Your teacher, mom, and virtually any adult with a thoughtful mind would never approve of Twitter as a learning tool. And how would they with this whole infinite source of the not-very-serious side of the internet where memes, jokes, and burns are roaming free?
But people are proving them wrong by sharing incredible facts brought to them by Twitter that should have been put in the textbooks. From realizing the symbol “&” is a ligature for the word "et" to finding out that an 18-inch pizza has more of a good thing than two 12-inch pizzas, these are some of the facts that could have been part of my wisdom bank this whole time.
So scroll down, upvote your faves, and after you’re done with this post, check out our previous list of 30 random facts that will make you feel "today years old."
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And still today, Natives are being harassed by police for protesting there peacefully. Nothing much has changed..
Look, I am not saying we should believe all that Twitter has to offer. But it turns out, the things we were taught at school are not so innocent either. Some facts we still believe to this day are complete myths, and they had better be laid out bare before you become "today years old" to realize they aren’t true.
You probably would place a pretty high bid on the fact that Columbus discovered America. You’re not the only one. A 2005 survey showed that 85% of Americans believed Columbus discovered the continents and only 2% correctly answered that he couldn’t have discovered America because it was already inhabited by Native Americans.
The London Underground maintain several stations that trains never use. They are reserved for TV and movie locations so as not to close down functioning stations
In DC we use drab brown colors, keeps the lights dim and make every station look similar just to remind everyone they are going to work to a job they hate.
That's kind of adorable. They do that with the school buses at the preschool where I sub sometimes because the kids have an easier time remembering what animal they are than what their bus number is.
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They do this as well on the London Underground - even the colour of the poles in the tubes match the line colours on the maps and in the stations. Nice to see how many cities actually did think it through pretty well.
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In Montreal (Canada) every subway station is completely different. You can have one in red tile, the other one electric blue. Even the benches are different!
In Brussels different artists have done each. Well, I was there years ago, but it was that way then. One had the same scene painted as a huge mural, with the four seasons affecting it. Just beautiful. I didn't even mind waiting for the train.
In Stockholm every station looks different and wonderful and covered with art! It's "the worlds longest art exhibition" (google it). It's so much easier to see where you are when stations don't look the same. I'm always lost in Washington because if you can't see the sign you don't know where you are.
Same goes for Prague. Each metro line is a different letter and colour and tiles on the walls are matching accordingly
Mexico City does this also with their metro. Every line is a certain color, and every station has a symbol in the color of the line it's on. Some Mexicans are illiterate, while others don't have Spanish as a language.
In Barcelona each line has a colour as well for tiles and also as a name. They have a number, too, but everybody know them by their colour. So when we are in another city, we still call the lines by their colour and look like illetrates to locals! :S
I'm the monster who calls BCN metro lines by their number. Nice to see some confused faces
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Same thing with Singapore MRT. They used colours to help [illiterate] senior citizen knowing what station they were at
A drawing for each one, a type of animal, for example. And the coloir, of course.
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I suspect you're right. There are more illiterate and functionally illiterate people in the Western world than people know.
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Moscow also has a similar method EVERY metro station is different...and very nice looking BTW.
The different tiles denote which line the stations on, red tiles, red line and so on
In NYC none of our tube stations match so our tourists don't know where they're going, but the gang bangers wear their own colours so they're at the correct stations. It's so our muggers don't get lost!
Hello, many fully literate travelers still need the colors and symbols to help keep it all straight. Have you ever tried to navigate metro systems in a dozen different countries? Did you learn all those languages and alphabets? I didn't think so.
Another fact which turns out to be a myth is the tongue map idea, which suggests that different parts of our tongues identify different kinds of tastes. However, the University of Florida Center for Smell and Taste stated that “the locations of those taste buds aren't in accordance with the 'tongue map.'” And even if taste buds are indeed receptive to certain types of tastes, the difference in reality is tiny.
You've probably heard how Einstein failed math in school and was not an A student in general. It turns out, the only exam he failed was an entrance test to the Zurich Polytechnic he had to take in French, which he didn’t speak well at the time.
Let's just ignore the human rights abuses suffered by the Nepali minority group...
A small group of wooly mammoth existed on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until about 2000 B.C.
She’s also small and behind a ton of protection. She’s beyond amazing.
Read a funny story about him. He used to pay meals with checks. People didn't cash them cause Dali's signature was more worthy than the pay, so he got many free meals doing so. Not sure if its true, but like this story.
Did you know you can get free extra pizza slices if you cut your pizza into 8 pieces instead of 6? ;)
Googol Plex (it's a number) is so large that if u wrote each of its zeros on separate atoms in the universe, there won't be enough space to finish writing all the zeros.
My identical twin cousin just told me that, although wearing exactly the same clothes and has quite similar voice, their toddlers can still tell them apart.
Note: this post originally had 47 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
You know I was taught a bunch of stuff in school, but I kinda wish that I was taught life skills; how to deal with loss, a broken heart, finances, rudimentary DIY, etc. You know everything that actually happens to you after you leave school.
We have some schools now that do (Netherlands) including growing food, but yeah, those are important survival skills
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fun fact, if you would put all the bloodveins in your body in one straight line... you would die
I always felt there should be a Life101 course in high school to teach people lots of survival skills like: how marketing works on you, the banking system, credit card lures and traps, living within your means, how to shop and cook, negotiation skills, etc. etc.
In Middle School (US, grades 6-8), we had Home Economics (cooking, sewing, nutrition) and Industrial Education (basic tool use, fun industrial projects). In 10th grade we had General Business (letter writing, banking, budgeting, basic laws, comparison shopping).
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So as a Canadian I wonder why we weren't taught that a Canadian invented peanut butter, we were taught about insulin and basketball being Canadian (among other things), but not peanut butter (I find that weird)
Americans are taught that it was George Washington Carver, one of the first and most prominent black American Scientist, who invented peanut butter.
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These are all interesting facts - I love lists like this. But on another note...poor teachers. They barely make a living, they're constantly disrespected and defunded, they are now looking at going back to school at the height of this pandemic. There's also lists everywhere of things you should've been taught in school. Are we incapable of learning ANYTHING ourselves? What makes this a list of things I should've learned in school? They are supposed to teach us this ever-evolving list of 'life skills' everything from cars and appliance repair to cooking, planting a garden, etc. Forget that necessary life skills are relative to who/where/what you do/want to do. The history of every civilization where everyone used to live, everyone's different points of views about history, every important historical figure (good or bad) AND all the different diseases/conditions/disabilities a person has. Where does it end? WHY the things on this list - please someone give me some insight.
There are several here that I wouldn't expect to learn in school, like the cost of movie theater popcorn vs filet mignon, who designed chupa chups, and how many faces a chicken can recognize.
I swear it's in vogue right now to lament all the things you weren't taught in school. As if once you graduate that's it, you're done. You can't learn anything at all now - just have to go through the rest of your life confused.
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oops. accidentally pressed enter. meant to say that some of these are cool but aren't really necessary to learn in school.
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You know I was taught a bunch of stuff in school, but I kinda wish that I was taught life skills; how to deal with loss, a broken heart, finances, rudimentary DIY, etc. You know everything that actually happens to you after you leave school.
We have some schools now that do (Netherlands) including growing food, but yeah, those are important survival skills
Load More Replies... fun fact, if you would put all the bloodveins in your body in one straight line... you would die
I always felt there should be a Life101 course in high school to teach people lots of survival skills like: how marketing works on you, the banking system, credit card lures and traps, living within your means, how to shop and cook, negotiation skills, etc. etc.
In Middle School (US, grades 6-8), we had Home Economics (cooking, sewing, nutrition) and Industrial Education (basic tool use, fun industrial projects). In 10th grade we had General Business (letter writing, banking, budgeting, basic laws, comparison shopping).
Load More Replies... So as a Canadian I wonder why we weren't taught that a Canadian invented peanut butter, we were taught about insulin and basketball being Canadian (among other things), but not peanut butter (I find that weird)
Americans are taught that it was George Washington Carver, one of the first and most prominent black American Scientist, who invented peanut butter.
Load More Replies... These are all interesting facts - I love lists like this. But on another note...poor teachers. They barely make a living, they're constantly disrespected and defunded, they are now looking at going back to school at the height of this pandemic. There's also lists everywhere of things you should've been taught in school. Are we incapable of learning ANYTHING ourselves? What makes this a list of things I should've learned in school? They are supposed to teach us this ever-evolving list of 'life skills' everything from cars and appliance repair to cooking, planting a garden, etc. Forget that necessary life skills are relative to who/where/what you do/want to do. The history of every civilization where everyone used to live, everyone's different points of views about history, every important historical figure (good or bad) AND all the different diseases/conditions/disabilities a person has. Where does it end? WHY the things on this list - please someone give me some insight.
There are several here that I wouldn't expect to learn in school, like the cost of movie theater popcorn vs filet mignon, who designed chupa chups, and how many faces a chicken can recognize.
I swear it's in vogue right now to lament all the things you weren't taught in school. As if once you graduate that's it, you're done. You can't learn anything at all now - just have to go through the rest of your life confused.
Load More Replies... oops. accidentally pressed enter. meant to say that some of these are cool but aren't really necessary to learn in school.
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