1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (110 page)

832

FACT :
Newborns in parts of northern Spain participate in an annual “baby-jumping” festival each spring, where a man dressed as the devil leaps over
as many as five or six infants on a mattress
at a time. The ancient rite is meant to drive away evil spirits.
Because evil spirits might traumatize babies, not unlike a man dressed as the devil leaping over them.

Editors Of Mental Floss, Mental Floss Presents Instant Knowledge (HarperCollins, 2005).

“Spanish Village Holds Baby Jump,” BBC News, May 25, 2008,
www.news.bbc.co.uk
.

833

FACT :
Gloucestershire, England’s annual cheese-rolling contest, where
contestants chase a seven-pound circular block of cheese
down a steep, bumpy hill, is a dangerous event. Contestants fall, break bones, and have even split their heads open.
Gloucestershire must be really boring.

Editors of Mental Floss, Mental Floss Presents Instant Knowledge (HarperCollins, 2005).

834

FACT :
In 2007, a British teacher working in Sudan was arrested and charged with blasphemy for
letting a student call their teddy bear “Mohammed.”
The teacher spent fifteen days in jail, but, under Sudanese law, could have been given forty lashes and three months in prison.
There go my vacation plans. I need somewhere a little less intense. I wonder if North Korea is nice this time of year?

“Reports: Sudan Arrests UK Teacher for Teddy Bear Blasphemy,”
CNN.com
, November 26, 2007,
www.cnn.com
.

“Mohamed Teddy Bear Teacher, Gillian Gibbons, Is Spared Lash but Gets 15 Days in Jail,” Times Online, November 30, 2007,
www.timesonline.co.uk
.

835

FACT :
In the 1800s, the Chinese considered strangling a less severe punishment than other forms of execution, since
the body would not be permanently disfigured
.
Because it’s important to look your best for the worms.

Isaac Asimov, ed., Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts (Hastings House, 1979).

836

FACT : Dogs are considered food
in some regions of East and Southeast Asia. i million dogs, 6,000 restaurants, and 10 percent of the population are involved in the dog meat industry in South Korea.
I wish some dog-eating South Koreans would move to my neighborhood.

William Saletan, “Wok the Dog,”
Slate.com
, January 16, 2002,
www.slate.com
.

837

FACT :
During famines that ravaged North Korea from 1995 to 1997, starving people commonly dug up bodies from fresh graves
to eat the meat
.
If I ever get that hungry, please shoot me. Thanks in advance.

Doug Struck, “Opening a Window on North Korea’s Horrors,” Washington Post, October 4, 2003,
www.washingtonpost.com
.

838

FACT :
In 2008, Tanzanian witch doctors sanctioned a series of murders in which at least
twenty-nine albino children were hacked to death
for their body parts, believed by local customs to bring good luck.
Because being an albino didn’t suck enough already.

Alex Duval Smith, “Albino Africans Live in Fear after Witch-Doctor Butchery,” The Observer, November 16, 2008,
www.guardian.co.uk
.