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50 Surprising Facts From “Today I Learned” That Show How Little We Actually Know (New Facts)
One thing about knowledge is that it shouldn’t be gatekept. And on Reddit’s Today I Learned community, it isn’t.
Here, millions of people come together to share the most surprising, obscure, and fascinating facts they’ve just discovered. Some change how we see the world, while others are simply entertaining—but all of them prove there’s always more to learn.
So here’s your daily dose of curiosity. Keep the cycle going and pass your favorites along!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
TIL about Andrew Carnegie, the original billionaire who spent 90% of his fortune creating over 3000 libraries worldwide because a free library was how he gained the education to become wealthy.
David 9 months ago
90% was all charitable money. He also build orphanages, soup kitchens, churches, and more. He left his wife and only daughter $40 million at the time and his mansions, so they could live in comfort for the rest of their lives. He did more than just libraries.
Beef Brisket 9 months ago
True, but unfortunately, Carnegie made that wealth on the backs of the people who worked in his mills, for low pay, long hours, and conditions that were horrific, even for the times. When his laborers wanted to unionize he suppressed them with violence. When criticized by many for his workers miserable conditions and wages, while keeping his profits high, he shot back that, given more money, the workers would just spend it on richer food and nicer clothes, making them--and society--worse off. My point is that no one is all good or all bad--not Elon, not Carnegie.
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Zoey Bear 9 months ago
I wish Ebon and his Trump minions would go and move to Mars and bring all their cult followers with them. PLEAESE!!!
Nikole 9 months ago
Wouldn’t that be lovely?? I’m so sick of this stupidity. We’re being dismantled and all federal protections removed.
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Dave Van Beurden 9 months ago
And he helped fund a building in The Hague where I hope Musk, Tr*mp and their cronies end up!
fly on the wall 9 months ago
At least they should pay the same percentage of tax on earnings as "regular folk".
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Connie Martin 9 months ago
On the flip side, he was a union buster and absolutely brutal to his workers. Maybe he thought the libraries would get him into heaven. They are an undeniable good
Riley Quinn 9 months ago
We have a few billionaires that could learn something from Carnegie, but they're too busy making the lives of average people miserable. Elon's firing people, and I know the others are stirring the pot in the Oval Office.
Christine Didier 8 months ago
The main library branch in my home town was built By Andrew Carnegie. Two years ago they tore it down and built a huge waste of space, I mean modern library.
primeline31 9 months ago
He's buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, NY. His epitaph says: Here lies a man who knew how to enlist in his service better men than himself
Mary Kelly 9 months ago
aannnnd, he endowed them...and the orginals and the furniture in them are works of art themselves!!!!
Kevin Hickey 9 months ago
He learned about bribery, extortion, insider training and labor exploitation at the library?? He was trying to buy his way out of hell.
Eunice Probert 9 months ago
And he didn't just build them in the USA. There are some in the UK too.
Regina Holt 9 months ago
hmm, one billionaire built libraries, nowadays, they wants to burn books. Wow, what a difference.
Beef Brisket 9 months ago
Nobody wants to "burn" books. Some people, both on the left and the right, would like age limits on highly sexualized and graphic content. Just like putting a PG14 rating on a movie does not mean you want the movie burned or banned.
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JK 9 months ago
Back in the day, the wealthy showed off their wealth by investing in public buildings (schools, libraries, hospitals, parks, theatres, etc.) and attaching their name to it so they'd be remembered and thought highly of for as long as the building stood. Now the wealthy spend nothing on the public, only themselves, and then expect you to *buy* things that they've stamped their name on. Like they say, "money can't buy class"
RELATED:
#2
TIL Danny Trejo has a clause in his movie contracts that requires his villainous characters to die by the end of the film. He wants children to learn that crime doesn't pay.
Kali Chaos 9 months ago
Man is a legend. He randomly pulled a car off a kid while out shopping. And his taco cookbook is legit.
#3
TIL April 8th 1945 a prisoner at Buchenwald rigged up a radio transmitter and sent a message in a desperate attempt to contact the allies for rescue. 3 minutes after his message the US Army answered "KZ Bu. Hold out. Rushing to your aid. Staff of Third Army". The camp would be liberated 3 days later.
#4
TIL ecologist Suzanne Simard wanted to know why the forest got sick every time the foresters k****d the birch trees, thought to harm fir trees. She discovered that birch trees actually pass nutrients to fir trees underground via a complex fungal network and were maintaining balance in the ecosystem.
#5
TIL After Joan of Arc was executed on charges of heresy, her mother spent 25 years clearing her name. She convinced the pope to reopen Joan's case and attended the retrial despite being in her 70s and in poor health. The retrial ended with Joan's complete acquittal.
Larry Kearney 9 months ago
Like that means so much after the church, you know, f***ing burned her to death
#6
TIL In Japan, the Johatsu, meaning "evaporated people", choose to abandon their current lives - due to family strain, work pressure or any other reason. So-called 'night moving' companies help them disappear without a trace and start a new life somewhere else.
#7
TIL in 2010 a doctor and his son just happened to be walking by an apartment building in Paris when a 15-month-old boy fell 80ft (24m) from a seventh floor balcony before bouncing off a cafe awning into the doctor's arms. His catch helped the boy escape "miraculously without a single scratch."
The toddler had been left alone with his four-year-old sister while their parents reportedly "popped out" for some shopping. They were charged with causing injury through neglect.
Bensignor, 58, a GP, said it was pure luck he was passing while out walking with his seven-year-old son Raphaël, last week.
...
Bensignor said it was thanks to Raphaël that he saved the falling child.
"We were walking and Raphaël was talking to me ... then he looked up and said: 'Papa, have you seen the children on the balcony up there?' There was no panic in his voice, just astonishment."
He said he looked up just as the baby fell.
#8
TIL that 11-year old Ted Danson and his friends chopped down a bunch of billboards around Flagstaff, AZ, because they obstructed views of nature. He was caught when his father, a museum curator, learned that billboards for the Museum of Northern Arizona were spared.
#9
TIL in 2017 a couple survived a wildfire in California by jumping into a neighbors pool and staying submerged for 6 hours. They came up for air only when they needed to, using wet t-shirts to shield their faces from falling embers.
Nice Beast Ludo 9 months ago
That must have been absolutely TERRIFYING!!! Better than being burned, obviously, but did the water get very hot from the fire? I would be so scared the water would start to get to boiling and then what do you do? They were lucky and brave
#10
TIL George Washington decided to step down after two terms because he feared he might die in office and Americans would then view the presidency as a lifetime appointment.
#11
TIL Chef Boyardee's canned Ravioli kept WWII soldiers fed and he became the largest supplier of rations during the war. When American soldiers started heading to Europe to fight, Hector Boiardi and brothers Paul and Mario decided to keep the factory open 24/7 in order to produce enough meals.
#12
TIL George Washington is the only U.S. president elected as an independent to date. Washington opposed the development of political parties.
#13
TIL that Weird Al's Phantom Menace parody 'The Saga Begins' was recorded a month before the film released in May 1999. Yankovic was denied an early screening by Lucasfilm, but managed to almost exactly piece together the plot by researching rumours posted on Star Wars fan forums.
#14
TIL about skeuomorphism, when modern objects, real or digital, retain features of previous designs even when they aren't functional. Examples include the very tiny handle on maple syrup bottles, faux buckles on shoes, the floppy disk 'save' icon, or the sound of a shutter on a cell phone camera.
Nice Beast Ludo 9 months ago
I wonder if you put those 4 things in a list if anyone could guess the similarity
#15
TIL: Phossy Jaw used to be a common affliction among workers in the matchstick industry for decades which destroys the bones of the jaw. While the cause was linked to the use of white phosphorus within 5 years, it took almost a century of strikes, bans, and taxes to stop its use in the industry.
#16
TIL a Jets player who won in Super Bowl 3 lost his super bowl ring shortly after while surfing. It was found in the ocean by a lifeguard who was snorkeling 40 years later and returned to him.
Kali Chaos 9 months ago
Good on them, that's a very expensive find to return in good faith. I had the chance to hold one once, I went to uni in a big sports town. It was heavier than my watch.
#17
TIL in 2000 a Mexican woman performed an hour-long C-section on herself with a kitchen knife after 12 hours of constant pain. After 3 attempts to cut open her abdomen, she made a 17cm vertical incision (a typical one is 10cm & horizontal). But despite no medical training, both mom & child survived.
Alisha Natzel 9 months ago
Apparently she lived 8 hrs from medical help, had no electricity or running water and assumed after a long labor her baby was going to die. She took several shots of liquor (probably for fear and pain). Then performed the C section. Baby survived, she passed out, her other child ran for help and woman was able to sew up the incision with sewing equipment before she was transported for medical care. Read an article in the Guardian.
#18
TIL Q Lazzarus, singer of Goodbye Horses, was unknown when the song appeared in Silence of the Lambs. Labels had rejected her due to her dreads, so she drove a cab. Once, she picked up "Lambs" director Jonathan Demme, and played him her demo. He responded "Oh my God, what is this and who are you?"
#19
TIL that ancient Rome had fast food restaurants called 'thermopolia,' where people bought hot meals on the go, much like modern takeout.
#20
TIL that in 1997 Mattel released Share a Smile Becky, a disabled Barbie doll, only to discontinue it when the wheelchair couldn't fit through the front door of the Barbie Dreamhouse.
Ron Man 9 months ago (edited)
That's not why it was discontinued. It was discontinued due to complaints from people with disabilities. Nothing about this doll would be considered PC today, and nothing about the doll actually accurately reflected disabled people. In short, it was highly offensive. Mattel has tried to make this about design issues and has claimed disabled people were all over this saying how great it is. Truth is, you can still buy this new after almost 30 years after it was discontinued because they made so many of them and nobody wanted them. $29 on Amazon https://amzn.to/4hUwM1u
#21
TIL that a US developer who outsourced his job to China for a fifth of his salary was repeatedly named as star employee before getting caught.
Hippopotamuses 9 months ago (edited)
But don't multi-national tech companies... you know. Oh. Actually, forget I mentioned it.
#22
TIL After his lung cancer diagnosis, actor Yul Brynner wished to warn people against smoking. After his death, the american cancer society aired an ad with the actor saying: "Now that I'm gone, I tell you: just don't smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer."
Lowrider 56 9 months ago
I had a very scary experience with the flu and my lungs shut down. I almost died and I was a pack a day smoker. So far it's been 28 days since I had a cigarette. I hope I never smoke again.
#23
TIL One of the early Spanish explorers of the American Southwest met a man who they called "the Turk", who told them stories of rich lands to the east. He would later reveal that he made it up to draw them away from Pueblo civilizations so they would die of starvation in the plains.
Forrest Hobbs 9 months ago
There's a song that covers this tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RwX_ZFU9ZU "Coronado & The Turk" by Steve Tilston & Maggie Boyle
#24
TIL that when scientists transferred the gut microbiome of a schizophrenic human into mice, the mice started exhibiting schizophrenic-like behaviours.
#25
TIL the 2022 Ignobel prize in economics went to a bunch of Mathematicians who proved, mathematically, that luck matters more than talent to achieve success.
Jaya 9 months ago
If you don't know the Ignobel prize, go check it out! It's a prize for science that makes you laugh at first, but is actually very interesting or useful. They have so many hilarious sounding studies! It is a great source of joy for me each year, there are usually a couple of studies that have me laughing out loud.
#26
TIL that a Swedish man survived in his car for 60 days, only drinking melted snow, after being snowed in with temperatures dropping as low as -30°C. However, due to the "igloo effect," the insulation from the snow helped keep him alive.
Panda Kicki 9 months ago
I remember that case.It was wild. It was volontary and he didnt want to leave the car even when found. He longs to go back. The only thing he missed was cigarretes. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/EozXrj/snomannen-i-bilen-fick-jag-vara-i-fred
#27
TIL that Great White Sharks across the Pacific Ocean consistently congregate at one specific spot in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists call this the White Shark Cafe.
#28
TIL - Blind people who regain sight after years struggle to recognize objects because vision is learned, not automatic. They need to train their brain to actually see.
Pamela Carter 9 months ago
I learned that in a Psych class 30+ years ago. An example was why a squirrel doesn’t see a big truck—they have no reference in their brain. Just think—a huge spaceship could be right above us and we wouldn’t see it.
#29
TIL that the first laws outlawing food coloring were in regards to bread. White bread was expensive and some bakers added chalk to lighten dark bread. King Edward I (1272-1307) created a law saying anyone caught using whiteners in bread would be put in the public pillory for one hour.
Hippopotamuses 9 months ago
Thank god we live in the 21st century, where food isn't adulterated, eh!
#30
TIL Linda Chase left her roommate's dead body in the recliner chair where he died for 18 months. She talked to him and watched NASCAR on TV with him. After police performed a welfare check and found the body, Linda's only explanation was that she didn't want to be alone.
#31
TIL the British Library must store one copy of every single book published in the UK and Ireland. It houses over 200,000,000 publications, adds 6 miles (9.65 km) of new shelf space a year, and receives over 8000 new publications daily.
#32
TIL South Park aired an episode titled “Band in China”… which resulted in them being banned in China.
#33
TIL huge rogue waves were dismissed as a scientifically implausible sailors' myth by scientists until one 84ft wave hit an oil platform. The phenomenon has since been proven mathematically and simulated in a lab, also proving the existence of rogue holes in the ocean.
#34
TIL the modern Oval Office was only created in 1934, and designed so that President Franklin D Roosevelt, who used a wheelchair, could move easily between the Office and the Residence.
#35
TIL in 1940, when Paramount asked Fleischer Studios to created a Superman cartoon, Fleischer thought it would be too hard to make. In an attempt to avoid making the cartoon, they quoted four times the cost of an average cartoon for the budget ($100k). To their shock, Paramount agreed to the budget.
#36
TIL in 2013 a woman went to pick up a friend in Brussels (less than 90 miles from her home), however because of a GPS error, she ended up in Croatia after driving 900 miles across five international borders. She realized she took a wrong turn two days after leaving. Her son had reported her missing.
David 9 months ago
I can believe she may have driven that far but I don't believe she was ignorant of it unless she has mental issues. Nobody starts a roughly 1.5 to 2 hour drive and drives for two days before figuring out there is a problem with their directions. It "smells" more like the kind of thing someone would use as an excuse/cover to explain away a road trip.
#37
TIL there were just 5 surviving longbows from medieval England known to exist before 137 whole longbows (and 3,500 arrows) were recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose in 1980 (a ship of Henry VIII's navy that capsized in 1545). The bows were in excellent finished condition & have been preserved.
Hippopotamuses 9 months ago
They were clearly pretty good with longbows. Ships... not so much.
#38
TIL F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen nearly bankrupted the Lotus team by being too good. His contract said that he would be awarded €50,000 for every championship point scored. Lotus thought their car would be so uncompetitive that year that it would not be a problem. Kimi went on to score 207 points.
Anonymous Fox 9 months ago
The balls that man has are insane. I remember that there was once fog on the track, and while other drivers were slowing down, Kimi accelerated.
#39
TIL that some people are genetically gifted in that they can sleep for as little as 4 hours without suffering from daytime sleepiness or other consequences of sleep deprivation.
Zoe Donaghy 9 months ago
Due to an undiagnosed lactose intolerance, reflux and silent reflux my son could only drink a few ounces at a time as a newborn. Anything more and he'd be in pain for hours screaming or projectile vomit. Because of this he was up every 2 hours for feeding until he was 4 months old and I introduced lactase enzyme. After that he started sleeping in longer stretches until he started teething at 5 months old. Every tooth came in one after the other and by 12 months he had all his teeth bar his 2yr molars. My sleep has never went back to normal and he's 2 now. I average between 4 and 6 hours a night.
#40
TIL the reason that purple has traditionally been associated with royalty was because, in Ancient Rome, the only source of purple was milking and fermenting the liquid from a snail. It took 12,000 snails to produce 1 gram of dye! This made the Caesars declare it their exclusive color.
Forrest Hobbs 9 months ago
I read that "milking" works, but gathering the snails and crushing them apparently yielded more dye. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple#Production_from_sea_snails
#41
TIL that a KGB agent and a CIA agent became friends while trying to recruit each other; they knew the other was a spy and just didn’t talk about it.
LinkTheHylian 9 months ago
CIA: "Hey, wanna come watch the football with me?" KGB: "In Soviet Russia football kicks you!" CIA: "That wasn't funny the first 49 times..."
#42
TIL in 2020 a woman took an online DNA test which showed a 22% match with a man who she'd eventually discover to be her still alive uncle, who was kidnapped in 1951 at the age of six & had been missing for 70 years. After he was abducted in Oakland, he was flown to the east coast & raised there.
Michelle C 9 months ago
I wonder what the reunion must’ve been like – I’m sure it had to have been better than what was portrayed in the news media!
#43
TIL Brian Acton was rejected by Facebook for a job in 2009. And that same year, he & Jan Koum "took a chance" and co-founded WhatsApp together. Then in 2014 after amassing 450 million global users, they sold WhatsApp to Facebook in a deal that reportedly made both of them a multi-billionaire.
#44
TIL There was a Portuguese woman in early 18th century who disguised herself as a man and joined the army, fought in India and became captain of a fortress. She was found out when she asked the king for permission to marry a colleague.
#45
TIL in 2010 Sam Ballard was drinking with several friends when he was dared to eat a slug that had begun to crawl across his friend's concrete patio. After he ate it, he'd find out the infected slug had given him rat lungworm disease, which put him into a year-long coma & ultimately took his life.
#46
TIL Tasmanian Devil's give birth to between 30 and 40 offsprings but the mother only has four teats. The first four to attach to teats survive, the others perish.
#47
TIL Marcus Licinius Crassus, often called "the richest man in Rome," formed the first fire brigade, saving burning buildings only if owners sold at a low price. Otherwise, he let them burn. The buildings would then be leased back to the former owners.
#48
TIL a student wore the same pair of jeans 330 times over 15 months without washing them, then after washing them, wore them another 13 days. A textile scientist had tested the jeans for bacteria both after the 15 months (pre-wash) & after the 13 days. Little difference in bacterial count was found.
#49
TIL the "Elephant's Foot" mass of radioactive material beneath the Chernobyl disaster was so dense that they needed to use armor-piercing rounds fired from an AK-47 rifle to break off samples.
Paul Donahue 9 months ago
They also could only take pictures remotely with mirrors around corners because the radiation would destroy the film.
#50
TIL Jefferson Davis attempted to patent a steam-operated propeller invented by his slave, Ben Montgomery. Davis was denied because he was not the "true inventor." As President of the Confederacy, Davis signed a law that permitted the owner to apply to patent the invention of a slave.
#51
TIL that Samuel L. Jackson planned to become a marine biologist before becoming an actor. He is currently the highest-grossing actor of all time.
#52
TIL Only 47 people live on the Pitcairn Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Almost all of the residents are descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, a British ship in 1790.
Panda Kicki 9 months ago
Wasnt that the one currently in the news for investigations of generations of traditional rapes of the young girls?
#53
TIL that donations of used clothes are NEVER needed during disaster relief according to FEMA.
Ron Man 9 months ago
There's a good reason for this. There are many items FEMA won't accept as used, clothing is one of them. People flood donations with s****y, old and unusable items and FEMA doesn't have time to deal with that when there's an emergency. So they just don't accept anything they can't hand out. People have tried donating garbage bags of old clothing and household goods that were damaged and dirty.
#54
TIL that “court jesters” were often used to give bad news to the monarch that no one else would dare deliver. When the French fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Sluys, Phillip VI’s jester told him that the English sailors “don’t even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French”.
#55
TIL the first known instance of a storm chaser or meteorologist k**led by a tornado occurred in 2013 when Tim Samaras, his son Paul, & Carl Young were killed near El Reno, OK by the widest tornado ever recorded. It expanded from 1 mile to 2.6 miles wide in about 30 seconds as it closed in on them.
#56
TIL Thomas Edison's son, Thomas Edison Jr was an aspiring inventor, but lacking his father's talents, he became a snake oil salesman who advertised his scam products as "the latest Edison discovery". His dad took him to court, and Jr agreed to stop using the Edison name in exchange for a weekly fee.
#57
TIL: The "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" was declassified in 2008 and it contains advice on how spies can sabotage the enemy by just being maliciously incompetent. Advice include praising inefficient coworkers, cry and sob frequently at work, asking inane questions in meetings, and spreading gossip.
#58
TIL that due to an agreement between the National Archives and Caroline Kennedy, the jacket Jackie Kennedy wore on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated cannot be displayed in public until 2103.
#59
TIL of safety razor slots. In the 1930s-50s some home bathrooms had slots built into their walls where people would insert used razor blades. Future renovations have found walls packed with hundreds of blades.
#60
TIL: There was obesity in the Middle Ages, but the rich were expected to restrain themselves as fat people can't become knights. However, Sancho I was a morbidly obese king who weighed 240 kg and couldn't wield a sword, bed his wife, or walk. He was eventually expelled as he was too obese to rule.
Peeka_Mimi 9 months ago
I vote that the Orange Putrescence is too obese to rule. All in favor say, "aye."
#61
TIL the T4 Program was a N*zi German euthanasia program that forcibly k**led the physically or mentally disabled, the emotionally distraught, elderly people and the incurably ill. The death toll may have reached 200,000 or more.
#62
TIL of hyperforeignism, which is when people mispronounce foreign words that are actually simpler than they assume. Examples include habanero, coup de grâce, and Beijing.
#63
TIL after Leona Helmsley did not pay her contractors that worked on her Connecticut home, she was investigated for tax evasion, and she received a 16 year sentence. During trial her housekeeper testified that Helmsley said "only the little people pay taxes." She ended up serving 19 months in prison.
#64
TIL - During the California gold rush of 1849, eggs were $3 each, not adjusted for inflation.
Ron Man 9 months ago (edited)
This was in the actual area of the gold rush, not nationwide. There was so much gold at the time that goods and services skyrocketed. And no, this wasn't even everywhere in that region. And no, this wasn't for raw eggs either. This was at hotels and restaurants that the newly rich would live in.
#65
TIL all of the 500 fastest supercomputers in the world run on Linux.
#66
TIL that in utero, a third artery temporarily runs down the arm to help with the development of the hand. By 8 weeks after birth, this artery usually disappears. For unknown reasons, people are retaining this artery as adults, and it's now three times as prevalent as it was 100 years ago.
Lyone Fein 9 months ago
Some evolutionary hiccup that favors the development of typing skills?
#67
TIL that before 1979, you could use the hippie trail to go from Western Europe to India without flying.
Hippopotamuses 9 months ago (edited)
Oh, you'd be flying towards the end. Don't worry about that!
#68
TIL that since the year 1960, London has only experienced six White Christmases.
#69
TIL that there are more ethnic Norwegians living in USA than in Norway.
Nice Beast Ludo 9 months ago
I got "ethnic" confused with "ethical" and just stared at the wall in confusion for 30 seconds
#70
TIL in 2011 twenty-two "fake" Apple Stores were discovered in China; at least one of which actually sold real Apple products while the employees there had no idea they didn't really work in retail for Apple.
#71
TIL when it gets cold enough, daddy long legs will huddle together in the thousands to create warmth.
#72
TIL Siblings can get completely different results (e.g., one 30% Irish and another 50% Irish) from DNA ancestry tests, even though they share the same parents, due to genetic recombination.
Max Fox 9 months ago (edited)
Sigh. None of the BP writers know how to explain anything, and BP doesn't seem to have any editors on staff. First, unless they are identical twins, they will always get different results. Second, the way that ethnicity/geographic origins are calculated means that they can change between two tests of the same person. But year, each inherits 50% of the DNA of each parent, but it's not the same 50%.
#73
TIL that Prince used a photo of Dave Chappelle dressed as him and serving pancakes for one of his singles' cover.
#74
TIL that from 2003 to 2005, Dell sold over 11 million computers with leaky capacitors, with documents indicating that Dell was aware they were almost certain to fail. At one point, 1,000 computers that Dell delivered to the law firm that was defending it in a related lawsuit started failing.
#75
TIL that Alaska has a much higher rate of missing persons per 100,000 residents than any other state, standing at a stark 42.16 compared to the next highest, Arizona, with 12.28.
#76
TIL that after George Harrison's death from lung cancer, his widow sued a doctor at the hospital where he received radiation therapy for allegedly forcing Harrison to listen to his son play guitar and autograph the guitar while lacking his mental faculties.
Michelle C 9 months ago
I’m not normally in favor of lawsuits, but I can understand her anger.. that doctor violated the Hippocratic oath in every possible respect. I’ll never understand how a public servant especially can take advantage of other people like that.
#77
TIL an American photographer lost and fatally stranded in Alaskan wilderness was ignored by a state trooper plane because he raised his fist which is the sign of all okay.
#78
TIL when David Lynch was asked by fans for clues or answers regarding one of his films, he'd typically refuse; however when fans in France asked him for clues to help them decipher Mulholland Drive (2001), he gave them 10. "I thought the clues were only going to exist in France & then..the internet."
#79
TIL that during WWII the average recruit was 5’8” tall and weighed 144 pounds. During basic training, they gained 5-20 pounds and added an inch to their 33 1/4” chest.
#80
TIL: Maria Rasputin, Rasputin's daughter, after his death worked as a cabaret dancer, then for the Busch Circus. In one season, she became a lion tamer. She was eventually mauled by a bear and left the circus to work as a riveter in the US before dying in LA.
#81
TIL that when Winona Ryder was offered the role of Joyce Byers, she agreed on the condition that she would be allowed time off to film a sequel to Beetlejuice if it began filming while Stranger Things was still in production.
#82
TIL there is currently a worldwide shortage of black pepper and the price-per-ton has almost tripled since January 2023.
#83
TIL Christa McAuliffe, who was the teacher who died on the Space Shuttle Challenger, was 1 of 11,000 applicants in NASA's search to find an "ordinary person" to put their first civilian in space. She later remarked, "If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat. Just get on."
#84
TIL - the family that couldn't sleep, a family in Venice, Italy where for over 200 years many of the family members died suffering from fatal insomnia.
She who must not be named 9 months ago
Fatal familial insomnia (FFI) is a rare, genetic, and life-threatening prion disease that causes progressive insomnia, cognitive decline, and other symptoms that worsen over time. The disease is caused by an abnormal variation in the PRNP gene, which regulates the production of human prion protein. Most cases are familial, while the rest occur sporadically. FFI causes insomnia that worsens to the point of severely impacting daily life, eventually leading to coma and death.
#85
TIL that Gene Roddenberry originally did not want to cast Patrick Stewart as Picard, since he had envisioned an actor who was "masculine, virile, and had a lot of hair".
Michelle C 9 months ago
It’s a good thing he did cast Sir Patrick Stewart because I can’t envision anyone else as Jean-Luc Picard!
#86
TIL in 1902, one day after being jailed for a fight, a man named Ludger Sylbaris survived for four days while the pyroclastic flow from Mt. Pelée k**led 30,000. His jail cell was a former ammunition storehouse with thick walls and no windows apart from one ventilation shaft.
Hell'n Damnation 9 months ago
Pyroclastic is a fun word to say. It doens't come up in conversation often enough.
#87
TIL that digambara monks don’t wear clothes, don’t bathe or clean their teeth, sleep on the ground, only eat food free of pain, cutting or destruction, pluck all the hair off their head and face by hand, and only walk on well-worn, well-lit paths to avoid stepping on insects.
#88
TIL according to the US women's clothing catalog sizes system, a 2011 size 0 is equivalent to a 2001 size 2, and is larger than a 1970 size 6 or 1958 size 8.
Kim Kermes 9 months ago
I feel much better about having to buy XL or larger in cheapest brand. In 1975 I needed a size 2 but couldn't afford the few brands which made them
#89
TIL Robert F. Kennedy's a*sassin is still alive and has been denied parole 17 times.
Michelle C 9 months ago
RFK, Jr., has been clear that he has forgiven his father’s assassin. I do disagree with him that Sirhan Sirhan should receive parole, however.
#90
TIL the United States Army is the largest single employer of musicians in the country.
Kim Kermes 9 months ago
Because most musicians are self employed, and the next largest employers of musicians are symphony orchestras, maybe 100 at most. Many orchestras only contract with musicians who aren't used in most pieces.
#91
TIL that in 1997, a crew member on the USS Yorktown (CG-48) entered 0 into a database field. It caused the Remote Data Base Manager to attempt to divide by zero, causing all machinery on the network to stop working, including the propulsion system.
#92
TIL of a disgruntled designer for SimCopter (1996) that created an Easter Egg that would spawn "shirtless men in Speedo trunks who hugged and kissed each other" in great numbers on certain dates, such as Friday the 13th. But the RNG he created for it malfunctioned, leading them to appear frequently.
David Houde 9 months ago
Easter eggs in software is great! I put a few in during my career. I actually got a call a few years back from a job I had left about two years before. "Did you put this into the code?" 🤣 Yup, that was me!
#93
TIL the richest person in the world was Mansa Musa, the 14th Century West African ruler, perhaps equal to $400bn in today's money. When he traveled to Cairo, he gave out so much gold that it depreciated the value of gold and caused over a billion dollars in economic losses in the Middle East.
#94
TIL Dr. Pepper promised a free can to everyone in the US (except Slash and Buckethead) if Guns N' Roses released "Chinese Democracy" in 2008, but faced a lawsuit when they couldn't deliver after the album's release.
#95
TIL the UK's nuclear submarines all carry identitcally worded "Letters of Last Resort" which are handwritten by the current Prime Minister and destroyed when the Prime Minister leaves office.
Beak Hookage 9 months ago
I hope at least one of them has included the lyrics to "We'll Meet Again"
#97
TIL that in Major League Baseball the ball is pitched so fast that the eye cannot track it. However, the brain is able to calculate its trajectory via specialized cells, making it possible for the batter to hit it.
#98
TIL every person who has become a centibillionaire (a net worth of usually $100 billion, €100 billion, or £100 billion), first became one in 2017 or later except for Bill Gates who first reached the threshold in 1999.
#99
TIL: The Lord of the Rings is presented as a translation of a book originally written in Westron, the common speech of Middle-earth. Therefore, Frodo Baggins' real name in Westron is Maura Labingi.
Michelle C 9 months ago
The Professor was a linguist and made up Many other languages, almost all of them based on Scandinavian languages and Welsh, if I remember correctly.
#100
TIL: A scientist involved in the US nuke project determined the age of the world, created the clean room, and campaigned against leaded gasoline because it was poisoning everyone.
#101
TIL accoding to the FAA, air traffic controller applicants must be under the age of 31 and generally must retire at age 56.
SmooshieFries 9 months ago
I just pulled into LAX- I can try to do a live age poll if y’all like
#102
TIL about 'Balconing' in Ibiza, a phenomenon in which intoxicated party goers die or are injured by acting wildly on the balconies of the hotel establishments where they have stayed.
Huddo's sister 9 months ago (edited)
We may not have a word for this but it happens, I'm willing to bet, all over the world. The Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia is also notorious for it, especially over 'schoolies' week. Anywhere there are intoxicated people with baconies.
#103
TIL that in 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés sank his own ships except one after landing in Mexico to prevent his men from retreating, This bold move forced them to march inland and ultimately led to the fall of the Aztec Empire.
Panda Panda Bo Banda 9 months ago
Weird because there was never any chance of defeat. The Aztecs fell in days.
#105
TIL about Stewart Smith who, over the course of 40 years, breed non-native fish in his garage and covertly released them from his car which was outfitted with oxygenated fish tanks into New Zealand’s north island waterways for sport fishing.
#106
TIL that under New York City, on the lower concourse of Grand Central Station, there’s a windowless, 440-seat oyster and seafood bar that has been serving customers since the terminal’s opening in 1913. Except for brief closures for a fire in 1997 and COVID-19 it has operated continuously.
#107
TIL 10 US states have absolutely no vehicle inspection whatsoever (i.e no safety, emissions, or VIN inspections).
Zaach 9 months ago
During the 'drive 55' era, it was demanded that a ticket be issued for anyone caught speeding; Montana proceeded to issue $5.00 pollution tickets. Prior Montana's posted speed limit for cars was 'cautious and prudent'. We had a 56 Chevy up to 130 MPH when the windshield wipers were ripped off by the wind (and, of course, there was a huge thunderstorm following so we had to drive about 20 MPH with head out the window to see)
#108
TIL the total number of Americans over 7-feet tall is estimated between 85 and 150.
#109
TIL a study involving 75K adults compared the participants' preferred sleep timing (known as chronotype) with their actual sleep behavior & found regardless of one's preferred bedtime, everyone benefitted from turning in early. Being up late is not good for your mental health (suggested 1am bedtime).
Data1001 9 months ago
This seems like a study which would be difficult to do properly for an extended period. People who are 'night owls' also usually live in a society where normal hours of operation favor 'early birds' -- so I would guess that, on average, night owls would get less sleep overall because of the need to wake up earlier than they would prefer to -- and thus, going to sleep earlier would of course be better for them because it would mean more hours of sleep. To do a study like this properly, you'd need to have people in a segregated society where they could work, shop, and socialize at any hour of the day just as effectively as any other hour of the day (or night), and keep that up for at least a couple months. This would not be logistically very likely for a large enough sample size.
#110
TIL The Marvels (2023) has the biggest estimated nominal loss for a movie at $237 million.
Skywitness 9 months ago
When Pixar was purchased by Disney, the Pixar staff emphasized how important a good plot was. Evidently Disney has refused to learn that.
#111
TIL that in 1975, Twentieth Century Music Corp sued a restaurant owner for copyright infringement for playing a radio broadcast of two of their songs in his establishment, arguing it constituted an unremunerated performance. It reached the Supreme Court, which sided with the restaurant owner.
Nice Beast Ludo 9 months ago
How did they find out that 2 songs were played in a restaurant???
#112
Today I learned that Joey, the spin-off of the Friends sitcom, was canceled halfway through its second season, and the final eight episodes were never aired in the U.S. by NBC.
#113
TIL Mr Bean’s (Rowan Atkinson) son is a Gurkha.
Forrest Hobbs 9 months ago
Rowan Atkinson's son was a British officer in the Brigade of Gurkhas - not himself a Gurkha. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigade_of_Gurkhas and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha
#114
TIL the British military once had an idea to put live chickens inside nuclear bomb cases with a week's worth of food and water. The bombs were meant to be planted into the ground as mines, so they had to be kept warm in the winter to keep working.
Forrest Hobbs 9 months ago (edited)
This was the proposed Blue Peacock nuclear landmine intended to be deployed in Germany - never developed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock#Chicken-powered_nuclear_bomb. Why "Blue Peacock"? Some explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Code. The job of the chickens was to keep the installation warm enough so that the timers and all the other gadgetry would keep working. And then get vapourised by the nuclear explosion going off from the devices buried in West Germany to defend against a potential Soviet invasion. Sane minds prevailed...
#115
TIL that an airgapped laptop was intentionally loaded with 6 famously catastrophic computer viruses, worms, and pieces of Malware for the commissioned art piece titled "The Persistence of Chaos". Much of the $10,000+ spent to produce the work went toward the creation of an effective firewall.
#116
TIL United States is the only country in the world which applies the same tax regime to all its citizens, regardless of where they live.
#117
TIL Mavs GM Nico Harrison, while working at Nike in 2013 botched the presentation to Steph Curry, where he called him Seth, & the presentation he used was made for Kevin Durant. This, along with not offering Curry a signature shoe, caused Curry to switch from Nike & sign with Under Armor.
#118
TIL Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) is the most expensive independent film ever made with a production budget of around $180 million. Although it grossed $226 million worldwide, it was considered a box-office bomb due to its high production and advertising costs.
#119
TIL that Mr.Dink’s name is an acronym for Double Income No Kids; this is why he was able to afford gadgets that were “very expensive”.
#120
TIL that Gabe Newell owns a marine research company, and now mostly lives at sea on his boats and submarines.
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What do you think ?
Forrest Hobbs 9 months ago
Not sure all these "facts" really are facts, but fascinating in any case. Thank you, BP.
2WheelTravlr 9 months ago (edited)
I use lists like this as a jumping off point for further research. It's definitely led me down some fun rabbit holes.
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Dorothy Smith 9 months ago
Really enjoyed this post. So many informed people and great comments. More frequently would be nice also.
Hidalgo 9 months ago
TIL about Krasnov https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/donald-trump-recruited-kgb-codename-34727486#
Forrest Hobbs 9 months ago
Not sure all these "facts" really are facts, but fascinating in any case. Thank you, BP.
2WheelTravlr 9 months ago (edited)
I use lists like this as a jumping off point for further research. It's definitely led me down some fun rabbit holes.
Load More Replies... Dorothy Smith 9 months ago
Really enjoyed this post. So many informed people and great comments. More frequently would be nice also.
Hidalgo 9 months ago
TIL about Krasnov https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/donald-trump-recruited-kgb-codename-34727486#
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