Although walking the plank is common in modern pirate lore, most pirates simply killed people. When they tortured their prisoners, it was usually by keelhauling (dragging a tied sailor in the water from the back of the ship), marooning them on a deserted island or remote sandbar, or lashings with a leather whip.

Pirates from The Bahamas had their flags custom-made by a sailmaker's widow who accepted brandy as payment, while Blackbeard had his own black flag with a skeleton with horns. The skeleton held an hourglass in one hand and a spear pointing to a heart dripping with three drops of blood in the other.

Books are an interesting market in part because they offer a 100% return policy. So, if a publisher sells 50 copies of a fresh new book to, say, Target or a local independent bookshop, that company has the option of returning all 50 copies to the publishing house if they don't sell. Isn't that crazy? 50 copies aren't much, but when you get into the hundreds, you can see how this can be a difficult market to predict.

This mandates a selling price for independent bookshops and retail locations, resulting in Amazon's negative impact on the book market. They drastically reduce their prices because they sell such a high volume at a reduced price. Basically, whenever possible, buy your books locally!

A conspiracy theorist could be accused of wearing a tinfoil hat. If so, you should credit Aldous Huxley's brother, Julian, for popularising the concept in his 1926 short tale, The Tissue-Culture King. In it, Huxley's characters realize that metal is excellent at preventing telepathy efforts and make "metal foil hats" for themselves.

Pirates preferred grog, a concoction of rum, water, lemon juice, and sugar. (Hmmm, I wonder where the inspiration for our rum punch came from?)

Blackbeard (AKA Edward Teach) was the most feared pirate in the world. He would weave hemp into his beard and light it on fire before boarding a ship, giving him a demonic appearance. Yikes! That would frighten us as well.

Rio has been affectionately dubbed Cidade Maravilhosa, which translates as Marvelous City. Some of the reasons for this moniker include the combination of urban culture, magnificent shoreline, rocky peaks, and impressive forests.

Almost every pirate ship had its own set of rules that all pirates had to follow. This included how the loot would be distributed, who would be assigned which chores, and what was expected of everyone. One of the most common rules, believe it or not, was no fighting onboard. If two pirates disagreed, they would have to wait and fight on land.

One of the reasons pirates wore eye patches, according to legend, was to keep one eye adjusted to night vision for seeing below deck.

The Christ the Redeemer statue defies the adage that lightning never strikes twice. The statue is struck by lightning several times a year, necessitating ongoing repairs. A violent storm in 2014 broke off a piece of the Christ's thumb and wounded his skull.

Although it is not something that Brazilians like to think about, Maracan Stadium holds the record for the highest football game attendance in history. The record was set in the 1950 World Cup final, when approximately 200,000 spectators packed the stadium, in addition to the thousands that surrounded it. The game was between Brazil and Uruguay, who won 2-1. This tragedy was dubbed "Maracanazo" in Brazil.

The Tijuca jungle expands from Rio's centre and is considered the world's largest urban forest, encompassing an area of 32 kilometres cubed. The Corcovado mountain is located within the forest and serves as the starting point for the famed Christ the Redeemer statue. It also supports hundreds of plant and mammal species, many of which are endangered and only found in the Tijuca forest ecosystem.

Rio is Brazil's second largest city, with a population of 6.3 million people. However, it pales in comparison to Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city, which has a population of 12.04 million people.

The remaining tribes of northeast Asia were compelled to recognise Temujin as their emperor after he annexed most of Mongolia. Beginning in Russia, he led the Mongol invasions that eventually reached the Levant in the Middle East and Asia. He proclaimed himself to be Genghis Khan (Chinggis Khan), which means universal ruler, after creating the vast empire.

The distance to the moon is measured using a mirror and laser formation on the moon, as well as a telescope on Earth. Because of the moon's elliptical orbit around the Earth, this distance varies, making it critical that such a facility exists.

Conspiracy theorists is a word that is frequently used in a pejorative manner. Some say this was done on purpose, that the CIA coined the word to discredit those who believed in the countless theories that circulated after JFK's killing. It seems convincing, but we have print proof indicating the term has been used since at least 1870 and became more common in the 1950s.

If you think conspiracy theorists are a minority, you're mistaken—at least according to one study. Political scientists J. Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood reported in 2014 that almost half of the American public believes in at least one conspiracy theory. Their findings were based on countrywide surveys that were conducted over several years. "We conceive of conspiracy theories as simply another sort of magical thinking," Oliver added, rather than seeing them as paranoid loners. People who believe in conspiracies are more inclined to believe in other sorts of magical thinking, such as the paranormal or the supernatural, according to their research.

While there is no commonly accepted definition of a conspiracy theory, a fair rule of thumb is that a conspiracy—and thus a conspiracy theory—involves a group of individuals doing covert acts that infringe on the rights of others or disadvantage them.