20 Amazing Political Facts That Sound Made Up, But Are Actually TRUE [Photos]

1. William McKinley was on the $500 bill, Grover Cleveland was on the $1,000, and James Madison was on the $5,000.

2. In 1999, the U.S. government paid the Zapruder family $16 million for the film of JFK’s assassination.

3. The last time a Republican was elected president without a Nixon or Bush on the ticket was 1928.

4. In 1979, Japan offered new British PM Margaret Thatcher 20 “karate ladies” for protection at an economic summit. She declined.

5. In 1980, Detroit presented Saddam Hussein with a key to the city.

6. Just before the Nazis invaded Paris, H.A. and Margret Rey fled on bicycles. They were carrying the manuscript for Curious George.

7. Bob Ross on his Air Force career: “I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine…who screams at you for being late to work.”

8. In 1973, Mao Zedong told Henry Kissinger that China had an excess of females and offered the U.S. 10 million Chinese women.

9. The Code of Hammurabi decreed that bartenders who watered down beer would be executed.

10. In 2006, an Australian man tried to sell New Zealand on eBay. The price rose to $3,000 before eBay shut it down.

11. During WWI, German measles were called “liberty measles” and dachshunds became “liberty hounds.”

12. Toy companies failed to duplicate the success of Theodore Roosevelt’s teddy bear with William Taft’s “Billy Possum.”

13. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for work when the first A-bomb hit, made it home to Nagasaki for the second, and lived to be 93.

14. The 50-star American flag was designed by an Ohio high school student for a class project. His teacher originally gave him a B–.

15. After leaving office, Lyndon Johnson let his hair grow out.

16. Winston Churchill’s mother was born in Brooklyn.

17. There’s a basketball court above the Supreme Court. It’s known as the Highest Court in the Land.

18. In Qaddafi’s compound, Libyan rebels found a photo album filled with pictures of Condoleezza Rice.

19. In a 2008 survey, 58% of British teens thought Sherlock Holmes was a real guy, while 20% thought Winston Churchill was not.

20. In response to The Lorax, the forest products industry published Truax to teach kids the importance of logging.