We’re often told that studying about the world keeps us motivated, feeds our curiosity, and generally makes our lives more exciting. One truly great thing about having the internet in our hands at all times is that we can quickly find fun and intriguing tidbits of information about virtually anything. Yet, we humans need constant reminders to sharpen our minds by learning something new as often as we can.
Luckily, the Today I Learned forum is a Reddit powerhouse that has more than 26.9M people on a mission to exercise our brain cells. Members of this community continue to share the knowledge they recently found out themselves every single day.
So, to celebrate their efforts, we’ve collected some of the most fascinating facts floating around the subreddit for you to enjoy. Continue scrolling, upvote the ones that were new to you, and let us know what you think about them in the comments! And after you’re done taking notes, check out our previous posts about interesting trivia right here, here, and here.
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TIL People built a statue of “Kabang” a hero dog that got her face disfigured after saving two girls from a speeding motorcycle. She died last year, almost a decade after her heroic action
In case anyone wanted to know, she was a leap day baby and from the Philippines.
TIL A juvenile narwhal lost in the St. Lawrence River got adopted by a group of beluga and has stayed with them since at least 2016
TIL, the library at University of Coimbra in central Portugal hosts a colony of bats. Every night, the windows of the library are left open and the bats come in to feed on insects, thereby protecting the centuries-old historic documents. Every morning, librarians clean the bats' excrement.
To find out more about the power of learning and how we can benefit from it, we reached out to Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., a professor of engineering at Oakland University in Rochester and author of Learn Like a Pro: Science-Based Tools to Become Better at Anything.
She had a question for you, dear readers. "Wouldn’t you like to be seen as the most creative (not to mention smartest) person in the room? It’s possible! How? By spending a little time each day with new learning!"
Turns out, our "new knowledge serves as a sort of mental trellis that allows new neurons to survive, thrive, and grow." When we’re not eager to study, these "new neurons, instead of nestling into your neural lattice, will wither and die. And you can find yourself becoming less flexible in your thinking as you increasingly rely on older neurons," the professor explained.
TIL British actress Emilia Clarke has survived two brain aneurysms and has since founded SameYou, a charity working to develop better recovery treatment for survivors of brain injury and stroke
My mom survived one 21 years ago. She now lives with four minuscule ones and has have for a few years. The day before Thanksgiving 2021, she went in for brain surgery only for them to see the scan has misread. Talk about relief!! She didn't need surgery after all. When she had the first ome, they did a "trap door" in her head. The second, they went in through an artery by entering near her groin. Science has sure come a long way.
TIL In 2019 a man robbed a bank, threw the money out onto the street, and shouted "Merry Christmas!" He then went to a Starbucks where he waited to be arrested.
TIL hospital patients recover quicker when they are able to see a park/vegetation from their window
Reading that the memory of looking down from a window at the grounds of the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne instantly flashed into my head.
According to Oakley, it's wise to have a goal when you want to become better at educating yourself since it can help with the process. "You might set a goal of reading 20 pages a day of a book, which can amount to 15 books or more each year. And there are wonderful online courses on learning!"
The educator mentioned that she herself teaches courses like Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects that can be beneficial in your journey. "You’ll see that many of these online courses are divided into 'chunks' of material that you can reasonably cover each week," she told us. "And you’ll get weekly reminder emails to help keep you on track."
This is a great way to exercise our minds and get those brain cells going. So if you’re looking for some helpful lessons on the internet, Oakley said that Class Central has a wonderful listing of great online courses on online platforms.
TIL After conservative activist Mary Whitehouse successfully campainged to stop Alice Cooper's 'School's Out' being shown on the BBC music show 'Top of the Pops', Cooper sent her a bunch of flowers, since he believed the publicity helped the song to reach number one.
TIL about Mary Ellen Pleasant, a black woman in the 1800s who amassed a fortune by eavesdropping on investors while working as a domestic
TIL Lonnie Johnson, the man who created the “Super Soaker” (the world’s best selling toy) was awarded $72.9M in a Hasbro Settlement for unpaid royalties.
The professor mentioned that virtually any kind of new learning helps keep our brains fresh. "Whether it’s a new language, bringing back your rusty math skills, improving your ability to code, or taking up a new sport." If you’re not sure where to begin, a great tip would be to start a daily habit of picking up a book and reading a certain number of pages.
"If you want to make your new learning 'stick' even better—and reduce mental fog—add some exercise to your life," Oakley continued. "Exercise helps produce a chemical, BDNF, that serves as a sort of fertilizer for newer and stronger neural connections in the brain. In other words, BDNF helps you focus and remember better!"
TIL that you can buy a room on a cruise ship and live on it. You pay a yearly fee and all amenities are provided like normal cruise ships.
Not really. I looked into this years ago and the ship required that you have at least 2M in the bank to do this. Maybe it's changed since then, who knows.
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I'm with you. Can't even imagine myself spend a week in what looks to me like a moving cell in a shopping mall. So live in there, no way!
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That is so cool. Why help to destroy the environment for 14 days if you can contribute a much greater part the whole year! Awesome!
Just looked this up and found Story lines....."Monthly service fee: Starting at $4770" https://cruisefever.net/worlds-first-affordable-cruise-ship-can-live-cabins-condos-start-255000/
Yeah, the ones I've heard about have all been insanely expensive.
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Oh yeah, you can absolutely do that. There is a cruise ship that basically is in constant sail around the world mode and on it live some of the richest people alive (the ones who don't flaunt their names). I think it works as some kind of tax haven!
Speaking of which, it must be pretty weird trying to file taxes while living on a cruise ship...
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If you choose a cruise line that has smaller ships, does not encourage or doesn't allow kids, it would be a great way to live and travel. I've done two cruises with Silversea and they were amazing!
Probably better than being put in some care homes when unable to care for yourself or elderly
I could probably afford for someone to take me round the local boating lake a couple of times, if I helped to row.
I read an article about this, each year they have a meeting to discuss the itinerary for the upcoming year and and changes that they want to have like extra services that they want. They have a full time crew and doctors and nurses. It’s basically a floating neighbourhood
I have actually read 3 stories of real couple that do this..... it gives me ideas to do it now, even though I am only 31, let alone waiting until I am 60 plus.... not to mention that every thing just keeps on rising..... and the idea of waking up to a new view everyday just sounds wondrous to me :-)
it’s gotta be more interesting/better than alot ((most)) places here in the US
Definitely cheaper hilary. And everting is included. No real estate taxes. Excellent meals. Entertainment. And even a doctor and mini hospital.
TIL in the mid 1890s, Mary Whiton Caulkins completed all requirements towards a PhD in Psychology, but Harvard University refused to award her that degree because she was a woman.
TIL that in Churchill, Canada, locals keep their car doors unlocked in order to provide other residents a quick escape, should they encounter a polar bear
When asked whether the internet is a good tool for increasing our knowledge, she told us that it gives us incredible opportunities to learn from some of the best teachers in the world. "Athlete Julius Yego, for example, couldn’t find top javelin throwing coaches in his native Kenya and couldn’t afford to travel overseas to train," Oakley said. "So he started watching YouTube videos." Surprisingly, by watching tutorials online and practicing on his own, "he became the world champion in the javelin!"
TIL that the Judean Date Palm was extinct until scientists germinated 2,000 year old seeds to bring the tree back into existence. The seeds were discovered in an ancient jar in Israel, dated between 155 BC to 64 AD.
TIL that Acacia trees can communicate with each other. When they sense injuries in their leaves, they release ethylene gas in the air to signal nearby Acacias, which pump tannins in their leaves. Tannins make the leaves bitter and are also poisonous - it can kill even big herbivores, like deers.
Til theres a place off the coast of Australia where octopus, who are mostly solitary creatures, have made a small “city” of sorts.
Also, if you want to make new information stick in your brain, the professor said that the best way "is to use what psychologists call 'retrieval practice.'" She explained that this simply means retrieving information from your brain. "That is, checking to see if you’ve got that information stored inside you."
To do that, you can try using flashcards or try taking a few practice tests. "Or simply look away from a page or webpage (like this one!) and see if you can retrieve (that is, remember) the key ideas. Like Julius Yego, through learning, retrieving, and practicing, you too can become a world champion—or at least the best person you can be," Oakley concluded.
TIL- apples are not indigenous to North America, nor most of Europe. They originated in Kazakhstan, in central Asia east of the Caspian Sea. The capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata, means “full of apples.” By 1500 BC apple seeds had been carried throughout Europe
TIL that Dory from "Finding Nemo" is deemed one of the most neuropsychologically accurate movie portrayals of an amnesic syndrome and the considerable memory difficulties faced daily by people with it
TIL someone translated Dracula into Icelandic and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made a fanfic-rewrite of what he wanted the story to be.
TIL In 1992, Nirvana brought an all-girl band to Buenos Aires to open for them, and the crowd was "throwing money and everything out of their pockets, mud and rocks, just pelting them." So, Nirvana, in protest, played lesser known songs and teased hit songs without actually playing them.
TIL fire poles in fire houses were originally installed to allow for faster descent than the houses' narrow spiral staircases, which were themselves installed because horses kept climbing to the second floors and getting stuck.
Horses... I suppose you couldn't keep them too far away from the stairs or behind a locked gate in case of, well, the need to access them for the exact same emergencies the place was built for. I bet somewhere there's a black and white photo of a horse being carefully removed from the second story of a firehouse, probably with a large crowd of spectators. Bit different than calling the fire department to get your cat out of a tree. A salute to the many, many working horses of the past who saved lives pulling fire wagons, ambulance wagons, and so many other things.
TIL about Kate Warne, America's first female detective, who in 1861, in the guise of a "rich southern lady visiting Baltimore," infiltrated a secessionist social gathering and revealed a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln before he took office.
There's a television show called The Alienist with Daniel Bruhl and Dakota Fanning; the latter's character is loosely based on this lady.
TIL scientist Claire Patterson spent over 20 years trying to convince the public that lead was poison.
TIL that actor Richard Harris only accepted to play Albus Dumbledore because his granddaughter threatened never to speak to him again if he didn't.
TIL Robert Propst, inventor of modern day Cubicles in 1968, called them “monolithic insanity” before he died in 2000.
TIL there was a trend of headless photography in 19th century Britain ("Victorian Headless Portraits"). The models usually had their heads in a platter, or were holding them in their hands. This was made by taking multiple photos and combining the negatives - kinda like the early days' Photoshop.
TIL Humans will walk in circles when lost unless there is some sort of external reference point.
TIL that Robert Kearns invented the intermittent windshield wiper only to see his invention show up in Ford and Chrysler cars without giving him any credit or money whatsoever, after years of lawsuits he settled with ford for 10.2 million and won a judgment against Chrysler for $30 million
He had patents for his work and everything, but they still stole his work. He lost his wife and had a nervous breakdown fighting for his due diligence and pay. He won, but he lost a lot in the process. Corporations are f*****g evil.
TIL Bruce Willis turned down the role of Sam in the movie Ghost. He said he didn't understand how the movie would work with the main character being dead for the majority of the movie, and the role went to Patrick Swayze. Nine years later Willis would star in The Sixth Sense.
TIL one of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W., asked for whiskey on his death bed, but was denied and died 36 years sober.
Even as a recovering alcoholic (14.5 months sober), I think this is messed up. You denied a dying man his final wish, and for what? To make a point? An example? F*cking ghoulish.
TIL that in the 1800s, US dairy producers would regularly mix their milk with water, chalk, embalming fluid and cow brains to enhance appearance and flavor. Hundreds of children died from the mixture of formaldehyde, dirt, and bacteria in their milk
TIL the oldest evidence of humans in the Americas was found less than four months ago, and was several thousands of years older than previously thought
TIL that a 2,000 year old Roman cosmetic cream was discovered intact. The owner’s fingerprints where they last touched the cream can still be seen
I'd love to know what that cream is made of; hope they analyze it!
TIL That the White Tailed Deer, generally considered to be herbivorous, have been caught on camera slurping baby birds out of their nests like candy and munching on human bones.
Why was this trail cam set up by a dead body? Was this that Tennessee University forensic decay lab?
TIL there are now more Spanish-speakers in the United States than there are in Spain.
TIL about the speed camera lottery in Stockholm, Sweden. Driving at or under the speed limit would make you eligible to win the lottery where the prize funds come from the fines paid by speeders. In the trial the average speed was reduced from 20mph to 15,6mph (22% reduction)
TIL Fish & Chips was an aid in winning WWII. Sir Winston Churchill saw the comfort food as a 'good companion' and was a dish that didn't get rationed to keep morale up. On the frontlines, troops calling "fish" and allies calling "chips" was an effective way to tell whether you were friend or foe.
I haven't thought of this for years, at school if a teacher was approaching, we'd say "chips!" for look out or beware
TIL we thought dolphins couldn't breathe through their mouths until 2016, when a dolphin with a damaged blowhole learned to mouth breathe
TIL Krusty the Clown from the Simpsons was originally intended to be Homer in disguise, which explains why they look so similar.
TIL Jonah Hill was only paid $60,000 to appear in The Wolf of Wall Street, with the studio using his desire to work with Martin Scorsese as leverage to pay him the lowest fee possible. Whereas Leonard DiCaprio, who also produced the film, was paid $10m.
TIL in 1890 as part of a program to bring all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays to North America, 60 starlings were released in New York's Central Park. There are now over 200 million European starlings across the US, causing billions in crop damage and deadly hazards at airports
TIL that due to their high fat and low water content, pistachios can self-heat and spontaneously combust if stored inproperly
TIL that PhD students display twice as many symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as depression than other people.
TIL Dolly Parton sleeps in make-up (and washes it off in the morning) just in case she has to go out in the middle of the night if a natural disaster strikes
TIL that Aspirin and Heroin were both invented in a two-week period by the same man: Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist who worked for Bayer (and under Adolf Von Baeyer) in the late 1880’s.
And heroin was originally developed in the hopes of finding a LESS addictive form of morphine. Whoops :(
TIL: that its a common practice in China, to not tell an old person about their cancer diagnosis, where it is believed that telling them can make their condition deteriorate quicker.
TIL 75–80% of Olive Oil sold in the US is adulterated, including major brands. Organized crime's profit margin on adulterated olive oil is 3x that of cocaine. Olive oil fraud has gone on for 4 000 years.
TIL Kurt Cobain didn't particularly like his song Smells Like Teen Spirit saying "It's almost an embarrassment to play." And "I can barely, especially on a bad night, get through 'Teen Spirit.' I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away."
A lot of bands/artists despise the song that made them famous. I can understand it, it must be boring to hear the crowd ask for this song every time. But at the same time, it's a bit like biting the feeding hand... A french artist I really like kind of found a way around it : he plays one of his most famous song at every tour he does, but arrange it in a totally different way every time. (His name is Dominique A and the song is "Le courage des oiseaux", if you want to know :-) )
TIL when Christopher Columbus and his crew were stranded on Jamaica for 6 long months, fearing the indigenous people would turn on him, he successfully predicted a lunar eclipse and successfully used it to frighten them into thinking it was God’s wrath.
I wish I believed in hell so that I'd know that bastard was rotting there. One of the worst human beings to ever walk the face of the earth.
TIL that Groundhog Day was introduced to America by German settlers who originally used a hedgehog to predict the weather, switching to the groundhog as they were easier to come across in the Keystone State.
RIP Milltown Mel. In heaven, the only shadow you will see will be God's. You were a beautiful fur ball.
TIL in 1989 a Soviet pilot ejected from a Mig-23 fighter jet over Poland after experiencing technical problems. The jet continued to fly on autopilot for 600 miles before running out of fuel and crashing into a house in Belgium, killing its occupant.
I remember that, nobody dared to shoot it down when it flew over Germany
TIL In 2017, scientists began a global search to find a mate for Jeremy, a rare left-coiled snail. Since his shell coiled in the opposite direction of most snails, his organs couldn't align with others. Two contenders were found, but they mated with each other instead of Jeremy.
TIL Henry VIII traveled with a locksmith and changed the locks on his rooms when he visited other estates
TIL that, in its 1975 annual opinion poll, Playboy Magazine readers voted Karen Carpenter as Best Rock Drummer of the year, outvoting John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.
TIL of the killer whales of Eden, Australia. In the 1800s they would cooperate with human whalers to hunt larger whales. Both parties would share the carcass.
TIL: An Alaskan husky in the Iditarod will burn about 9,666 calories each day; a rate of caloric burn 3.5 times that of a human Tour de France cyclist. The aerobic capacity of a typical Iditarod dog is three times that of a human Olympic marathon runner.
TIL The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld was based on Al Yeganeh, the real-life owner of Soup Kitchen International in Manhattan. After the episode aired, members of the cast and crew went to the restaurant for lunch. Yeganeh yelled at them and stated that the publicity had ruined his reputation.
Maybe just maybe if you didn’t act in a manner akin to a dictator when you’re providing a service to customers and treated paying patrons with respect just maybe it wouldn’t be someone else’s fault for you being recognized ina poor light bc you acted so. #accountability for one’s actions
TIL A boneless ham is a ham from which the bone has been removed, after which the ham is tightly pressed into an oval-shaped package. Salt will break down some of the proteins in meat muscle, allowing them to reconnect and link with each other. That's why a boneless ham still appears solid.
TIL JFK asked his mother not to contact heads of state without asking first after she asked Nikita Khrushchev to send her his autograph
TIL that when Dune (1984) was originally released in theaters, some locations gave out “cheat sheets” for people confused with the terminology of the Dune universe.
TIL that crocodiles have been observed to balance twigs on their heads to lure nest-building birds, thus proving them to be much more sophisticated than previously believed and joining a small group of predators who use bait to catch prey
I want to know how a crocodile picks up a stick and places it on its head without a thumb.
TIL that you should never cut a cat's whiskers as they are very sensitive and cats use them to feel around. Cutting whiskers cash cause cats to become disoriented and scared, and might cause it to get stuck easily
TIL laws restricting Chinese people to merchant visas made many Chinese restaurants in the U.S. These visas were only for fancy shops and the person had to run it for a year. Some groups used all their cash to open a nice restaurant and then switch who ran it each year so that they'd all get visas.
This still happens. There's a Pakistani family that I know that has done this with a tobacco and beverage store.
TIL during the Han dynasty, unmarried women and their families had to pay a special tax for their singleness. On the other hand, women with babies didn't have to pay taxes for three years and their husbands didn't have to pay taxes for one year.
That's f*****g cruel must've been hard to be a single lady back then
TIL : Kanye West's mother, Donda, has a law named after her known as 'Donda West law' that requires patients to have a physical examination before cosmetic surgery. Donda West unfortunately passed away from heart problems one day after her surgery.
TIL that the sun has only completed 20 orbits (galactic years) around our galaxy since its birth.
TIL in 2004 there were more British free range and organic eggs being sold than could ever possibly be laid in UK farms. After delivery drivers began suspecting that the "industrial eggs" they delivered were being relabeled, investigators found that Keith Owen had sold 100m mislabeled eggs
TIL Burt Reynolds took revenge from National Enquirer who wrote c**p about him for years by dumping a helicopter full of horse s**t on their Florida HQ
TIL when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, they had about 15 seconds of fuel left.
1/ The moon lander did decouple, and left the landing gear there to be lighter and need less lift. 2/ The moon has 1/6th earths gravity so you need far less lift to get to the orbit. 3/ Actually, you need less than 1/6th because getting to 100km above ground is not the problem (on earth), it is getting fast enough so you fall at the speed your centripetal force throws you out at. Again, this is not a linear relationship so you save more fuel when you're on the moon. 3/ A lot of fuel goes into lifting fuel so you can get the velocity to get to orbit. It's not a linear relationship there either. 4/ The reading was false because of fuel sloshing. Because the gravity on moon is different, the tools used to measure how much fuel they had left were inaccurate, the fuel did not stay on the bottom of the tank and didn't get measured. 5/ And to finish things off, it's "Landing fuel" - the ascent module has its own separate tank. Also, they had another reserve fuel for Abort.
TIL that the filmmakers of The Jungle Book (1967) originally considered Louis Armstrong for the voice of King Louie, but were worried that choosing a black actor to voice an ape would cause controversy.
TIL that in 2013 The Food Safety Authority of Ireland tested cheap frozen beefburgers and ready meals from supermarket and It found horse DNA in over one-third of the beefburger samples, and pig in 85% of them.
TIL about "Rabbit starvation." It's a malnutrition caused by eating too mucg protein and not enough fat. It has historically been caused by eating rabbit meat exclusively, which is too lean
This isn't quite right because it was taken from the Wikipedia entry which is incomplete. The starvation is caused if you only eat rabbit meat because it lacks certain vitamins required for the body to function. There's no limit on eating rabbit meat (well as much as you should eat of any one thing) the key is a balanced diet.
TIL there's an 18% average mortality rate for catch and release fishing with the rate varying significantly between species
TIL a Japanese man has been sending identical handwritten letters weekly to a hotel in the Netherlands for the last 40 years.
TIL in 1944, 40 years after the Wright Brothers completed their historic flight, Orville Wright took his last ever flight on a Lockheed Constellation. He commented that the wingspan of the Constellation was longer than the distance of his first flight.
I happened to take a flight across the Pacific on the 100th anniversary of their flight, and noted that one wing of the jet I was on was longer than their flight.
TIL 22% of Beverly Hills population is of Iranian descent
TIL about Jerry and Marge Selbee, who were able to win millions from the Michigan and Massachusetts lotteries, due to determining a certain type of game having a positive expected value, when played correctly.
Good article on Huffpost a few years ago: https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/lotto-winners/
TIL the average house in Japan depreciates to almost ¥0 after 25 years.
TIL The salary of the President of the United States has only been increased 5 times since 1789. It was $25,000 in 1789, and was increased to $50,000 in 1873, $75,000 in 1909, $100,000 in 1943, $200,000 in 1969, and $400,000 in 2001.
They get paid so much in PR like books, speeches etc.so I am not worried about their pay. I wonder if the staff’s salary has been increased or if it’s a fair wage.
TIL a study found significant increase in green biomass over 40% of the planet from 1982 to 2015, while a significant decrease in vegetation was seen in only 4% of the surface
Sadly there are not the one producing most of the oxygen, it is the algae, and the are still endangered by ocean acidification
TIL about the Great Flood of 1862 which affected California. It killed a quarter of California's cattle, destroyed a quarter of the state's taxable real estate, created an inland sea, and bankrupted the state.
About 25 years back there was a flood in the central valley of California which was called the 500 year flood. In one area by Manteca, CA the flood destroyed so many house thay when people rebuilt, they built their houses on 8 to 10 high foundations.
TIL In ancient Rome, masters discouraged slaves from running away by putting a tattoo reading "Stop me! I am a runaway!" on their foreheads.At a temple of the Greek god of healing, thousands of tablets from escaped slaves asking the god to make the tattoos on their forehead disappear have been found
For this reason, slaves usually wore headbands to cover up their disfiguring tattoos.
TIL that since 1953, every King of Saudi Arabia has been a son of the first king, Abdulaziz. His oldest son was born in 1900 and the youngest in 1952. He has roughly 1,000 grandchildren.
Wow how did he have time to rule a country with all that fruitfulness going on?
TIL The first McDonald's Drive Thru was installed in a restaurant based in Sierra Vista, Arizona, located near the Fort Huachuca military installation. Because military members were forbade from wearing their military uniforms outside of their cars.
TIL of Rebecca Twigg. After winning two Olympic medals in cycling, six world championships, and appearing in Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, and numerous commercials, Twigg abruptly dropped out of the sport, had trouble holding down a desk job, and has been living on the street for years.
TIL that the Empire State Building was constructed in less than 15 months for $24.7 million, 57% of its original budget.
TIL that bananas naturally produce anti-matter. Roughly every 75 minutes one positron is produced by the trace amounts of Potassium-40 that is naturally occurring in bananas.
Somehow, the Enterprise powered by bananas just doesn't have the same wow-factor
TIL that in 2002 Pamela Anderson contracted Hepatitis C by sharing tattoo needles with Tommy Lee and was told she would only have 10 years left to live. She was cured of the disease in 2015.
TIL that a modern highway now runs through the site of the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans held back a massive Persian army for three days. A statue of the Spartan leader, Leonidas, stands just a few feet from the road.
It wasn't just 300 Spartans. It was about 7,000 allied Greeks *led* by 300 Spartans. That said, they were still magnificently and severely outnumbered.
TIL that Argos is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe. This Greek settlement has been inhabited for at least 7000 years, and has been under Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Venetian and Ottoman rule. Significant ancient monuments remain there today.
TIL dolphins sleep with one eye open. Because they have to periodically go up for air and also be aware of predators, they are able to rest only half of their brain at a time and stay always somewhat conscious.
TIL that Cher is often credited as the first artist to use auto-tune in a song with her 1998 hit "Believe"
She was. And I'm quite sure if she knew then how many people who couldn't sing a note would become singers, she wouldn't have used it.
TIL that Protestant Reformation leader, Martin Luther, was an anti-Semite who denounced and urged the persecution of Jews
When the german peasants rebelled against the aristocrats, he was on the side of the oppressors
TIL that in May 25, 2003, two men boarded an empty Boeing 727 at an airport in Angola and flew off into the sunset. The FBI and CIA conducted a massive search, but neither the men nor the plane was ever seen or heard from again. it is one of the largest aircraft ever to disappear.
TIL it took Taco Bell food engineers two years and 40 different recipes to create the Doritos Loco taco. It became so popular that it led to Taco Bell adding 15,000 jobs, propelling the company to outgrow Pizza Hut, KFC and even McDonald’s.
TIL your arm doesn't fall asleep at night because of blood flow or circulation getting cut off. The feeling is actually caused by pinched nerves.
TIL there are no more than 12 Kmart stores remaining in the US. At its peak in 1994 there were 2323 stores in the US and 2486 globally. Until 1990, when it was surpassed by Walmart, it was the second largest retailer in the US after Sears.
TIL in 1940, a 14 year old Fidel Castro wrote a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking "If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green American, in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green American and I would like to have one of them."
TIL legendary NFL player Jim Thorpe is buried in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Thorpe had no connection to the town, nor had he ever visited. His third wife sold his body to the town rather than having him buried in his native Oklahoma.
TIL McDonald’s ended its 40yr relationship with Heinz when a Burger King executive was named the ketchup maker’s CEO.
I'm not exactly sure that's the case. Back when I worked for the Clown, we were told that in the 70's there was a supply shortage of tomato's (drought or something like that) and that Heinz was rationing ketchup out equally to the restaurants it contracted with. McDonald's pulled a "Wal-Mart" on Heinz, telling them that as their biggest customer, they expected to get first dibs on supply. Heinz refused, so McD's started manufacturing their own ketchup and told Heinz to take a hike. Something most folks don't take into account is that McD's doesn't just deal in ketchup packs, but they also have to supply their burgers with it. It comes in huge bags, about the size of an IV bag, and they go through a lot of it every single day.
TIL the ‘EGOT’ - an acronym used to designate people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony - was coined in 1984 by newly-famous Miami Vice actor Philip Michael Thomas, who stated a desire to achieve EGOT status within 5 years. He has never been nominated for any of the EGOT awards.
TIL in 2010 Charles Manson was caught with a flip phone in prison where he made calls and texts to people California, New Jersey, Florida and Canada.
The flip phone in his cell is concerning. The fact that he has contacts in California, New Jersey, Florida and Canada is even more concerning.
TIL Daniel Day-Lewis listened to Eminem's 'The Way I Am' every morning at 5AM to prepare for his role 'Gangs of New York' in 2002. He's also a big fan of Snoop Dogg.
eh… so? I'm a fan of Eminem and I'm a white granny in Europe. He's very good with words and rhythm. I appreciate skills.
TIL when the United States officially transitioned from analog to digital television on June 12, 2009, "1.75 million Americans were still not ready" resulting in 317,450 calls to the FCC on June 13. Coupons from the Dept. of Commerce were given out, to be exchanged for DTV Converter Boxes.
TIL: even though humans have been getting taller for the past several thousand years, we're still not as tall as we used to be pre-civilization
It would help when referencing Richard Harris ad Dumbledore…if you actually used a picture of Richard Harris and not Michael Gambon.
If Richard Harris was in the first three movies, he was a much better Dumbledore.
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Wish I could bite websites verbatim and call myself a ‘writer’. 😬👎🏿
It would help when referencing Richard Harris ad Dumbledore…if you actually used a picture of Richard Harris and not Michael Gambon.
If Richard Harris was in the first three movies, he was a much better Dumbledore.
Load More Replies... Wish I could bite websites verbatim and call myself a ‘writer’. 😬👎🏿
