1. About 120,000 convicts and misfits were transported from Britain to America between 1650 and 1775. American independence put an end to the practice and forced Britain to send convicts to the distant colony of New South Wales instead.
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2. Penny Lane – the actual street in Liverpool on which the Beatles song is based – is named after James Penny, a wealthy 18th century slave ship owner.
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3. The Kamikaze were referred to as Tokkotai (Special Attack Force) in Japan.
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4. Plimsoll shoes are named after Samuel Plimsoll (who also gave us the Plimsoll Line, a line on the hull of every cargo ship that indicates the level of maximum submergence) because submerging them above their rubber trim results in disaster.
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5. A chef’s hat is called Toque blanche (French for ‘white hat.’)
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6. The number of civil and criminal cases pending before India’s courts has exceeded 30m up from 20m in 1997.
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7. The brain consumes about 20% of the body’s energy production.
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8. A normal fly sleeps between 8 and 14 hours every day.
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9. There’s a 5.6% clickrate on porn spam.
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10. All beer bottle caps in the world have 21 crimps.
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About:
Iqbal Mohammed is Head of Innovation & Strategy at a digital innovation agency serving the DACH and wider European markets. He is the winner of the WPP Atticus Award for Best Original Published Writing in Marketing & Communication.
He blogs about #innovation, #technology and #marketing at misentropy.com. You can reach him via email or Twitter.