Wrapped! 2022 in Fun Facts | #136
Spot the acrostic in this issue! 🔎
Hello friends,
This week’s newsletter tries to recap 2022 in our own style. We will take a well-earned break next week and return with aplomb with our next edition on January 7th.
Things we learnt this week 🤓
Messi is good. He helped Argentina win the 2022 FIFA World Cup and cement his place as one of the all time greats. He has won an edition of every tournament he has participated in and might add a few more trophies as he has extended his contract with PSG till 2024. Messi has cleaned up football.
Elon Musk bought a sink to the Twitter HQ and took over the social media site hook, line and stinker. Investors at his other companies are certainly feeling the blue now.
RRR made merry at the box office and continued to win critics all over the world. It has been nominated for Golden Globes and has made the shortlist at the Oscars in the best song category for ‘Naatu Naatu’. They made so much money that the producers went Naacho Naacho to the bank.
Rishab Shetty’s Kantara was ‘wow’. Made on a budget of 16 crores, it has raked in over 400 crores at the box office. The story that combines elements of the traditional and the modern has brought back focus on the Bhoota Kola performers with the Karnataka government giving a monthly allowance to them after the film.
Yash was rocking this year with his performance in the mega blockbuster KGF2. Yash may not like success, but success likes Yash and he cannot avoid it. Its Hindi version grossed over 430 crores beating Brahmastra as the highest grossing Hindi film of the year.
China decided to move away from its zero-Covid policy after protests and with it saw a huge rise in cases thanks to a sub-variant of Omicron - BF7. Just when the world was looking to come out of the Covid pandemic. As they say, ça change plus c'est la même chose.
Hijab was a major talking point in India and in Iran. In Iran, the morality police killed Mahsa Amini for infringing hijab rules and in Karnataka, authorities wanted girls to remove them before entering schools. We agree with this cartoon by Penpencildraw - let women wear what they want.
Russia invaded Ukraine expecting it to be a swift victory in a week. Instead a resilient Ukraine has pushed back Russia and with several countries imposing strict financial sanctions on Russia, its economy is stuttering. Nobody knows what Putin’s next move is, but Ukraine will be like a Cagey Bee.
Independence Day celebrations were held all over the country. The celebrations were called Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav and included themes such as Resolve@75, Ideas@75, Actions@75 etc. The government also started a Har Ghar Tiranga campaign and encouraged everyone to change their display pic to an Indian National flag. This unique campaign tried to suggest that we are all one.
Salman Rushdie and Shinzo Abe faced assassination attempts. Rushdie survived just, but Abe unfortunately didn’t. Abe was shot from behind, in close range, by a home made firearm. Rushdie was stabbed multiple times at an event in New York. The result was that Rushdie lost sight in 1 eye and and use of his hand 😔
Twin Towers in Noida were demolished after a court order - one of the tallest buildings to be voluntarily destroyed. It led to over 80,000 tonnes of debris that needed to be cleared and a worsening air quality in the nation’s capital. The people who owned property in the building couldn’t C4 themselves what happened to it.
Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of AltNews, was arrested on the basis of hurting religious sentiments when he tweeted a scene from the movie ‘Kisi Se Na Kehna’ which showed a hotel had changed its name from Honeymoon Hotel to Hanuman Hotel. He was eventually released on bail. We hope we have got all facts correct in this one.
Adani group emerged as one of the largest wealth creators in India with a market cap increase of 226%. Gautam Adani, earned 1600 crores a day in 2021 and was briefly the second richest man in the world. The Greeks should have called the God of money ‘Adanis’.
Sri Lanka witnessed Anti-government protests on a scale never witnessed before in that country. The Mahinda Rajapaksa government’s policies had taken a toll on the country with shortages of fuel and medicines. Key policies regarding usage of organic fertilisers, coupled with massive corruption and Covid, led to massive fiscal deficit for the country. Through ups and down, the country has shown itself to be grit-tea.
Hrithik Roshan returned to the screen with the Hindi remake of the Tamil hit - Vikram Vedha. It was released on the same day as Mani Ratnam’s much awaited Ponniyin Selvan 1. PS1 broke all sorts of records, while Vikram Vedha was considered a flop. Releasing on the same day as a Mani Ratnam film.. It’s not funny!
Antarctic researchers discovered Endurance, one of the greatest ever undiscovered shipwrecks, which sank in 1915 during Ernest Shackleton's exploration. It took over 100 years to find the ship, which was clearly ice-o-lated.
Presidential elections took place this year and Draupadi Murmu was elected as only the 2nd ever woman president of India. She has had a storied career - starting out as a teacher to becoming the minister of transport and commerce in Odisha, before becoming the governor of state of Jharkhand.
Pakistan faced a climate catastrophe with severe flooding that killed more than 1000 people and damaged property worth $15 billion. Climate change caused unusually heavy rainfall, melted glaciers following a heat wave contributed to these floods. Climate change is a hot issue and we need to weather it with critical changes.
Yair Lapid became the Prime Minister of Israel and his predecessor Naftali Bennett was appointed Alternate Prime Minister of Israel. This arrangement was because no party has secured an electoral majority in Israel. Israeli true that they have had 6 elections in the last 3 years.
Nikhat Zareen became the 5th Indian woman to be crowned World Champion in boxing when she beat Thai Jitpong Jutamas. She also added a Commonwealth Games Gold to cap a fine year for her. We assume her favourite drink is Fruit Punch.
Eknath Shinde, who used to be an autorickshaw driver, changed gears with a secret alliance with the BJP to oust the incumbent CM Uddhav Thackrey. It led to political upheaval in Maharashtra and forced the Election Commission to ask some questions like - which is the real Shiv Sena?
Whisky War was a pseudo confrontation between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island. The confrontation lasted almost 44 years and ended in 2022 when the 2 countries decided to split the island into 2. This happened as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was taking place, as the end of the territorial dispute was meant to represent a signal for other countries that disputes can be resolved peacefully.
What a real war looks like
YouTube experimented with ads this year by showing users who watch long videos on TVs with a series of unskippable ads - much like trailers at a movie theatre. It was removed after outrage from people. What next? Pay for overpriced, underwhelming popcorn while watching YouTube videos?
Equal match fees will be given to both men and women when they play for India. This along with the announcement of a women’s IPL has created a lot of growth opportunities for women in cricket. On the field, India took silver in the Commonwealth Games losing to Australia in a close final.
Avatar: The Way of Water released, 13 years after the first film in the franchise. It is among the most expensive films ever made and took such a long time as the technology required to shoot underwater didn’t exist. The technology is so new it crashed screen equipment in Japan. A blue film for the entire family.
Rajpath in Delhi was renamed as Kartavya Path. The statue of Subhash Chandra Bose at the Central Vista was also unveiled. If they had made an error with the statue, it would have been monumental.
If you paid close attention to the acrostic in this edition, it spelled out
M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S
H A P P Y N E W Y E A R
We’ll see you next year 🥳🍻🎉
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Stay hydrated,
❤️ IWTK