If you speed in Finland, you could get a $200,000 ticket! How?
Both Finland and Denmark do speeding tickets a little differently than we do in America. While we have set fines for every person, theirs are determined by a person’s annual income. The person who ended up breaking the record for the most expensive speeding ticket ever was the 27-year-old heir to a northern European meatpacking empire and had earned around $11.5 million that year alone.
After intricate calculation by Finland’s courts, the fine of $200,000 was deemed appropriate. So what was this ludicrous fine for? You’d assume he was going 50, 60, or maybe even 70 miles over the speed limit, yet strangely he was doing 50 mph in a 25, making the outrageous fine seem even more outrageous!
Michael Jordan’s son once lost his school a $3 million Adidas contract because he would only wear Nike!
Michael Jordan’s son attended the University of Central Florida and played basketball there. At the time, the university had a contract with UFC and Adidas, which mandated that all sports members wear only their brand. Jordan’s son was told he could not wear his traditional Nike attire and flat out refused, saying the white Air Jordans were sentimental to him and his family.
Because he would not comply with the rule, Central Florida was forced to break the contract they had with Adidas, losing them over $3 million in revenue!
The Germans once constructed a fake tree to spy on the allies!
One of the strangest and most clever disguises ever used in war was by the Germans against the British during World War I. During a standstill between the trenches in Belgium, the Germans felt trapped and needed a way to spy on the British who were hiding and what they did to solve the problem was ingenious.
The trenches were surrounded by trees, and when the Germans attempted to climb the trees to spy, they were immediately shot down. To solve the problem they took sections from a steel pipe and formed them to look like a tree. Inside the pipe, which was plated and 25 feet tall, there was a ladder and a seat behind a window so they could spy.
The only problem was that it would have been pretty obvious if a random tree sprouted overnight, so they waited until nighttime, cut down a real tree, and put the fake one in exactly the same place. For the next seven months, even after the British had tunneled under German trenches and taken the area, the fake tree remained undetected. To this day, it remains one of the smartest and simplest devices used to spy on an enemy!
Ever wondered what the city with the most billionaires is? It’s not what you’d think!
Most people would initially guess New York, London, or Beijing, but it is actually Moscow! In fact, 78 of the world’s richest people live there and are cumulatively worth $334 billion! New York is in second place with 57 billionaires while London is in third. So why are there so many rich people in Moscow?
Moscow is a huge part of the Russian economy. The city accounts for 22% of the whole Russian economy. Moscow is not just the financial capital of Russia but also home to most of the largest companies in Russia. Such concentration of wealth is not unheard of, specially in countries with new economies, and if you consider that Moscow was the absolute center of power of Communist Russia, then it makes sense that the power stayed in the city, once they became a capitalist economy.
A con man 'sold' the Brooklyn Bridge twice a week to tourists!
George Parker is one of the most notorious con men in American history. He became infamous for repeatedly selling New York’s public landmarks to unsuspecting tourists. His personal favorite was the Brooklyn Bridge, but he also routinely sold Madison Square Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Statue of Liberty. In fact, he was so convincing that tourists would often attempt to erect tolls to collect money after they made a “purchase” and had to be removed by the police! So how did he trick people into buying a bridge?
He would sometimes pose as the original owner’s grandson or set up a fake office and seem legitimate. He was so incredible at forging documents that even educated travelers thought they were real. Parker was eventually caught and sentenced to life in prison, where he was extremely popular among the guards and criminals who loved to hear his outlandish tales!
