A list of curious facts

One: Did you know that Christchurch, New Zealand, has long boasted an official Wizard—who long received an annual salary of around $11,000 to “provide acts of wizardry and other wizard-like-services.” But he has now sadly been sacked primarily because the city wants to promote itself as “a vibrant, diverse, modern city”—and grumpy old wizards are not part of the new program. (The Guardian)

Two: A water spout is a spinning column of air that sucks up water from the sea, twists it—and connects the water below with the clouds above. Winds inside the spout can be faster than 100 kilometres per hour—and they can be every bit as dangerous as a tornado on land. Recently, a massive waterspout was spotted off the coast of Cuba, and it looked like this:

Three: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar has been dubbed one of the greatest astrophysicists of the 20th century. Born into a Tamil Brahmin family in Lahore, he won the Nobel prize in physics in 1983. FYI: NASA's premier X-ray observatory is named ‘Chandra’ after him. And he once drove 200 miles in a heavy snowstorm in the US to teach a class of just two students—CN Yang and TD Lee—both of whom won the Nobel Prize. If you want to know more, here’s a detailed profile or a shorter and equally interesting Twitter thread.

Four: Back in 2015, a Japanese hotel designated a separate room where women could go to cry—with cashmere-soft tissues, weepy films like Forrest Gump, sad books and warm blankets. But Spain recently unveiled a ‘La Lloreria’ aka Crying Room to help destigmatize mental health issues—and it’s more progressive and kinda cool.

Five: Do you prefer curious facts or a less-factual but far more entertaining story? For 24 years, an abandoned Boeing was parked at Nagpur airport. Chris Croy went viral on Twitter for his family’s version of how the plane ended up there all the way from an airfield in California—and it involves a rich man named ‘Sam Veder’ and many twists and turns. Or you can read the equally interesting, and more factual account unearthed by Quartz—about a mechanical engineer named Sam Verma.