which was real and which was fake!

(Source)

There's a man whose brain sees numbers with shapes, colors and feels. He can recite over 22k digits of Pi!

Savants are fascinating to observe because their brains are so incredible. While completely incapable of performing some tasks, they are so incredibly amazing at doing others that it has captured worldwide attention.

Daniel Tammet is one of these savants, who claims that numbers result in an emotional result in each person. For example, he claims each positive integer up to 10,000 has it's own shape, color, and feel. The number 289 is extremely ugly, while 333 is strangely attractive. Pi he describes as beautiful. 9 is large and towering, while 25 is fun and would be invited to a party.

This may sound bizarre to most of us, but to a savant it makes perfect sense. Tammet currently holds the world record for reciting the most digits of pi at 22,514, and taking only a week per language, learned Romanian, Gaelic, Welsh, Icelandic, and six others!

(Source)