Horizons (25 photos)
A selection of interesting facts about everything that you may not have known, but if you knew, then remember. 
Meishan
The Chinese are also inventors. Paper, gunpowder, compass - all this, of course, is cool. But did you know that 400 years ago they created a real biological conveyor belt, whose name is Meishan?
A carcass half a meter tall and weighing about 200 kilos rests on ridiculous short legs. The entire body from snout to tail literally consists of wrinkles. The Chinese generally have some strange fetish for sagging skin - pugs and sharpeis are also their creations. The pig's eyes are not visible from under the folds. Probably, the breeders wanted to give the animal an “Asian flavor.” So why did we call the Shar Pei from the world of artiodactyls a conveyor belt? Yes, because this is the most prolific breed of pig in principle! At one time, a mother pig gives birth to 15-16 piglets, and so on 2 times a year! How does she manage to feed all her offspring? And like this, the sow has a micro-milk plant on her belly with 12 pairs of nipples. And piglets can become part of the universal pig breeding and give birth to their own offspring as early as 3 months after birth! 
Cat Haze
One random passer-by found a very frozen cat in the snow and took it to the veterinary clinic. There she was given the name Dymka. It turned out that her entire tail, ears and all four paws were frostbitten, which later had to be amputated. It seemed that everything was lost, but scientists paid attention to her and made her special bionic prostheses mounted directly into the bone. Now thanks to them, Dymka feels like a full-fledged cat. We live in wonderful times with wonderful people. 
Lena pillars
Lena Pillars: geological anomaly in Yakutia. The reserve contains thousands of elongated rock formations, the height of which reaches 100 meters. The total area of the park is 1358 thousand hectares. 
flying dragon
The flying dragon is not only a folklore character in various tales and fantasy novels, but also a very real living creature. True, miniature. Dragons got their name due to their ability to fly from tree to tree with the help of peculiar “wings”. Flying dragons live in the tropical forests of Southeast Asia: on the island. Borneo, Sumatra, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and South India. They live in the crowns of trees, where they spend most of their lives. They descend to the ground only in two cases - to lay eggs and if the flight is unsuccessful. 
Alcohol chess
Once Emmanuel Lasker had the chance to play alcoholic chess with the Hungarian grandmaster Geza Maroczy for the prize of a patron of the arts. The conditions of such a game are that each piece is a container of alcohol, and, having captured an enemy piece, you need to drink it. Moreover, for this match the figures were made in such a way that the type and volume of alcohol depended on their strength. On the third move of the game, Lasker sacrificed his queen, which was a 200-gram bottle of whiskey. Maroczy immediately got drunk, and Lasker easily brought the game to victory. 
Hachiko
Posthumous photo of Hachiko. A dog that waited 9 years for its owner. He came to the station until his death. Hachiko was found dead on the street near the station. He had terminal cancer. Japan, 1935 
Oldest house
In the small French town of Argentan is one of the oldest houses in the world. It recently turned 510 years old, and the building is still inhabited by people! 
Cheese "kasu marzu"
Delicious Sardinian cheese with the poetic name “casu marzu”, which means “wormy cheese”, is a waste product of the larvae of the cheese fly. Frightened larvae can jump 15 centimeters, so it is recommended to cover your eyes with your hand when eating casu marzu. 
Danute Danielsson
Monument to Danuta Danielsson in the Swedish city of Vaxjo. A woman hit a skinhead with her bag during a neo-Nazi march in 1985. Her mother was a Polish Jew, she went through a concentration camp and miraculously survived. A few minutes later, other townspeople joined Danuta. They dispersed a demonstration of neo-Nazis - they had to lock themselves in a station toilet and wait for the police to rescue them.
The head of the Växjö city council, Eva Johansson, objected to the installation of the monument, and said that Danuta was wrong: “We, of course, are supporters of democracy and freedom of speech and do not like the Nazis. But we consider it unacceptable to hit another person just because we don’t like him.” Then an action was held throughout Sweden in memory of Danuta - people hung women’s handbags on various monuments. The petition to install the monument has received more than 100,000 signatures. People said it was a monument not to violence, but to courage. As a result, public opinion prevailed and the monument was erected. 
Composer Alfred Schnittke
Stone on the grave of composer Alfred Schnittke. The fermata sign above the pause literally means eternal silence. The symbols fff (under the pause sign) mean "Forte fortissimo - loudest", and in general this can be interpreted as "Deafening eternal silence". 
Ramesses IV
Marigolds are more than 3000 years old. This is the mummy of Ramesses IV, who reigned around 1156-1150. BC e. 
Sheriff Elfego Baca
Unkillable Sheriff Elfego Baca. Elfego Baca was a gunslinger, a lawman in the "last days" of the Wild West. When this guy was a deputy sheriff in Socorro County in 1884, he ran into a war with a gang of Texas cowboys who liked to come into town and shoot right and left at the residents out of boredom.
Baca was born without the part of his brain responsible for fear, so he started by arresting cowboy Charlie McCarthy for shooting at the local disco (the music back then was lame and shooting people in the legs was sometimes the only way to get someone to dance). McCarthy worked for a large landowner, Tom Slaughter, who gathered three thugs who were supposed to tell Baca to let McCarthy go. Baca shot one and wounded the other. When the third cooled down after he escaped, Slaughter gathered 80 of his thugs and moved to Baca's home to put him in his place. Finding Baku in his hut, the army of cowboys besieged him all night, firing 4,000 bullets into the wooden walls. Then they tried to set it on fire, and a little later - to blow it up. The roof collapsed from the explosion, like in Die Hard. After 33 hours of this mess, Baca was still not wounded; in response, he was able to kill 4 and wound 10 cowboys.
The next day, absolutely everyone was afraid of Baku. They were afraid to such an extent that he never arrested anyone personally again. He sent the warrant by mail and the criminals came themselves: “This is a warrant for your arrest. Please give up. If I think you are resisting arrest, I will shoot you as soon as I see you. Sincerely, Elfego Baca, Sheriff.” 
Original gift
Gift cake for a girl who survived brain surgery. 
Famouse Diomede Islands
In the middle between Chukotka and Alaska are the Famouse Diomede Islands. It so happens that there is a border between these islands, but the most important thing is the change in time zone. Thus, the time difference between the islands, which are located 4 km from each other, is 21 hours. 
Neerja Bhanot
Neerja Bhanot was two days shy of her 24th birthday. On September 5, 1986, the plane on which she was a flight attendant was hijacked by terrorists. They held the hostages for 17 hours. Neerja smuggled dozens of people out through the emergency exit. It was only thanks to her that they were saved. Realizing that their demands would not be met, the terrorists opened fire. Nirja was shot when she shielded three children from the bullets. 
Alexey Vakhonin
During his speech at the Tokyo Olympics, Alexey Vakhonin said to the Hungarians, who were already celebrating their victory: “You damn well know the miners!” and lifted the barbell. And when the judges recorded the weight, he raised his leg. 
Fox body
The fox kuzu shows how big and scary he is by protecting the trees he likes from uninvited guests. 
Women
This is what the muscle tissue and mammary glands of women look like. 
The blackest BMW
The blackest BMW on earth is the BMW VBX6 with VantaBlack coating. This material absorbs 99.9% of light and does not reflect anything, which is why all objects covered with it always look flat. 
Antarctica
Having Antarctic citizenship, you can freely enter almost 100 countries of the world: Schengen, USA, Canada, Australia, etc., with the possibility of employment. 
Charles Alan Gilbert
Charles Alan Gilbert was only 18 years old when he created his most famous optical illusion, All is Vanity, in 1892. He is still imitated by many artists and photographers. Ars longa vita brevis (Art is eternal, life is short) 
Hickey
17-year-old Julio Macias Gonzalez died after his girlfriend gave him a hickey. The rupture of blood vessels led to the formation of a blood clot, which traveled to the brain and caused a stroke. 
Dog and duck
Some photographs have an amazing feature - if you look at them carefully, you begin to notice seemingly insignificant details, which ultimately then radically change your first impression of the photograph.
This photo is exactly that. No, this is not a case during a hunt when a retriever brought the owner a duck he had shot. If you look carefully, you can see that the duck is alive, and the retriever is holding it very gently and carefully. The thing is that at that time they had been real friends for about two years!
Back in 1947, a photographer brought a little duckling home, which immediately became the family’s favorite, and the family dog generally took “patronage” over it, raising it as “one of its own.” When the duckling became stronger, the owner took him to the pond so that he could swim with other wild ducks, but the retriever had a completely different opinion on this matter - he instantly jumped after his pet into the pond and pulled him out onto land. 
In Japan, women are not hired as sushi chefs
There is no official ban, but women almost never get this job. The reason is supposedly that women's hands, depending on the menstrual cycle, can become warmer or colder, which can spoil the taste of the sushi. However, it is much more likely that this is just a superstition: the Japanese have a lot of superstitions associated with women. 
