A Doctor saved thousands of Jews by making up an epidemic!

A Polish WWII doctor saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust by creating a fake Typhus epidemic which played on racist German phobias about hygiene.

Just to preface this, this man was so influential that he was called “the Polish Schindler.” His name was Dr. Eugene Lazowski, and was a Polish doctor who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust with an ingenious scheme.

He created a fake epidemic that played on German phobias to help save people. With the help of a friend, he created a fake outbreak of Typhus, a dangerous infectious disease. The Germans reacted by quarantining the area he had “designated” the outbreak to be at.

In total, the quarantine saved around 8,000 Polish Jews from death in concentration camps. In doing so, Lazowski had risked the death penalty. Despite this, it was a great success, and he went on to live many more years. He died back in 2006.

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It’s possible to jump over the flagpole in the original Super Mario Bros.

If you’ve ever played Super Mario Bros for the NES, you know what we’re talking about. 24 of the 32 levels in the game end with a flagpole. The higher you are on the flagpole when you hit it, the higher score bonus you get. After hitting the flagpole, the level ends. The folks down at Game Trailers figured out that you can, in fact, jump over the pole.

There are two methods, both with the same result. The first method only works on level 3-3, where by taking advantage of a lift, Mario can leap over the flagpole. The second method, much more complicated, involves hitting a turtle just as it falls into a pit. This causes a glitch that makes the turtle run along the bottom of the screen. By keeping the turtle in sight, when jumping to the top of the flagpole, Mario will get an extra bounce that bumps him over.

This method works on most levels that have turtles in them. Both lead to the same result. After clearing the flagpole, you’re stuck on an endless brick road. You can’t turn around, so all you can do is keep running until the clock runs out and you die.

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In an attempt to attract publicity, Badminton New Zealand chose 'Black Cocks' as a nickname for their national teams.

Badminton New Zealand is an organization established in 1927 by Archdeacon Ralph Creed Meredith of Whanganui, one of its first champions. Badminton New Zealand has 27 regional member associations and organizes the New Zealand Open tournament- basically what you would expect from any country’s national sports teams.

To attract publicity, sponsorship, players, and fans, the name “Black Cocks” was chosen. Did it work? Well they did get a lot more publicity, and condom companies grew interest in sponsoring them. Still, it was treated as more of a joke, and eventually it was officially dropped.

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In Dark Knight Rises, Bane needed to wear 3-inch heels to look Batman in the eyes!

Tom Hardy, who we all know as Bane in the recent Batman movie, stands around 5 foot 9. It’s ordinarily not that short of a height, but compared to Christian Bale, who is six feet tall, there’s a bit of a height difference.

During the production of The Dark Knight Rises, the studio executives were keen on having Bane be the same height as Batman. It’s not uncommon for actors to have to wear lifts to match or exceed the height of their co-stars. It’s arguably more common in theater, but it still happens in film.

For Tom Hardy, three inch lifts were made. It was so that he could see eye to eye with both Bale and Morgan Freeman, as they’re both above six feet.

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NASA taped over the original moon landing recordings.

A few years back, NASA released a digital makeover of the moon landing footage, clearing up the poor quality of the imagery. The footage includes Neil and Buzz walking on the moon. Though these updated recordings have been out for a few years now, back in 2006 NASA revealed they had recorded over the original video of the landing.

The tapes were part of 20,000 tapes that were magnetically erased and re-used to save money. Wiping and reusing tapes, or even outright destroying footage, was pretty standard practice several decades ago. Doctor Who, for example, which has recently become very popular on the internet, is missing numerous episodes from the 60’s and 70’s for the same reason.

There are good copies of the tapes laying around, however, which is good. And the footage isn’t exactly lost, either. You can clearly view it on YouTube today.

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