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As Albert Einstein famously said, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.” But that’s no reason to stop your education. In fact, that’s all the more reason to keep learning as much as you possibly can!
If you’re dedicated to being a lifelong learner, we’ve got the perfect list for you down below, pandas. We gathered some of the best posts of all time from the Today I Learned subreddit, so you can find out plenty of new fun facts that you’ve probably never heard before. So enjoy scrolling through this wealth of information, and keep reading to find a conversation with Dan Lewis, creator of the popular trivia newsletter Now I Know!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
TIL: A park bench in Bristol was given an official postal address so doctors could register the homeless as patients.
RELATED:
#2
TIL Judith Love Cohen, who helped create the Abort-Guidance System which rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts, went to work on the day she was in labor. She took a printout of a problem she was working on to the hospital. She called her boss and said she finished the problem and gave birth to Jack Black.
#3
TIL that March 12th, 1990, over 60 disability rights activists abandoned their mobility aids and climbed, crawled, and edged up the 83 stone steps of the U.S Capitol, demanding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which had been stalled in Congress. It was called the 'Capitol Crawl'.
To find out more about why it’s so important to be a lifelong learner, we reached out to Dan Lewis, creator of the popular newsletter Now I Know, which brings fun facts to readers' inboxes every day.
First, we wanted to know what inspired Dan to start this newsletter. “I'm a digital native who built my first website in the late 1990s, and I've always been decent at building online audiences,” he told Bored Panda. “While between jobs a decade or so ago, I consulted with an email newsletter startup – they were looking for help building their subscriber base. And I figured hey, I've done this for websites and blogs, how different could email be? But I realized that no, it's a lot different, and I failed miserably.”
#4
TIL of Elouise Cobell (“Yellow Bird Woman”) who founded the first Native American owned bank. As treasurer of the Blackfeet Nation she tried to resolve accounting discrepancies regarding leases on Indian Land which led to a $3.4 Billion dollar class action settlement against the US government.
#5
TIL of an Australian diver who befriended a baby shark. For years afterwards, whenever the shark would see him, she would swim up to him and demand cuddles.
#6
TIL of Bessie Coleman, the first African American and Native American female pilot who would only perform if the crowds were desegregated and entered thru the same gates.
“A few months later, that failure was still bugging me, so I decided to give it another go, this time on my own,” Dan continued. “I've always loved random trivia, so I went that route.”
“I started Now I Know in June 2010, sending it to 20 friends/family, and just kept at it, growing it slowly over the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. This Monday's went to more than 50,000 readers!”
#7
TIL Hours after being adopted from an animal shelter, 21-pound cat Pudding saved her owner's life. While suffering a diabetic seizure, Amy Jung's newly acquired cat pounced his weight on her chest and began swatting her face and biting her nose until she gained consciousness.
#8
TIL there is a group of wolves in British Columbia known as "sea wolves" and 90% of their food comes from the sea. They have distinct DNA that sets them apart from interior wolves and they're entirely dedicated to the sea swimming several miles everyday in search of food.
Karma Black 1 year ago
Yet, our huskies scream like you're killing them if you give them a bath.
#9
TIL US Airways kicked a blind and his dog off a plane in 2013 after the Dog repositioned itself during a two hour delay. They cancelled the flight after passengers disembarked in protest saying the flight attendant responsible be kicked off instead of the man and his service dog.
As far as why we should keep learning our entire lives, Dan says, “I think it's important to be curious about the world around us and open minded about what we think we know. Learning should be lifelong and fun facts are a great entry point – it keeps you humble and keeps you growing, intellectually.”
#10
TIL that during WW1, the MI5 used Girl Guides to deliver secret messages. They used Girl Guides instead of Boy Scouts because they found out that Boy Scouts weren't efficient enough, boisterous and talkative.
Mimi La Souris 1 year ago
I worked in either female-only or male-only teams. nobody believes me when I say that it is the men who are the most talkative and the most chit chatting :D
#11
TIL that Muhammad Ali went to Iraq in 1990 against the then president George H.W. Bush's wishes and secured the release of 15 american citizen hostages held in Iraqi prisons, and brought them home.
#12
TIL that even though Edward Bannister won 1st prize for painting at the 1876 Philadelphia centennial international exhibition, after discovering Bannister's identity, the judge wanted to rescind his award because he was black. However this wasn't possible due to protests from the other competitors.
We also wanted to know if the trivia expert had any fun facts that he’s partial to. “My favorite fun fact is one I haven't learned yet,” Dan shared. “I titled the newsletter ‘Now I Know’ (instead of ‘Now You Know’) for a reason – it's my effort to learn more and share more.”
“For me, the joy of the fun fact comes from the discovery of something new that I didn't think possible or realistic,” he added. “I really liked most of the ones I've shared before for the same reason!”
#13
TIL after a chance encounter, Charles-Michel de l'Épée was taught to sign by the deaf. Believing the deaf should be able to receive the sacraments, he founded a school in 1760 to teach sign language. His public advocacy enabled deaf people to legally defend themselves in court for the first time.
#14
TIL that a cow escaped from a Polish farm and was spotted months later living with a herd of wild bison.
Salty_Sasquatch 1 year ago
I just read about a donkey who escaped from a family farm (previously feral). People spotted him months later hundreds of miles away running with a herd of elk. The owners were told and were glad that he was alive but realized (thankfully) that there was no way they could get him back and rehabilitate him. Thank goodness.
#15
TIL Agatha Christie has outsold Stephen King and J.K Rowling combined by about 2 billion books.
Chicken Nugget 1 year ago
she's my favorite author and poirot is my second favorite detective (you can guess who my favorite is)
And if you’re looking to start learning something new every day, Dan recommends subscribing to Now I Know. “It's easy,” he says. “Next time you learn something new, if it brings you joy, figure out how you found that out – and do that again, and again, and again.”
#16
TIL that ravens and wolves have formed a mutually beneficial relationship out in the wild. Ravens have been observed calling wolves to the site of dead animals so that the wolves will then open up the carcass and leave the scraps for the ravens once they're finished.
#17
TIL that Fermilab used to clean its particle accelerators with a ferret named Felicia, who would run through the tubes with cleaning supplies attached and be rewarded with hamburger meat.
#18
TIL that all beaches in Mexico are property of the federal government. There are no privately owned beaches in the whole country, all of them are open to public use.
Abdullah Abd Rahman 1 year ago
Same thing in Malaysia. All beaches are property of the government and every member of the public has a right to use them.There are no private beaches, restricted to some people only.
#19
TIL the clearest lake in the world is the Blue Lake located in Nelson, New Zealand. Visibility in the lake is up to 80 metres meaning the water is considered almost as optically clear as distilled water.
#20
TIL a woman quit her job to search for her border collie who escaped from a hotel room during a thunderstorm while on vacation in Kalispell, Montana. After 57 days of searching and posting hundreds of flyers around town, she finally found ‘Katie’ who was starving, but otherwise OK.
#21
TIL Japanese doctor Tetsu Nakamura devoted his life revitalising deserts in Afghanistan, making forests and wheat farmland and contributing to peace. Nakamura was decorated with the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun and Afghan National Medal.
#22
TIL In 1802, Napoleon added a Polish legion to fight off the slave rebellion in Haiti. However, the Polish army joined the Haitian slaves in the fight for independence. Haiti's first head of state called Polish people "the White Negroes of Europe", which was then regarded as a great honour.
#23
TIL juice company dumped 12,000 tonnes of orange peels on virtually lifeless soil, 16 years later, it turned into a lush forest.
Mimi La Souris 1 year ago (edited)
i have mixes feelings about it, because if the soil has been ruined, it is because they have been operating in the area for a long time Edit : as an answer to negative comments, there is not enough info there to know where it takes place, my comment was about a land in indonesia (yes Beth D, too lazy to look after a ref right now) a orange juice company tried to sell a ruined field and the justice forced it to make it fertile again. for not paying the fertilizer, they had used their waste
#24
TIL alpacas are being used as bodyguards in some turkey farms, since they instinctively accept the birds into their herd and scare off foxes.
#25
Nas listed his then 7-year-old daughter, Destiny Jones, as an executive producer on his fifth studio album Stillmatic to ensure she would always receive royalty checks from the album.
#26
TIL that in 2009 Icelandic engineers accidentally drilled into a magma chamber with temperatures up to 1000C (1832F). Instead of abandoning the well like a previous project in Hawaii, they decided to pump water down and became the most powerful geothermal well ever created.
#27
TIL in the anatomy building at Dalian Medical University, where medical student can practice on cadavers, there's a sign with a quote from a donor that reads "I’d rather let students try something 20 times on me than see them make one mistake on a future patient.”
Igor914624 1 year ago
If my death can help one person live, my life will not have been wasted. That's why I am an organ donor.
#28
TIL the King's doctor Johann Struensee seized power for over a year in 18th century Denmark. He managed to abolish slavery, abolish censorship of the press, and have an affair with the Queen before being ousted and executed in 1772.
#29
TIL the self-absorption paradox asserts that the more self-aware we are, the less likely we are to make social mistakes, but the more likely we are to torture ourselves over past mistakes. High self-awareness leads to more psychological distress.
#30
TIL the chemical reaction in glow sticks was discovered by Dr. Edwin Chandross in 1962, but he had no idea the "chemiluminescent" objects were popular at music shows until a Vice interview in 2013. "Is that so?" he said. "Maybe my granddaughter will think I'm cool now."
#31
TIL British Parliament had an official discussion where they condemned the historical inaccuracies of the film U-571 and the rewriting of history to paint the Americans as heroes in an event they never even took part in. They felt it was unfair on the British sailors that lost their lives.
Rachel Ratty 1 year ago
yes - with loads of money you can simply re-write history for entertainment....
#32
TIL that even though Henry Heimlich demonstrated his signature maneuver thousands of times throughout his life he never got the chance to use it in an actual emergency until he was 96 when he saved a woman in his nursing home from choking on a burger.
#33
TIL of Eric Moussambani, who had never seen an olympic sized swimming pool before the 2000 olympics. He recorded the slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72, however won his heat as all other competitors false started. He is now a national hero the head swimming coach of Equatorial Guinea.
Mimi La Souris 1 year ago (edited)
oh, i remember him ! He could barely swim and had learned a few minutes before diving how to do a half turn under water, not very successful, by the way. But he show so much good energy the whole audience encouraged him, and I also in front of my TV. a very good memory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2ow6vXafLo
#34
TIL, The Netherlands gives Canada 20,000 tulips every year as a thank you for protecting the Dutch royal family in WW2.
#35
TIL about the Great Green Wall, an effort to plant trees to stop desertification in the Sahara that began in 2007. Ethiopia has planted over 5.5 billion seedling since.
#36
TIL that in India, there is a species of giant squirrel that have multicoloured fur, with with varying shades of orange, maroon and purple. Their bodies measure 36in from head to tail – double the size of their grey relatives – and they can leap 20ft between trees.
Denise Melek 1 year ago (edited)
I saw a documentary, where apes use them to detect ripe fruits and then steel them from the squirrels by slapping them.
#37
TIL A director made a ten hour movie that's just about paint on a wall drying, lasting for ten hours and seven minutes. The film was created by Charlie Lyne in order to troll the British Board of Film Classification (B.B.F.C.) who were forced to sit through the whole thing.
#38
TIL that anatomically dogs have two arms and two legs - not four legs; the front legs (arms) have wrist joints and are connected to the skeleton by muscle and the back legs have hip joints and knee caps.
#39
TIL In 1911 The Rigby family included their cat Tom in their census form. 'Tom Cat' was listed as being an 8-year old, married Mouse-Catcher, Soloist and Thief with 16 children. His birthplace was listed as Cheshire and he was described as being 'speechless' in the infirmity section of the form.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
Ha! Good for the soft can-opener! We're not speechless, though. We're very good at communicating, even with a ridiculous species that communicates primarily through sound. I mean, really! Sniff noses, and you're good.
#40
TIL the medals in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were made from metals recovered from recycled cell phones collected since 2017.
#41
TIL of eagle hunters in Mongolia. Known as the Burkitshi, this nomadic tribe hunts with eagles (only female eagles as they are larger and believed to be fiercer). While eagles can live for decades, theirs are captured at the age of four and released after 10 years to live out their life in the wild.
#42
TIL Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He was frustrated with the fact that he had to go and ask his coworkers what data was on their computer so he can add it to his computer which led to him creating an application that became the world wide Web.
#43
TIL that in 1995, a man received a "check" for $95,000 as junk mail. Jokingly, he deposited it into his account. The "check" met all of the legal criteria for a check and was cashed.
#44
TIL Two guys honored their dead friend's dying wish by using his ashes as fish bait and caught an enormous 180lb Carp in his memory.
#45
TIL of Vince Coleman, a train dispatcher who sacrificed his life to save hundreds, warning of a massive boat explosion nearby. The message: "Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys."
General Anaesthesia 1 year ago
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, December 6, 1917. 1800 people died.
#46
TIL Richard Simmons would wake up at 4AM to call up to 40 people who are isolated, alone, or needed empathy. Some credited Richard Simmons for saving their lives.
#48
TIL that the Ginkgo Tree is unique, not obviously related to any living plant; a “living fossil,”unchanged in 200 million years.
#49
TIL A duet sung by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson remained unfinished because Mercury walked out of the recording. He couldn’t tolerate Jackson bringing his pet llama into the studio.
#50
TIL the ancient Egyptians developed the first recorded early pregnancy test, whereby a woman would urinate on a bag of wheat or barley and, if the bag started sprouting, it indicated a pregnancy. In 1963, researchers measured the test as being 70% accurate.
#51
TIL of the Ovitz family, not only the largest family of dwarfs ever recorded but also the largest family (12 people ranging from a 15-month-old baby to a 58-year-old woman) to enter Auschwitz and survive intact.
#52
TIL That elephants stay cancer free as they have 20 copies of a key tumor-fighting gene; humans have just one.
#53
TIL Friends Thomas Cook and Joseph Feeney shook hands in 1992, swearing if either one won the Powerball jackpot, they would split the winnings. Well the power of friendship and a handshake has paid off: 28 years later Tom won €22 million and split the winnings with his friend.
#54
TIL that some hikers and researchers have spotted wild birds swearing. It is believed that birds that escaped from captivity teach other wild birds how to speak and swear in English.
Abdullah Abd Rahman 1 year ago
The words of a foreign language that most people learn from a friend who speaks it are ,inadvertently, swear words. So it is with wild birds, learning from an escapee friend.
#55
TIL The Godfather's famous cat-in-lap scene was entirely unscripted. A stray cat randomly wandered onto the set, so Coppola grabbed it and put it in Marlin Brando's lap without a word.
#56
TIL inventor of the Murphy-Bed, William Lawrence Murphy (1856-1957), created his first hide-away bed as means to convert his one-room apartment into a parlour, specifically to host the company of his future wife. It was considered inappropriate at the time to for a woman to enter a man's bedroom.
#57
TIL two high school students found that despite advertising claims that “the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges,” the drink contained almost no trace of vitamin C and one orange juice brand had over three times more. The company were taken to court and fined NZ$217,500.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 year ago
*colors the currants purple and bats them under the sofa*
#58
TIL NASA's longest serving female employee since January 1958, Sue Finley, has been an engineer and programmer for space missions since Explorer 1, for missions to the Moon, Sun, all the planets and many other solar system bodies, and recipient of NASA's Exceptional Public Service Medal.
Mimi La Souris 1 year ago
she does not bend her head voluntarily, it is her brain that is too heavy :D
#59
TIL that at the age of 17, Steven Spielberg directed a sci-fi film called "Firelight". The budget was $500, and it was shown at a local cinema, with 500 people coming, and tickets costing a dollar each. However, one person paid $2, so the movie made $1, making it Spielberg's first commercial success.
#60
TIL in 2018, an electrical engineer on board the Bellingshausen Research station in Antartica stabbed a fellow coworker in the chest multiple times because the colleague had been giving away the endings of books available in the research station’s library.
#61
TIL that the jumping spider, Nefertiti, was launched to the ISS to observe if it could catch prey in microgravity. It succeeded in catching prey by learning to walk slowly, rather than leaping, as this species usually does. It survived reentry and readjusted to full gravity before its natural death.
#62
TIL In 2012 a British man named Wesley Carrington bought a metal detector and within 20 minutes found gold from the Roman Age worth £100,000.
#63
TIL Octopuses are one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet, capable of solving complex puzzles, using tools, escaping captivity, and planning ahead in the future.
#64
TIL in 1998, a 10-year-old girl in Austria was dragged into a car and kidnapped. The case remained unsolved until she knocked on someone's door in 2006 saying: "I am Natascha Kampusch." She had just escaped the secret cellar of a local technician that abused her for 8 years.
Jennifer Smith 1 year ago
The kidnapper never did any time because he offed himself when he found her gone
#65
TIL James Michael Tyler, who played Gunther the barista on “Friends” was originally meant to only appear as an extra; he remained on the show as he was the only actor there who knew how to operate an espresso machine.
#66
TIL that Sea Urchins are called Sea Urchins because Hedgehogs used to be called Urchins until about the 15th century. Sea Urchins are Ocean Hedgehogs.
#67
TIL about the 71 teenage students, who were stationed to protect a South Korean HQ, despite having no experience in war or even firing a gun. The SK army didn’t think the NK army would attack that HQ, but they did. Those students, still in their school uniforms, held back the NK army for 11 hours.
#68
TIL that when the Notre Dame Cathedral was on fire the some 200,000 bees that live in the roof were thought to be dead, but in fact they were still alive after the fire.
#69
TIL that England experiences large spikes in power demand during half-time at football games due to widespread use of electric kettles.
#70
TIL Graça Machel was married to the President of Mozambique until he died in a plane crash, she later married Nelson Mandela while he was President of South Africa. She is the only person in modern history to be First Lady of two different countries.
#71
TIL that in 1997, a 50-pound pumpkin was speared atop a tower at Cornell University, 173 feet in the air. It stayed in place for months. Alumni are still trying to figure out who did it without being noticed -- and how.
#72
TIL when the UN's Nordic Battalion was sent to Bosnia in 1993 it disobeyed orders, broke rules of engagement, faked loss of communication to HQ, and became known as one the most trigger-happy peacekeeper units. This enabled them to achieve their mission objective: to protect civilians at all cost.
#73
TIL that Walter Breuning stopped smoking cigars at age 103 because they became too expensive. At age 108, he began smoking cigars again after receiving a lot of gifts of cigars. He ultimately ended up living to age 114.5 and was the second-last verified surviving man born in the 1800s.
#74
TIL that the Mississippi river was once five miles wide and whales swam up it from the gulf of Mexico. The remains of these whales have been found in Michigan.
#75
TIL early-20th-century actress, Maude Adams, wanted to do a film version of Peter Pan, but was against doing it in black-and-white. She began working with experts on those obstacles, i.e. lack of color film and inadequate lighting. She earned several electric-light patents in the 1930s.
Tabitha Osika 1 year ago
This is a story I'd love to learn more about. I've always been curious about the people who wanted to see the world as it is, in full color even on the silver screen.
#76
TIL Los Angeles is the first major city in the world to synchronize all its traffic lights. Nearly 4,400 lights across 469 miles receive real-time updates about traffic flow to make second-by-second adjustments. The system limits congestion by up to 16% while also dramatically reducing idling time.
#77
TIL that Charles D. B. King holds the record for the most fraudulent election in history. In 1927 he was elected President of Liberia with 234,000 votes in a country that only had 15,000 registered voters at the time.
#78
TIL when Steve Buscemi was 4-years-old he was hit by a bus and managed to survive with a fractured skull. He received a $6,000 settlement from the city that was to be collected from a trust fund when he turned 18. When Buscemi turned 18, he used part of the money to pay for full-time acting classes.
#79
TIL that the world's rarest tree, Kaikōmako native to New Zealand, has been rescued from extinction after 40 years of trying to get the very last female tree in the world to fruit again.
#80
TIL although Wayne’s World (1992) was released after Freddie Mercury died, he got to see the car headbanging scene featuring Bohemian Rhapsody shortly before he passed away on November 24, 1991. He loved it and foresaw how the use of the song would ignite a comeback for Queen in the United States.
#81
TIL that tigers are nearly invisible to their prey, who see orange as green. Tigers are orange because mammals can’t produce green fur, and orange was the next best thing.
#82
TIL after an earthquake shattered the Colossi of Memnon in Egypt, the damaged statue began to "sing" during sunrise which modern scientists attribute to early morning heat causing dew trapped within the statue’s crack to evaporate creating vibrations that echoed through the desert air.
#83
TIL research found that 94% of British people said they had conversed about the weather in the past six hours, and 38% said they had in the past 60 minutes. This means at any moment in the UK, a third of the population is either talking about the weather, has already done so or are about to do so.
Abdullah Abd Rahman 1 year ago
Can't blame the Brits. The weather is horrible and unpredictable, even in summer.
#84
TIL Goku from DBZ in Japan is voiced by an 84 year old woman, who holds world records for her long-running voice acting career.
KittyGaming 1 year ago
Fun fact, in many animes with little boys those boys will be voiced by girls bc men have too deep of a voice
#85
TIL a legend goes that during the Thirty Years' War, a Catholic army wanted to destroy Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany for resisting the Count of Tilly. Tilly declared that if anyone could drink a 3.25 L drink of wine in one go, he would spare the town. The local mayor saved the town that day.
#86
TIL about FBI agent Robert Hanssen. He was tasked to find a mole within the FBI after the FBI's moles in the KGB were caught. Robert Hanssen was the mole and had been working with the KGB since 1979.
#87
TIL David Bowie considered becoming a Buddhist monk, & studied for a few months in 1967 before a Lama told him he should follow music instead. His ashes were scattered in Bali in accordance with Buddhist rituals.
#88
TIL, that Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Queen's tribute for Elvis, took Freddie Mercury 10 minutes to write while taking a bath.
#89
TIL that the details of the Manhattan Project were so secret that many workers had no idea why they did their jobs. A laundrywoman had a dedicated duty to "hold up an instrument and listen for a clicking noise" without knowing why. It was a Geiger counter testing the radiation levels of uniforms.
#90
TIL Hippos sleep underwater even though they breathe air. They automatically close their nostrils and surface to breathe every 3-5 minutes. This all happens unconsciously, even in their sleep.
#91
TIL the big orange fuel tank attached to the space shuttles was originally white, but they stopped painting it to save 600lbs.
#92
TIL of Charlie Walker, the first non-government individual to fly into space. After NASA deemed him unqualified and rejected his 1978 application for astronaut, he co-developed a space bound device which required him to accompany it. Walker flew into space three times with the device he co-patented.
#93
TIL that Mesopotamians figured out that the Earth orbited the sun about 1,700 years before Copernicus and Newton. They also figured out that the moon causes the tides and that the Earth rotates around its axis.
Kira Okah 1 year ago
Greek. Seleucus was ethnically Greek. Heliocentrism and the theory of the tides were theories known to the Greeks 200 years before he was born. Though Hellenistic astronomy has its origins in Babylonian astronomy, the theories have no Mesopotamian origin. There are even earlier posits of these theories from India.
#94
TIL about a New Jersey history professor who was telling a story to his class about how a ranger saved his life in a canyon at night in Texas in 1940. The ranger had managed to track him down and coincidentally walked in to the classroom right as the professor was telling the story.
#95
TIL astronauts need to sleep near air vents or risk carbon dioxide from their own lungs forming a bubble around their head due to weightlessness.
#96
TIL that Apples are not ‘true to seed’, so the seeds from any particular variety apple will not grow to be the same variety as the apple tree they came from. E.g. If you planted seeds of Granny Smith it likely will produce a wide variety of different and unknown apple tree types.
Giles McArdell 1 year ago
All apples (and lot's of other tree grown fruit) are grown on grafted root stock as they cannot be grown from seeds (you'll usually get a "wild" fruit tree with smaller, harder, less sweet fruit). Grafting also helps with disease resistance and vigour. Most eating apples would originally have come from a "sport" - a branch of a wild tree that has developed a mutation and is growing larger fruit.
#97
TIL that in his acceptance speech for the 1976 Best Album Grammy, Paul Simon jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album that year. Stevie Wonder had won Best Album in the previous two years and would go on to win again in 1977 for Songs in the Key of Life.
#98
TIL that in 1982, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was rushed to hospital when a fish bone became stuck in her throat, and she ended up having an operation to remove it. Being a keen fisher, she calmly joked when it was done: "The salmon have got their own back".
#99
TIL Switzerland has 7 simultaneous "presidents", each with equal power. Every year they rotate control of 7 federal depts & who acts as "head of state" (e.g. when dealing with other countries). They come from various parties — right now it's 2 conservatives, 2 liberals, 2 socialists, and a centrist.
#100
TIL there is a herd of wild zebras in central California that can be seen off of Route 1 near San Simeon.
#101
TIL: The aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has a reverse osmosis system capable of producing more than 500 tonnes of fresh, drinkable water from sea water per day.
#102
TIL that in the 70s, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, tried creating its own artificial coral reef by dumping some 2 million used tires into the ocean. It became an environmental disaster, naturally, but also a military training exercise when divers had to retrieve the tires (almost one by one).
#103
TIL Tag brothers are a group of 10 men who had been playing the game of tag since 1990, chasing each other around the country, traveling by plane, car etc. As of 2018, the game is still ongoing.
#104
TIL I learned the first American soldier to land on the beach durning the invasion of Normandy was shot twice and not only survived, but lived to be 90 years old.
#105
TIL the band UB40 is named after Unemployment Benefit, Form 40 - a form issued to people claiming unemployment benefits. The name was suggested by a friend of the band because all the members were unemployed.
Don Golosso 1 year ago
I thought this was fairly common knowledge under UB40 fans. Their debut album, Signing off, has the UB-40 form as an album cover.
#106
TIL that in 2006, a couple lost for three nights in the San Jacinto Mountains of CA were rescued because they were able to light a signal fire from matches they found in the abandoned camp of a lost hiker who vanished exactly One year before their incident.
DaisyBee 1 year ago
His name was John Donovan. The hikers he unknowingly saved were Gina Allen and Brandon Day, a couple at the time who took a wrong turn on a tour and got lost for days. Had it not been for John’s supplies left behind, they might not have survived. John’s body was eventually found, but no one is sure if he died of exposure related things or jumped from a waterfall having given up on hope of rescue. There’s an episode of “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” documenting their own experiences, and a MrBallen episode detailing more of John Donovan’s life. All can be found on YouTube.
#107
TIL Bruce Lee was the winner of the 1958 Hong Kong Cha-Cha Dancing Championship. He kept a card with 108 different cha-cha dance steps in his wallet and developed new moves which he wrote down in a personal notebook labeled "Cha-Cha Fancy Steps."
#108
TIL - Ben and Jerry's has a physical graveyard that they retire old flavors to, and you can actually go visit it.
Don Golosso 1 year ago
I was at a chocolate factory in Austria and they have this for the flavours they made but where too bad to release commercially.
#109
TIL Salvador Dali once conned Yoko Ono into paying $10,000 for a single blade of grass. Yoko had offered to pay that amount for one of his mustache hairs. He substituted the blade of grass because he thought that Yoko Ono was a witch and might use his hair in a spell.
#110
TIL Swedes have a national weekly eating plan. Thursdays are traditionally pancakes and split pea soup.
#111
TIL About a 17 year old kid that was given an old iPhone for free, and using the "barter" section of Craigslist made 14 trades, ending with a Porsche. Along the way he traded for newer phones, computers, motorcycles, and eventually cars.
Mimi La Souris 1 year ago
It reminds me of the man who started with a paper clip to end up with a house
#112
TIL In the 1930's a selling point for TP started by Northern Tissue company was that their toilet paper was "splinter free".
#113
TIL that Tupac Shakur renamed his publishing company name from "Ghetto Gospel Music" to "Joshua’s Dream" after meeting with 11-year old Joshua Torres with muscular dystrophy who died 45 minutes after Tupac left his bedside.
#114
TIL A bank robber in France made a fictitious, coded document which he claimed as evidence during his trial. While the judge was distracted by the document, Albert Spaggiari jumped out of a window, landing safely on a parked car and escaped on a waiting motorcycle. He was never seen again.
Dispatcherqueen 1 year ago
He was seen again. Many times, and on the news, until his body was found in his mother's front yard. He wrote the book, Fric Frac, about the biggest bank heist Paris had ever seen, that he masterminded. It's a great read.
#115
TIL some people suffer a "weekend migraine" or "let-down headache" on weekends (or other break from a 9-to-5 weekday job) due to a decrease in stress.
#116
TIL Sony sold its waterproof Walkman in a bottle of water to prove it was really waterproof.
#117
TIL of Ian Manuel. A man who spent years in isolation after he was condemned to die in prison for a nonhomicide offense at age 13. He won his freedom in 2016 with the help of the woman he attacked. He is now an activist, motivational speaker, and published author.
Ace 1 year ago (edited)
He shot a young mother in the face during the course of an armed robbery. His sentence was "life without parole" for attempted murder; the headline here makes it sound like he was given the death penalty, which was not the case, and also underplays the nature and gravity of the offence.
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CD Mills 1 year ago (edited)
I've called myself a "Veritable Fount of Useless Information" for decades. My little school-girl brain still wants to learn "ALL THE THINGS!". {I got to keep that part to this day.} Articles like this keep my brain all wrinkly and happy!
Mary Peace 1 year ago
My mother used to say "Mary's a mine of useless information." Well she had to say something when I came up with a random snippet at family parties.
Load More Replies... CD Mills 1 year ago (edited)
I've called myself a "Veritable Fount of Useless Information" for decades. My little school-girl brain still wants to learn "ALL THE THINGS!". {I got to keep that part to this day.} Articles like this keep my brain all wrinkly and happy!
Mary Peace 1 year ago
My mother used to say "Mary's a mine of useless information." Well she had to say something when I came up with a random snippet at family parties.
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