3. In attempt to spy on the Kremlin and Russian embassies, the CIA turned cats into listening devices. They surgically implanted a microphone in a cat’s ear canal, a small radio transmitter at the base of it’s skull ad a thin wire into its fur. The program was called Acoustic Kitty and cost about $20 million.

The first Acoustic Kitty mission was to eavesdrop on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C. The cat was released nearby, but was hit and killed by a taxi almost immediately. The project was abandoned due to the difficulty of training the cats to behave as required.
5. Blockbuster almost bought Netflix in 2000. Back in the day, Netflix offered to sell Blockbuster a 49 percent stake in the company and become its online service, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings recently told the New Yorker. The site would have changed its name to Blockbuster.com.