50 Best Of All Time “Today I Learned” Facts To Keep The Brain Active And Healthy
Interview With Expert
We all probably carry around random pieces of information that we pull out as a party trick. For example, I like to tell people that it would take them 19 minutes to fall to the center of the earth.
If only there was a way to share these utterly amazing facts with millions of people. Fortunately for us, there is, and it’s called the “Today I Learned” subreddit.
It’s a place where all-knowing people gather to share their unlimited wisdom. From fake diseases to tombs for dogs, these facts really enrich the brain. So scroll down to find the collection of the best ones about everything and anything. Perhaps they’ll even inspire some fun trivia for your next dinner party with friends.
We also reached out to online quiz host Brie Zulkiewicz and Brianna Liestman brand engagement director behind Trivia Mafia who kindly agreed to tell us about the importance of learning facts and let us in on the secrets to hosting a great game!
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TIL a guide dog named Roselle led a group of people including her blind owner down 78 flights of stairs before the North Tower collapsed on 9/11. She only stopped to give kisses to a woman who was having a panic attack.
TIL:In January 1960, white jazz pianist Dave Brubeck canceled a twenty-five-date tour of colleges and universities across the American South after twenty-two schools had refused to allow his black bassist, Eugene Wright, to perform. He also canceled a tv show where they didn't want to show him.
TIL the former World Chess Champion G. Kasparov described Hungarian female chess player Polgár as a "circus puppet" and said that women chess players should stick to having children. Later in September 2002, in the Russia versus the Rest of the World Match, Polgár defeated Garry Kasparov.
Indeed, trivia games can be great fun. Not only that, but it keeps up good brain health, reduces stress, and improves memory retention.
Think of it as a workout for your mind. It needs exercise to stay in its best shape. Quickly delivering niche facts is an effective way to exercise the brain’s frontal cortex, which is responsible for memory function. In return, your brain becomes sharper, and the information is retained more easily.
This game is as much about gaining new knowledge as it is about recalling old tidbits of information. It’s rare to know everything and get a perfect score, so naturally, there will be questions that leave participants baffled. Learning the correct answers keeps brain functions working. Additionally, studies have found a positive connection between intellectually engaging activities such as trivia and higher cognition.
TIL of Syndrome K: a fake disease that Italian doctors made up to save Jews who had fled to their hospital seeking protection from the Nazis. Syndrome K "patients" were quarantined and the Nazis were told that it was a deadly, disfiguring, and highly contagious illness. They saved at least 20 lives.
TIL of Dr. Donald Hopkins. He helped eradicate Smallpox, and is on the verge of killing another disease. He's taken Guinea Worm Disease down from 3.5 million cases a year to just 28 cases last year.
From 3.5 million cases in the year 1986 to 9585 cases in the year 2007. Down to 15 reported human cases in the year 2021. 13 cases worldwide in the year 2022.
TIL During the American Revolution, an enslaved man was charged with treason and sentenced to hang. He argued that as a slave, he was not a citizen and could not commit treason against a government to which he owed no allegiance. He was subsequently pardoned.
It also has the benefit of reducing stress and making us feel better. Focusing strictly on the game offers a great distraction from whatever is making one feel anxious or stressed. Also, getting together in a relaxed environment is a good opportunity to blow off some steam.
Playing, especially winning, can release a rush of dopamine in the brain, making the person feel satisfied, excited, and even euphoric. Unlike gambling, this surge of feel-good chemicals from trivia doesn’t have any negative effects. Providing all the more reason to participate!
TIL Romans were known to create tombs for their dogs and gave them epitaphs to remember them by. One such inscription read, “I am in tears, while carrying you to your last resting place as much as I rejoiced when bringing you home with my own hands 15 years ago.”
TIL hundreds of love letters between two gay World War II soldiers were found and are being made into a book. In one, one of them wrote, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are."
TIL A Japanese company has awarded its non-smoking employees 6 extra vacation days to compensate for the smoker’s smoke breaks.
Bored Panda reached out to Brianna Liestman from Trivia Mafia - a bar operation based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the guys behind it kindly agreed to tell us more about this game. They are known to produce the highest-quality quiz nights in bars, taprooms, distilleries, and private events. It's a lot of fun!
They firmly believe that such games help to be more sure of one's intelligence. "I would say that trivia nights help increase a person's confidence in their intellect. So many times, players will say "I'm no good at trivia," but then they are the person on their team who came through with the one clutch answer that helped them win the game. So if you want to feel smarter, come to trivia!"
TIL that a 13-year-old opened a hot dog stand in front of his home in Minnesota, causing a complaint to the health department. Instead of shutting him down, the inspectors helped him bring his stand up to code and paid the $87 fee for his permit out of their own pockets.
TIL In 1959, police were called to a segregated library in S. Carolina when a 9yr-old Black boy refused to leave. He later got a PhD in Physics from MIT, and died in 1986, one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The library that refused to lend him books is now named after him.
TIL of Adolfo Kaminsky, a 18 year-old French forger who faked IDs for Jews during WWII. He once worked for 3 days straight to make papers for 300 children until he passed out. He kept his work a secret - his own daughter only learned the details while writing a book about him.
We also got in touch with Brie Zulkiewicz, who runs online trivia games on her Instagram account on Thursdays. Players can put their answers in a question box via an Instagram story and this week's game is ski theme-inspired. It's a great way to exercise your brain without leaving your sofa.
She sees trivia as a great way to look back on the information we already have in our brains. "Personally, I think participating in trivia helps boost memory and recall. I often receive messages from my players telling me facts and anecdotes that they were reminded of by one of my questions.
TIL that everyone in Singapore above the age of 21 is automatically registered as an organ donor. Opting out from this Act will result in you being put at the very bottom of the organ priority list, should you need an organ transplantation.
TIL when NASA used electronic computers for the first time - to calculate John Glenn's orbit around Earth - officials called on Katherine Johnson to verify the computer's numbers; Glenn had asked for her specifically and had refused to fly unless Johnson verified the calculations.
TIL there’s a cemetery in the Netherlands consisting of 8,300 US veterans who died in WWII. For the past 70 years, Dutch families have come to the cemetery every Sunday to care for a grave they adopted. Hundreds of people are currently on a waiting list to become caretakers.
When asked what makes a successful quiz night Brianna from Trivia Mafia told us "There are many factors that make trivia work. The first is the quality of questions: Trivia Mafia's approach to trivia is to avoid too many "either you know it or you don't" questions. We write round themes, and those theme descriptions are often really helpful in giving players a clue as to what the answer to a question could be.
For instance, at a recent trivia night, I am the kind of person who is hopeless with sports knowledge. But because I knew just enough about major players in baseball and I knew the rules of the round, I was able to get the answer."
They let us know that the second one is having a great host who is engaging and keeps people coming back week after week.
And the third is meeting the audience where they are. " Our games are typically 90-120 minutes, and our hosts have flexibility within that time frame to pace trivia appropriately. Some players and businesses want the host to move a little faster so people can close their tabs or get their kids to bed on a school night. Other places want a longer experience, where folks are really taking their time answering questions, eating and/or drinking, and enjoying a night out."
TIL: Researchers taught African grey parrots to buy food using tokens. They were then paired up, one parrot given ten tokens and the other none. Without any incentive for sharing, parrots with tokens started to give some to their broke partners so that everyone could eat.
TIL A Scottish woman was sentenced to death by hanging around 1721. Maggie Dickson was hung, declared dead, put in a wooden coffin and carted off. She woke up en route to the churchyard, the law said her sentence had been carried out and she lived another 40 years known as 'Half-hangit Maggie'.
In some places it was custom if the person lived or the rope broke after being hanged. They where then free from there transgressions. They got live.
TIL that In 2018, A hacker broke into people’s routers (100,000 of them) and patched their vulnerabilities up so that they couldn’t be abused by other hackers.
Brie also highlighted the importance of knowing your audience. "The most important part of planning a successful trivia night is knowing your audience. You will want very different questions for a busy crowded night at a sports bar versus a bridal shower brunch. Questions should always be tailored to ensure that the group is engaged and entertained rather than always prioritizing difficulty.
TIL in 1992, a California middle school ordered teachers to cover up all "obscene" words in Fahrenheit 451 with black marker before issuing copies to students. The school stopped this practice after local newspapers commented on the irony of defacing a book that condemns censorship.
TIL that in 1920, the town of Jackson, Wyoming elected an all-female town council by a margin of 2-1 over the men, drawing the most voters the town had ever seen. Known as the "pettycoat rulers," the women served for 3 years and did a great deal to clean up the notoriously lawless town.
TIL Dogs get sprayed by Skunks so often because Skunks lift their tails as a warning, Dogs see this as "Come smell my butt" which is the EXACT OPPOSITE MESSAGE from what the Skunk is trying to send.
Lastly, we were curious to know the secrets that could help one score a win in a game of trivia. Trivia Mafia told us "Make more friends with different interests! The teams that do the best with trivia have a really wide Venn diagram of knowledge, even if there aren't a lot of people on the team.
Intergenerational teams also do really well, because there are zeitgeist moments that will be obvious to them that won't be as obvious to the person across the table. They can work together using their individual strengths."
TIL mercy dogs were trained during World War I to comfort mortally wounded soldiers as they died in no man's land.
TIL about the symbiotic relationship of wolves and ravens. Ravens will lead wolves to prey so that they can take a portion of the leftovers, play games of tail chasing with each other, and develop individual friendships.
A school principal once made a student who'd gotten into trouble sit in the basement & read the U.S. Constitution as punishment. That student (who committed the Constitution to memory as a result) was Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first Black Supreme Court justice.
Brie's advice to success is practice. "Trivia, like many hobbies, is something a player can improve on with practice. In general, staying aware of current events and taking time to read for enjoyment will improve your odds of success."
TIL that the firm Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees on 9/11. The CEO, who was taking his child to school that day, later distributed $180 million to the families and offered jobs to all children of the victims. 57 of those children were employed by Cantor Fitzgerald as of 2016.
TIL of Waverly Woodson, a black medic who treated at least 200 injured men on D-Day while injured himself. As he hit the beach a shell tore apart his landing craft, filling him with shrapnel. Despite this, he set up an aid station and treated wounds for 30 hours, at one point even amputating a foot.
TIL Joseph Bazalgette, the man who designed London's sewers in the 1860's, said 'Well, we're only going to do this once and there's always the unforeseen' and doubled the pipe diameter. If he had not done this, it would have overflowed in the 1960's (it's still in use today).
Mad respect for engineering something to LAST AS LONG AS POSSIBLE vs our current BS Planned Obsolescence "engineering". Thanks, Capitalism. I hate it.
Brie signed off by saying "I always encourage players not to focus on winning or losing, but to lean into what they got out of the process. There are almost always questions that one can’t answer, but paying attention and reflecting on them can often be as personally beneficial as knowing the right answer."
TIL about the Danish Protest Pig. In the early 20th century, Danes living under Prussian rule were banned from displaying the Danish flag. To protest this, they bred pigs with a red and white color pattern similar to their flag. The breed is now called "Danish Protest Pig".
Slaveholders in the US knew that enslaved people were escaping to Mexico, the U.S. tried to get Mexico to sign a fugitive slave treaty, but Mexico refused to sign such a treaty, insisting that all enslaved people were free once they set foot on Mexican soil.
... so the US then invaded Mexico and annexed a bunch of Mexican territory, like Texas and New Mexico which had been slavery-free in Mexico but were now integrated as a slave states in the US...
TIL that in 1916 there was a proposed Amendment to the US Constitution that would put all acts of war to a national vote, and anyone voting yes would have to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army.
TIL after losing her position in her university's anatomy department in 1938, Rita Levi-Montalcini set up a laboratory in her bedroom and studied the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos. This work led to her discovery of nerve growth factor, for which she was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1986.
TIL: Late wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow once saved three children from a burning house and 40% of his skin was left with second degree burns forcing him to retire and hospitalized for two months. Bam Bam said he had "no regrets" of his act of courage, as long as all three kids were safe.
TIL that paper books still outsells e-books by a huge margin, even among young people.
The Curie family is the family with the most Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie won two Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry. Her husband Pierre Curie won a Nobel in physics. Their daughter Irène Joliot-Curie won a Nobel prize in chemistry.
True. And they deserved it. Marie Curie never cared about the award but did care about the money. It got her out of a leaky shed and into a fully equipped laboratory. Which was what the Nobel prize was initially intended for.
TIL after Marcelo Bielsa became manager of Leeds United FC, he found out that the average fan had to work 3 hours to pay for a match ticket. He called his players together and made them pick up litter from around the training ground for 3 hours, to appreciate how the fans laboured for their passion.
In World War 1, Nobel prize winning physicist Marie Curie developed mobile X-Ray stations to travel to the frontlines and assist army surgeons and preventing amputations when limbs were still intact. It's estimated that over a million wounded soldiers were x-rayed with her units.
TIL in the months before his sudden death, former Mythbuster Grant Imahara built a fully animatronic Baby Yoda. Having spent 3 months of his personal time designing, programming, and 3D printing the project, he intended to bring it to hospitals to cheer up sick children.
TIL Joseph Strauss, the engineer of the golden Gate Bridge, mandated that a net be installed under the bridge for safety while being built. This was revolutionary at the time. The net caught 19 men who fell, saving all of them from a certain death.
TIL Lithuania withdrew from the 1992 Olympics due to the lack of money after the fall of the USSR. The Grateful Dead agreed to fund transportation costs for the basketball team along with Grateful Dead designs for the team's jerseys and shorts. They went on to win the Bronze.
Penguins can drink saltwater because of glands near their eyes that remove salt from their bloodstream and then they can sneeze out the extra salt.
Ditto for seagulls, albatrosses and marine iguanas. Sharks have a similar gland in their r*ctum.
TIL that Majel Barrett, the voice of the Starfleet computer on Star Trek, recorded an entire library of phonetic sounds before she died which allowed her voice to be used as the computer for future generations.
TIL Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks containing an image of Yoda sitting next to King Faisal while he signed the 1945 UN charter.
Elinor Powell was a black nurse who served during WWII. She was assigned to work at a POW camp, like most African-American nurses at the time, and fell in love with a German POW there. They married and had children despite it being illegal in both the U.S and Germany during this time period.
Love is love, and if you don't like that, then you can just leave the planet 😁
Vears at Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in Montana have jobs: try to open coolers/dumpsters/containers of treats. If bears can't make more than a tiny hole, the item is certified bear-proof. The GWDC is the only place where products can earn a certificate from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.
At Healesville Sanctuary here in Victoria, the telecom companies test their cables in the cockatoo enclosure to see if they're bird proof. Cockies have very strong beaks and love to tear stuff up.
TIL that Bill Murray once drove a taxi cab so that the cab driver could spend time playing saxophone in the backseat. The cab driver mentioned that he never had time to play his sax since he had to work 14 hours a day. Murray took the driver’s seat so that he could finally play some tunes.
TIL: In a village in India, an Indian robin had made a nest and laid her eggs on the village's switchboard. The village decided to go without street lights for over a month for the safety of the bird and to allow her eggs to hatch. After 45 days, the bird and its hatchlings safely flew away.
While I love this ... the standard procedure isn't like that. Around the world, any animal causing an ever so slightly discomfort to humans, is usually relocated or downright killed. Compassion, often, is executed well-visible towards cats or dogs, while any other animal can't face a worse atrocity than being handled by humans... Exceptions made for single birds or bats or beavers are worth being shown here EXACTLY because they are exceptions. Sadly, adressing this usually leads to defensiveness and complainery, as if mentioning the obligation to - at the very least - acknowledge the impact people have on animals would, somehow, cause a more severe discomfort in the humans (who chose to act like they do) than the violently brought-upon death is to the animal. Entitlement.......
TIL that when filming the TV series "The Mandalorian" in 2019, the crew ran out of Stormtrooper costumes, so they reached out to the local branch of a Star Wars fan organisation, whose members came to join the filming in their own home-made Stormtrooper costumes.
I'm willing to bet they're talking about the 501st Legion, a Star Wars cosplay group with members all around the globe. It's members are very disciplined, have amazing costumes and are very knowlegeable about Star Wars. Kind of how when you need some extras for a WW1/2 thing there is always a WW1/2 reenactment group willing to help out if you only ask.
TIL: In order to get improvements in their job security amidst the emergence of a rival bus line, bus drivers in Okayama, Japan decided to go on strike in a unique way in 2018. While on strike, they supported the community by continuing to drive their routes, but simply not charging customers.
TIL that baby owls sleep down on their stomach because their heads are too heavy. They do that until they are large enough to sleep upright.
After Universidad del Mar was closed by Chilean government due to major financial irregularities, artist Papas Fritas managed to enter its vault and burn tuition contracts amounting to $500 million, making difficult to prove students owed the university this money.
After the 2011 Japanese nuclear plant in Fukushima was disabled by an earthquake tsunami double whammy, elderly Japanese people volunteered to do repairs to save young people from radiation exposure.
TIL - In order to bolster its waning popularity as a travel hub, Japan's Kishigawa Train Line appointed a cat named Tama as its new station master in 2007, leading to a huge spike in popularity as a tourist destination. In 2010 a second cat was hired to "assist" Tama with her duties.
TIL Prairie dog language is complex. They don’t just have a call for “danger”: their calls differentiate human, hawk, domesticated dog, coyote etc. and specify size & color. One study found that they can communicate “Here comes the short human in the yellow” (vs the tall human in blue) to each other.
TIL scientists used 2,000 year old seeds to regrow an extinct species of date tree. The tree long disappeared from the Judean desert but archeologists found seeds on digs. Surprisingly, the seeds worked and grew a male and female of the species. They hope to use them to produce biblical era dates.
TIL: Microsoft tried a 4-day workweek in Japan as part of a “Work Life Choice Challenge” by shutting down offices every Friday. Productivity, measured by sales per employee, increased by almost 40% compared to the same period the previous year.
There must be some other reason this isn’t a standard thing yet, then. Profit is usually enough.
TIL in 1980 the FBI formed a fake company and attempted to bribe members of congress. Nearly 25% of those tested accepted the bribe, and were convicted.
TIL a study from Yale found that kids who watched 'Mr. Rogers Neighborhood' retained more information than children who watched 'Sesame Street.' They also had a higher 'tolerance of delay', meaning they were more patient.
I realize anecdotal evidence to the contrary is just that, but I was a Sesame Street kid who retained EVERYTHING and was the "perfect child" per my parents and grandparents. My brother was a Mr.Rogers kid who literally tore through our house like a tornado. Perhaps we forgot to read this study.
In 1936 Orson Welles produced and directed a version of Shakespeare's Macbeth with an all-Black cast.
Theater critic Percy Hammond panned the show. The Haitians in the cast sat all night drumming and chanting. Hammond died soon after.
There is an Australian pine growing out of an old railroad bridge in the Florida Keys named Fred the Tree. Fred survives with salt spray, lots of sunshine, and no apparent soil. Fred even withstood Hurricane Irma!
TIL of the Schiphol fly, which is a fly engraved on urinals at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The psychology is that men will want to "wash" the fly off the urinal so they focus more when urinating, apparently lowering cleaning bills in public bathrooms.
Some elephants eat off a specific tree to induce labor - the same tree which Kenyan women brew a tea of for the same purpose
TIL of Diego, a tortoise whose high libido helped save his species. He & E5 (another male) brought the population from 15 to 2,000, and now the species is considered self-sufficient. After 80 years in captivity, Diego is now retired in the Galápagos, where he'll spend the rest of his life having sex.
TIL of Ken Allen, a Borneo orangutan in the San Diego Zoo who escaped his enclosure three times. He never acted aggressively towards anyone during his escapes, and generally wandered around the zoo looking at other animals.
According to one zoo insider, animal escapes from zoo enclosures happen surprisingly often. We had lions escape from their enclosure at my city's zoo in Dec 2022. Usually the animals just wander around the zoo looking at the exhibits until they are enticed back to their original enclosure.
In 2015, a plane made an emergency landing after the crew received an indication of smoke in the cargo hold. It turns out to be caused by the 2,186 sheep farting onboard.
Somewhat similar incident. About 10-15 years ago, a building in Australia had to be evacuated due to potential gas leakage. "The smell was bad. This has to be a major leak." Turned out someone opened a durian inside that building.
TIL If you grind a marine sponge through a sieve into salt water, it'll reorganize itself back into a sponge. It's the only animal that we know of that can do that.
"We know of" leads me to imagine a lab somewhere, with some scientists and a really big sieve... bring in the cow!
Genghis Khan would marry off a daughter to the king of an allied nation. Then he would assign his new son in law to military duty in the Mongol wars, while his daughter took over the rule. Most sons in law died in combat, giving his daughters complete control of these nations.
TIL about pack horse librarians that serviced the Appalachian communities (e.g., rural Kentucky) in the mid 1930s to early 1940s who were mostly women who rode on horses or mules to deliver library books to remote communities during the Great Depression.
TIL of a French soldier who was taken as a POW and fed only potatoes during his captivity, and survived. Feeling like he should have died, he made it his life’s mission to convince the world of the nutritional value of potatoes, and his tomb in France is decorated with potatoes as a tribute.
TIL that Russian President Boris Yeltsin once got so drunk at a state dinner that he drummed on Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev's bald head, using dinner spoons.
TIL Noninvasive spinal stimulation enables paralyzed people to regain use of hands. A team of scientists reports that six people with severe spinal cord injuries — three of them completely paralyzed — have regained use of their hands and fingers.
TIL A Stolen teddy bear with dying mother's voice has been returned after actor Ryan Reynolds and other celebrities offered a $15,000 reward.
Researchers found that a blood test called PanSeer detected cancer in 95% of patients up to 4 years before they got a conventional cancer diagnosis. The test determines if the DNA in blood plasma was shed by tumours based on precence of particular methyl groups.
Why is this not a routine test? Early detection could save so many lives and so much money.
The California Genocide, an oft-forgotten event in U.S. history due to occurring at the same time at the California Gold Rush. The Native American population of California decreased from as many as 150,000 in 1848 to 30,000 in 1870. Tribes such as the Yahi were hunted to extinction.
TIL that in September 1945 Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett defied US restrictions and snuck into Hiroshima by train. Burchett was the first to tell the world about the effects of radiation on the victims of the bombing, which the US denied both before and after his story was published.
Interestingly, the effects of radiation were quite different in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki. With the radiation doing a lot more damage in Hiroshima. This may have been due to the presence of a lot more fires in Hiroshima due to the more flammable nature of the buildings. Or perhaps there's some other explanation.
Charles Lightoller the second officer on the Titanic stayed onboard untill the end. And got trapped underwater until a boiler explosion blew him free. He survived by clinging to a capsized collapsible B. Later he volunteered in WWII and helped evacuate over 120 men from Dunkirk.
He was also responsible for interpreting "women and children first" order as "women and children ONLY". He sent lifeboats into the water with less than half their capacity, claiming later that he didn't think it was safe to launch them full (he was wrong), and that he intended for half-empty lifeboats to load additional passengers from the lower deck companionways once they were afloat (they didn't). The % of total survivors from his section of the ship was only 35 percent- his counterpart officer on the other side (Murdoch- who died in the disaster) was 65 percent. Arguably, Lightoller's decisons that night cost many, many losses of life.
Danny DeVito did the dub for his role as the titular character in The Lorax (2012) in Russian, German, Italian, Catalan, and Castilian Spanish, despite not speaking any of those languages.
TIL That Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge child soldier has personally found and/or destroyed over 50,000 land mines. He now trains bomb experts, curates a mine museum, and advocates for demining and the victims of mines.
Been there, visited his museum, fantastic to see. Hundreds of explosive devices of all kinds, including grenades, shells and bombs
TIL that elephants are tremendous distance swimmers. They can swim for up to six hours and 25 miles (48km). They are so buoyant that if they tire in the water, they can just rest by floating and will not sink. They can also use their trunk as a snorkel and dive.
My head is large enough that i can float "standing" upright in the water, with my nose and mouth exposed....and before anyone makes the obvious assumption, i'm 5'11 and 160lbs
TIL that for 18 months, a village in Wales was mystified as to why their broadband internet crashed at 7am every morning, until engineers "picked up a large burst of electrical interference" springing from one dude turning on his very old TV.
As reported by the BBC Internet: Old TV caused village broadband outages for 18 months - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54239180.amp
Icelandic horses are not allowed to leave the country. If they do, they are banned from returning. This is because Iceland is an island so they have limited diseases, and this is another measure to prevent it.
TIL about Judith Catchpole, a young maidservant in the colony of Maryland, who was tried in 1656 for witchcraft and killing her newborn child. The judge summoned an all-female jury, who determined that Judith did not kill her child - in fact, there were no signs that Judith had even been pregnant.
TIL the founder of Hyundai was born to an impoverished family of peasants in what is now North Korea. In 1998, he sent 1001 cows to his hometown in North Korea as a repayment 1000 times over for a cow that he stole in the early 1930s to afford his train ticket to Seoul and escape from poverty.
TIL Honeybee venom rapidly kills aggressive breast cancer cells and when the venom's main component is combined with existing chemotherapy drugs, it is extremely efficient at reducing tumour growth in mice.
I’m going through chemo for breast cancer. Wonder if I can get this too
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has disdain for money and large wealth accumulation. In 2017 he said he didn’t want to be near money, because it could corrupt your values. When Apple went public, Wozniak offered $10 million of his stock to early Apple employees, something Jobs refused to do.
Vietnamese farmers after the war repurposed external fuel tanks jettisoned by American planes into river canoes, which have lasted for nearly 5 decades.
It looks like it's wearing sunniest. That is so resourceful though.
TIL John Krasinski wore a wig in season 3 of The Office so he could film Leatherheads. Krasinski pitched the idea to the producer who rejected it because it would be too obvious. John, who was wearing the wig during the meeting, told him it wouldn't be, took off the wig, and was granted approval.
Dave Thomas (the founder of Wendy's) was a high-school dropout. He was afraid his success would convince teens to drop out of school, so at age 60, he went back and got his GED.
Mexico passed a law that requires food packages to display large black octagonal "warnings" if the product is high in sugar, sodium, calories, or unhealthy fats.
High fructose corn syrup should be outlawed globally! One of the biggest contributing factors to both the US and Mexico's obesity pandemic!
An 11 year old girl could not afford running shoes, so she wrapped her feet in tape and drew a Nike logo on it. She won several gold medals in local competitions.
I read several versions of this where Nike supposedly sued her for using their logo - I’m glad to say that bit was bollocks.
TIL, That since domestication, dogs' eyes have changed. Dogs now have eye muscles that make them more expressive and infant-like. These same muscles are absent in wolves, their closest relative.
TIL African elephants often bury dead or sleeping humans or aid them when they are hurt. One woman fell asleep under a tree and woke to find an elephant standing over her gently touching her. As other elephants arrived they buried her under branches. She was found the next morning unharmed.
I read somewhere that elephant brains react to us the same way a human brain reacts to a puppy - they think we’re cute? Although I do think elephants are also very much like humans in the sense that that thought process might change, if you’ve been horribly injured/attacked by one of those ‘cute things’. Therefore I still wouldn’t purposefully have a nap among the elephants at the safari park not far from here 😅
TIL that the juggling done by David Bowie's character in Labyrinth was actually performed by juggler Michael Moschen, who had to do all the tricks blind while standing behind Bowie. He won a MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant" for his techniques a few years later in 1990.
Kinetic Juggling. I've got family in the juggling community can got to meet Mike once.
Ancient Egyptians would shave off their eyebrows when their cats died and shave off all body hair (including their head) when their dog died to mourn until it grew back.
What, so cats only get eyebrows, but dogs get all the hair? Where's my cat people? Let us protest this injustice!
TIL that the youngest French resistance hero was a little boy who acted as a courier for resistance fighters, slipping past enemy patrols and carrying messages. In 1950, he was posthumously awarded the rank of sergeant of the resistance. He was Marcel Pinte, and he died for France at the age of 6.
Sounds heroic at first, but his father had a leading role in the resistance, so he probably made him do it. And the poor boy was killed accidentally during an resistance landing operation.
TIL of a brawl involving 50 congressmen on the US House floor in 1858. It ended when someone knocked off a man's wig and the man accidentally put it back on backwards, causing both sides to laugh and stop fighting.
In 2014, four tenants refused to move out of their homes when developers wanted to create one of the most exclusive residences in Manhattan. Eventually, they all received huge payouts. The last tenant was so savvy and stubborn he received $17 million, plus use of a $2 million residence for life.
TIL that Shakuntala Devi from India, also known as the human computer, gave the 23rd root of a 201 digit number in 50 seconds. The answer was verified at the US Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.
There’s an entire movie dedicated to her with Vidya Balan cast as Shakuntala Devi
TIL the great smog of London in 1952 was so bad that pedestrians couldn't even see their feet. Some of the 4,000 who died in the 5 days it lasted didn't suffer lung problems – they fell into the Thames and drowned because they could not see the river.
A species of Australian Nocturnal Ground Parrots thought to be extinct for 100 years were found by one man after 15 years of searching. His search began when he found one feather of this bird on a truck and traced it back to the farm of an Old Indigenous Gentleman.
The night parrot. There were no sightings between 1912 and 1979. Since then it's been seen in seven different locations up to 2,000 km apart.
TIL: there are otter gangs in Singapore who fight for territories. It is well followed by the locals and the press. Each gangs has names and reputations.
TIL that 30 years ago you had 15-17 minutes to escape a house fire. Nowadays you only have 3-5 minutes (due to more plastics & petroleum-based products in the house as well as more open floor plans, bigger rooms, & higher ceilings).
A pregnant mother with twins lost one fetus in the first trimester and the other developed a coccyx tumor the size of a fetus that was killing it. Doctors removed baby LynLee from the womb, cut off the tumor, then put her back in the womb and she was ‘born again’ healthy 12 weeks later.
Amazing what we’re capable of as a species, and what we’re apparently not capable of. On a lighter note, does she get two birthdays?
TIL Nicaraguan Sign Language is a sign language that spontaneously developed among deaf children in Nicaragua in the 1980s. It is of particular interest to linguists because it is believed to be to be an example of the birth of a new language, unrelated to any other.
Cool. How many ‘dialects’ are there of sign language from around the world?
Bill Nye (of Science Guy fame) invented a hydraulic component used on the 747 airliners, and holds three patents for other inventions.
TIL a doctor reviewed the injuries sustained by Marv and Harry in Home Alone 1 & 2, and concluded that 23 of the injuries would have resulted in death.
Walt Disney accidentally "kidnapped" Richard Nixon by dispatching his monorail train before the Secret Service could get on. The agents ran after the train and attempted to jump onboard but the doors had already closed. Monorail pilot Bob Gurr was terrified; Nixon got a kick out of it.
TIL that the stick -- a small tree branch -- was inducted into the (U.S.) National Toy Hall of Fame in 2008. Organizers called it one of the world's oldest toys and said sticks "promote free play -- the freedom to invent and discover."
There is a street that is split down the middle by the USA-Canadian border, aptly named Canusa street. People who live in houses on the south side of the street are in the USA, and the north side, in Canada. Crossing the street requires having to report to the border crossing office.
There are many places like this in Europe - without the border crossing offices
TIL in the 5th century BC, diabetes was first identified by a surgeon named Sushruta who pointed out that the urine of diabetics was sweet enough to attract ants and sticky to the touch. He noted that diabetes affected rich castes and was related to the excessive consumption of rice and sweets.
A Japanese ice cream company created a commercial to publicly apologize about needing to raise the price of their ice cream bars for the first time in 25 years from 60 yen to 70 yen.
TIL people who speak Icelandic can still understand the old Icelandic Sagas because of how little the language has changed over the past 1000 years.
That's not an isolated case. Quebecois French is closer to 19th century French than modern continental French. (See also: French, Spanish, and Portuguese across South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.) Taiwan still writes in Traditional Mandarin, which the mainland cannot read anymore (the PRC's ChiSoc, like Orwell's EngSoc language), though the spoken language remains the same.
Elephants can hear through both their ears and feet. Through special fat pads called digital cushions, they can hear sounds other elephants vocalize below the range of human hearing from many miles away. This helps warn them of far off danger, incoming floods, and rival elephants.
Whoopi Goldberg is the only person in the world to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, and Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award.
TIL that A man named Göran Kropp from Sweden rode his bicycle to Nepal, climbed Mount Everest alone without Sherpas or bottled oxygen, then cycled back to Sweden again.
TIL that in the 1830s the Swedish Navy planted 300 000 oak trees to be used for ship production in the far future. When they received word that the trees were fully grown in 1975 they had little use of them as modern warships are built with metal.
It would be an interesting study to look at how much deforestation has been caused by the building of wooden ships. E.g. the huge numbers of quinquiremes and triremes in the Easter Mediterranean. The naval fleets of England, Spain and France.
TIL Tomohiro Nishikado, creator of Space Invaders, made the entire game himself. Not only was he its designer, programmer, artist, and sound mixer, but he also engineered the game’s microcomputer from scratch.
The difficulty spike in Space Invaders was accidental, but brilliant. The invaders speed up as their numbers decrease, because there's less for the processor to render and everything gets faster. It would be a different, and probably slightly boring, game without that happy accident.
Not all people have an internal monologue and people with them typically have stronger mental visuals to accompany their verbal thoughts.
Yup. I guess I'm one of those. Only recently learned that and that I have aphantasia. I honestly can't imagine the world otherwise.
TIL that Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" was painted on cardboard.
One of them, there's a few versions. Although they might all be on cardboard, I've reached the end of my fact on that.
TIL: Firefighters use wetting agents to make water wetter. The chemicals reduce the surface tension of plain water so it’s easier to spread and soak into objects, which is why it’s known as “wet water.”
Dogs and cats circle around before bedding down as a throwback to their wild ancestors. Their survival instincts provoked them to position themselves in the direction of the wind to pick up predator scents and choose the best angle for keeping an eye on the environment.
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I didn't see a single one here that I knew from general knowledge to be false. Well done, BP.
Also a few ones on there I hadn't come across before which is impressive as I love obscure trivia!
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This was a good article, far better than the celeb BS that we usually get
I didn't see a single one here that I knew from general knowledge to be false. Well done, BP.
Also a few ones on there I hadn't come across before which is impressive as I love obscure trivia!
Load More Replies... This was a good article, far better than the celeb BS that we usually get
