IG-88, the bounty hunter droid in Empire Strikes Back, was built from recycled props from the first movie!

Bounty hunter was introduced in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Ralph McQuarrie's production sketches show a sleeker design than the droid that appears in The Empire Strikes Back. The term "IG-88" itself is not the original label either. The script called the character a "chrome war droid", and during production it was called Phlutdroid. The production puppet was actually made out of recycled props from A New Hope, including the Mos Eisley Cantina drink dispenser as its head.

The 1980 film was directed by Irvin Kershner and was the second to be released of the six films. George Lucas was the executive producer and writer of the film’s story. The film is set three years after the original Star Wars. It initially received mixed reviews by critics, but has since grown in esteem and popularity. In 2010, the film was chosen for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

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Flames get their shape due to gravity!

When you strike a match, you get a flame of burning gases. Vaporized fuel from the match mixes with air and produces heat by a chemical reaction. Flames get their tongue-like shapes from the way these gases move and interact under earthly gravity. Near the match head, a column of hot gas is created. This column is wider than the match itself. Hot gases have more energy than colder gases and can more easily shake off the tug of gravity. So, the column of hot gas starts to rise and it rises faster and faster.

Since the amount of gas is constant, as it rises faster, the column is stretched thinner. The result is a wide column near the match, and a thin column higher up. So, if you strike a match in space, where there is no air or gravity, it burns in a sphere shape! It is a pretty neat thing to see.

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Of the past 14 presidents, 6 of them have been left-handed and 1 ambidextrous!

Before Herbert Hoover we have no record of left-handed presidents. Shockingly, it’s because before Hoover, being left-handed was considered a disability. Teachers would actually suppress students from using their left-hand dominantly. So, it wasn’t until the 20th century that handedness was determined in presidents or recorded about them.

Herbert Hoover was the first president to be said to be left-handed. Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama are all lefties. Now, 6 out of the last 14 presidents is a lot considering only 10 percent of our general population is left-handed. Ronald Reagan was the ambidextrous president. James Garfield was said to be able to write Latin with his right hand while simultaneously writing in Greek with his left hand.

Reagan was supposedly dominantly a left-handed person, but forced to write with his right hand by his teachers. In all his photos, he is seen signing with his right hand, though. So, that is why it is said that he is ambidextrous. The same is said to be true about Harry S. Truman.

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The town F*cking, Austria had to modify their signs to be theft resistant!

F*cking (with a u instead of *), Austria has existed since 1070. It’s named after a man from the 6th century named Focko. The ending “ing” is actually an old German suffix indicating the people of the root word to which it is attached. Therefore, F*cking means “place of Fockos people”. F*cking is a small village with about 104 people. The town is most famous for their traffic signs and tourists tend to take pictures next to them. In August 2005, the road signs were replaced with theft resistant ones that were welded to steel and secured in concrete.

The new signs were needed, because people kept stealing the signs for the town’s name. Sign theft has decreased greatly, but it still remains a problem in the village. Apparently the British are most to blame for the problem. Of all the nations, British people steal the “F*cking” signs the most; not the Americans!

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An F-15 pilot was able to land his plane after one the wings was ripped off!

On 1 May 1983, during an Israeli Air Force training dogfight, an F-15D collided with an A-4 Skyhawk. The pilot Zivi Nedivi and his copilot had no idea that the right wing of the F-15 was ripped off about two feet from the fuselage. The F-15 entered a controllable spin after the collision. Nedivi decided to attempt recovery and engaged afterburner to increase speed, which allowed him to regain control of the aircraft. He was able to prevent stalling and maintained control due to the lift generated by the large horizontal surface area of the fuselage, the stabilators, and the remaining wing areas.

The F-15 landed at twice the normal speed to maintain the necessary lift, and its tail hook was torn off completely during the landing during a failed attempt at using the emergency arresting gear installed on the runway to bring the aircraft to a halt. Nedivi managed to bring the F-15 to a complete stop approximately 20 feet from the end of the runway. Later he said that had he known the extent of the damage he would have ejected from the plane.

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