Tim Burton considered making a sequel to Beetlejuice.

In 1990 Tim Burton  asked Jonathan Gems (Mars Attacks!) to write a script for a sequel to Beetlejuice, don't get all disappointed that this movie didn't materialize, by all accounts it was going to be really terrible. The script was allegedly so bad, it read like a parody of bad sequels. The movie, to be called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, was to catch up with a college aged Lydia and her annoying parents in Hawaii in the midst of opening up a fancy hotel, much to the dismay of some Hawaiian ghosts that recruit Beetljuice to frighten the Deetz' and their developers away. As you can image hijinx ensue. Not every good movie needs a sequel.


http://www.creaturefeatures.com/2010/12/script-review-beetlejuice-goes-hawaiian/

Tortilla Chips: Not mexican, just rejects of the automated process

In the late 1940's the El Zarape Tortilla Factory, based in Los Angeles California, was among the first factories to automate the production of tortillas. Corn and flour discs were made more the 12 times faster than when it was done by hand, but many were bent or misshapen.Initially these were just thrown out until, company president Rebecca Webb Carranza, took some of the discarded tortillas, cut them up and fried them for a party. They were a huge hit at the party so she started selling them for a dime a bag, by the 1960's the bags of Tortilla Chips had become the primary seller for the El Zarpe factory.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x4708032

Clowns use painted eggs to copyright their unique face paint.

When clowns join Clowns International in England, which claims to be the oldest clown society in the world, they register their individual make-up patterns in the "Egg Gallery". Eggshells are decorated as replicas of the clown's heads, and act as sort of clown copyright for the make-up designs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clown#Egg_Register

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lukestephenson/sets/72157606703952187/

98% of adoptions in Japan are adult males.

America and Japan have the highest rates of adoption in the world – with one big difference. While the vast majority of adoptees in the U.S. are children, they account for just 2% of adoptions in Japan. The other 98% are males around 25 to 30. The reason? The strongest companies in Japan are run by families, where power is handed down from one generation to another, but what happens when the heir to the family business isn't up for the job? Rather than hand the firm to a less-than-worthy blood heir, Japanese families often adopt an adult to take over. Blood heirs are under the constant pressure of knowing that if they under-perform, they’ll be replaced.

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/08/09/the-church-of-scionology-why-adult-adoption-is-key-to-the-success-of-japanese-family-firms/

The worlds oldest living organism is 4,842 years old, and in hiding.

A Great Basin Bristlecone pine tree growing high in the White Mountains, named Methuselah is the world's oldest known living non-clonal organism. "Methuselah" was 4,789 years old when sampled in 1957, with an estimated germination date of 2832 BCE. The tree grows at 9,500–9,800 ft above sea level in the "Methuselah Grove" in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest within the Inyo National Forest of Eastern California, but Methuselah's exact location is undisclosed to protect it  against vandalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)

There are two islands that belong to France just off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

The last remnant of the former colonial empire of New France (that is still under French control) is over 6,400 km away from France, but just 20 km off the Burin Peninsula in Newfoundland. The islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon were claimed for France in 1536 by Jacques Cartier, and they never gave them up, now it's home to about 6,000 people that speak french,use the Euro and have European phone numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon
http://www.st-pierre-et-miquelon.com/english/index.php

Helium is actually a precious resource, and it's estimated that we'll run out of it in the next 25 years.

 You probably know it as the gas you put in kids balloons, but Helium is actually a non-renewable gas and that we continue to squander on silly things like making our voices sound funny. That birthday balloon should probably cost more like $100 because aside from birthday novelties, Helium also has some more serious uses, like cooling nuclear reactors and cooling the magnets in MRI machines, and once it's gone...it's gone. The US stores 80% of the worlds helium, and because they refuse to treat helium as a precious resource scientists estimate that our Helium supplies will be exhausted within 25 years.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1305386/Earths-helium-reserves-run-25-years.html

During WWI a British Soldier had Hitler in his sites, but didn't pull the trigger

During the battle of  Marcoing, Henry Tandey, a British soldier and later a recipient of the Victoria Cross, had a wounded German soldier walk through his line of fire, the wounded soldier made no attempt to raise his rifle, so Tandey opted not to take the shot. The German soldier saw Tandey lower his rifle and nodded his thanks before wandering off. The soldier was later identified as Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tandey#Hitler_incident

How many senses do you have? Five?....Wrong

Aristotle is credited for having classified the 5 senses that we all learned about as children. Sight, Smell, Touch, Hearing and Taste...but that's just the beginning. Don't believe me? Here's a test...Close your eyes, now touch your nose. How did you find your nose? You couldn't see it, hear it or feel it. You didn't smell or taste your way to your nose, so how did you find it without any problems. The answer is Proprioception, your ability to sense the relative position of parts of your body, and that's just the beginning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senses

We're eating inferior bananas.

The bananas our Grandparents ate were the Gros Michel (Big Mike) variety, a much tastier and larger variety than the one we eat today. But by the 1960's a fungus known as Panama disease virtually wiped out Big Mike and producers had to settle for the disease resistant Cavendish variety, a Vietnamese variety previously considered too small, less tasty and too easy to bruise.
Also a new strain of the fungus has emerged that Cavendish aren't immune to, leading to worries that bananas could once again be at risk.

http://banana.com/blog/2008/12/20/cavendish-banana-not-your-grandparentss-banana/

High school basketball was the highest level that Chuck Taylor ever played.

Chuck Taylor, an Indiana High School hoop star, was payed only a salary as a shoe salesman for Converse, where he applied when he was in need of a job. He didn't receive any cut or commission on the iconic shoe which bears his name, even though it  sold over 600 million pairs.
http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25700.html

NFL Cheerleaders make about $50 per game

NFL cheerleaders are generally paid about $50 to $75 per game. Some cheerleaders are paid monthly salaries ranging from $200 to $1,000.
http://www.therichest.org/sports/nfls-cheerleaders-salary/

Dinner knives are rounded off because King Louis XIV of France declared it to be so

 In 1669, King Louis XIV of France decreed all pointed knives on the street or the dinner table illegal, and he had all knife points ground down in order to reduce violence
http://www.hospitalityguild.com/History/history_of_the_knife.htm

Around 10, 000 Shipping containers lost a sea every year

Right now, as you read this, there are five or six million shipping containers on enormous cargo ships sailing across the world's oceans. And about every hour, on average, one is falling overboard never to be seen again. It's estimated that 10,000 of these large containers are lost at sea each year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization#Loss_at_sea