30 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group
Education is something that never stops because you’ll never reach the point where you know everything there is to know about life. We really can learn something new every day. The best proof of that is the r/todayilearned subreddit where people post about all the interesting and insightful new things they learned about the world just now.
With nearly 24.6 million (yup, million) members, the ‘Today I Learned’ community is a real powerhouse, both on Reddit and on the internet. And the online group is chock-full of knowledge-hungry Ravenclaws sharing intriguing things with all of us. Check out the awesome things that the TIL members learned recently, upvote your fave ones, and let us know what interesting things you’ve discovered yourselves, dear Readers. We’re big fans of the TIL community because it keeps on expanding our minds. You’ll find our earlier posts about r/todayilearned here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Remember, Pandas, knowledge is power… and the perfect snack to go with a cup of coffee.
Lenore Skenazy, the president of Let Grow, the nonprofit promoting childhood independence, and founder of the Free-Range Kids movement, was kind enough to explain to Bored Panda all about how we can foster our kids’ desire to learn independently beyond school and turn them into lifelong learners like in the times before compulsory education, as well as how to bring back their spark of curiosity if they ever lose it, no matter what age they are. Read on for our full and incredibly insightful interview with her.
This post may include affiliate links.
TIL the former World Chess Champion G. Kasparov described Hungarian female chess player Polgár as a "circus puppet" and said that women chess players should stick to having children. Later in September 2002, in the Russia versus the Rest of the World Match, Polgár defeated Garry Kasparov.
TIL mercy dogs were trained during World War I to comfort mortally wounded soldiers as they died in no man's land
TIL that Simone Segouin was a French Resistance fighter in WWII that was only 18 when Germany invaded. She took part in large-scale missions, such as capturing German troops, derailing trains, and other acts of sabotage. And she is still alive and just celebrated her 95th birthday.
Most people don't know what they would/could do if they had to. Some people rise when the need comes. You might be one.
Load More Replies...
She was 14 when Germany invaded France, and 17 or 18 when she joined the resistance.
Load More Replies...
Small aside: You refer to things as "that" and people (and animals!) as "who". So, she was a fighter "who was only 18". It's a small language shift but an important one :)
Small aside: You can use "that" to refer to people in a non-defining relative clause. So, "she was a fighter that was only 18" is correct.
Load More Replies...
The French have such a bad rap because of WWi & WWII, but they really don't deserve it. The French Underground were BAD ASS! Their government may have surrendered, but the people did not go quietly; they were like cats on stairs - they'll eff you up from the shadows. Check out a doc called The Eye of Vichy, it's fascinating.
Another interesting fact: many if the first French resistance fighters were Jewish refugees from Poland. Bonus fact: de Gaulle had most of the surviving ones deported from France after the war since they weren't French citizens (AND they contradicted the myth of France resisting from the beginning). One more bonus fact: Charles de Gaulle was a HUGE asshole.
wow , now most 18 year old girls struggle is getting that perfect instagram photo
Who knows, maybe the instagram-kids would also grab a gun if someone invaded and started to murder the people. And maybe this tough woman would take selfies if she were 18 today. Don't shame the younger generations for not having to fight in a war.
Load More Replies...
We were interested to find out what parents can do to help their children look beyond compulsory education and learn on their own. Lenore, the president of Let Grow, pointed out to Bored Panda that school, as we know it, is actually a new development and goes against how learning was done for much of history.
“In the United States, for instance, school only became compulsory a little over 100 years ago. Previously—for hundreds of thousands of years of human history—kids learned simply by watching, copying, helping, and playing. In other words, they’d hang around the adults, see how they made things like baskets and arrowheads, they’d ask questions, noodle around, and try to copy what their elders were doing. They’d also help out as soon as they could—fetching things, tracking animals, whatever—and in between they’d be playing with a group of mixed-age kids. All these activities were fueled by curiosity,” she explained.
Back before school was made to be compulsory for everyone, the driving force behind kids learning from adults and other kids was becoming both competent and seen as important in your community. So a lot was at stake! “You were motivated to learn what the bigger kids in your group knew, too, because they were so cool. Your entire day consisted of observing and practicing the stuff you needed to know— skills and games. If you weren’t curious, you weren’t going to enjoy life, or succeed at it.”
TIL about Judith Catchpole, a young maidservant in the colony of Maryland, who was tried in 1656 for witchcraft and killing her newborn child. The judge summoned an all-female jury, who determined that Judith did not kill her child - in fact, there were no signs that Judith had even been pregnant.
TIL that the youngest French resistance hero was a little boy who acted as a courier for resistance fighters, slipping past enemy patrols and carrying messages. In 1950, he was posthumously awarded the rank of sergeant of the resistance. He was Marcel Pinte, and he died for France at the age of 6.
TIL that Russian President Boris Yeltsin once got so drunk at a state dinner that he drummed on Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev's bald head, using dinner spoons.
However, nowadays, kids can sometimes seem, well, less curious, less motivated, and less yearning for new knowledge. Not all of them, of course. But some might argue that there’s a trend of following along with whatever the school system tells you to do.
“One reason kids might seem less curious today is because most of their education, inside and outside of school, doesn’t require self-motivation, it requires compliance. The drive is extrinsic, not intrinsic. Kids fill out worksheets because they have to, not because these seem interesting, or have any immediate connection to the ‘real’ world,” Lenore told Bored Panda where the main issue lies. This trend, unfortunately, lies in adult-led (and thoroughly enjoyable) extracurricular activities, too.
“Learning soccer means doing the drills the coach assigns, as opposed to tagging along with the older kids and working hard to get good enough so that they’d start letting you play. The key to curiosity, then, is giving kids enough free, unstructured time for them to find something they love to do for its own sake—not for a grade, or coach.”
TIL of Waverly Woodson, a black medic who treated at least 200 injured men on D-Day while injured himself. As he hit the beach a shell tore apart his landing craft, filling him with shrapnel. Despite this, he set up an aid station and treated wounds for 30 hours, at one point even amputating a foot.
TIL Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks containing an image of Yoda sitting next to King Faisal while he signed the 1945 UN charter
TIL that in the 1830s the Swedish Navy planted 300 000 oak trees to be used for ship production in the far future. When they received word that the trees were fully grown in 1975 they had little use of them as modern warships are built with metal
According to Lenore, part of the equation is authority figures like parents and teachers introducing children to all the various things they might come to love: from art and music and language to sports and nature and animals. However, that’s not enough.
The other part of the equation, as Lenore puts it, is “to get out of the way and not turn a budding interest into yet another adult-led activity that kids passively go along with.” In other words, spark the interest and let them do their own thing. Don’t try to control them too much, unless you want to douse their curiosity. Be there for guidance if they need it, but go make yourself a cup of tea and relax with a good book (you need to develop your own interests, too!).
“Not every interest has to lead to formal instruction, or at least not until a child really wants it. There’s a big difference between running for a coach, and running for plain old fun. Curiosity and self-direction go hand in hand,” the expert in independence and resilience highlighted.
TIL about Mary Ann Brown Patten, who took command of a merchant vessel in 1856 when the captain, her husband, became ill and the first mate was found to be sabotaging the voyage to win a bet he'd placed on a competitor. She defeated a mutiny attempt and brought the ship safely back to port.
TIL of a French soldier who was taken as a POW and fed only potatoes during his captivity, and survived. Feeling like he should have died, he made it his life’s mission to convince the world of the nutritional value of potatoes, and his tomb in France is decorated with potatoes as a tribute.
TIL the great smog of London in 1952 was so bad that pedestrians couldn't even see their feet. Some of the 4,000 who died in the 5 days it lasted didn't suffer lung problems – they fell into the Thames and drowned because they could not see the river
That sounds amazing on paper, but what other practical things can parents do to foster this self-motivation, self-reliance, and independence? Well, Lenore suggested that one of the things that parents could do is designating an hour or two each day as ‘outdoor’ time without any electronic devices.
“Put some junk out there—old suitcases, blankets, buckets—whatever you’ve got. Of course, at first, the kids might be bored. Scratch that: They will be bored. They’ll want to come back in and grab the iPad. Resist the temptation to let them in or entertain them. Give them a stretch of time—and especially if you can send some other kids out there with them—and out of ‘There’s nothing to do’ something will catch their interest. And a curious kid is born,” she explained. To be completely honest, this sounds amazing for an adult to do as well. The weekend can’t come fast enough!
TIL that Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" was painted on cardboard
TIL If you grind a marine sponge through a sieve into salt water, it'll reorganize itself back into a sponge. It's the only animal that we know of that can do that
TIL that 30 years ago you had 15-17 minutes to escape a house fire. Nowadays you only have 3-5 minutes (due to more plastics & petroleum-based products in the house as well as more open floor plans, bigger rooms, & higher ceilings)
Not all change is beneficial. We learned from out fire department chief that fire retardsnt chemicals are a huge part of this very issue, because if the deadly toxic smoke they give of when smoldering or burning.
Life can get in the way, however, and kids and adults alike can lose their spark even if they used to be extremely curious. Let Grow president Lenore went into detail about this as well.
“We don’t realize it, but curiosity is a very pleasurable emotion. That’s why people travel—to see how other people do things, to try new foods and new experiences. Doing something new or unfamiliar brings our senses back to life. It can be fascinating even to try to figure out a parking meter in another country. (Infuriating, too. But boy, is your mind working hard!) It’s daunting but ultimately it is exhilarating.”
She continued: “To give dulled-out kids the equivalent of a trip to a new country, send them to do something they haven’t done on their own before. Have them run an errand, visit a neighbor, get something from the woods or the store—something that puts them in a new environment where they have to figure out some stuff on their own.”
This way, kids can feel like they’re conquering a new task or tackling a fear all on their own which is bracing and helps them get out of the shell. Soon enough, they’ll be vibrant and full of curiosity.
TIL that four high-school students in the ‘70s are the reason we no longer have pay toilets in America. They created an organization called CEPTIA, and were able to successfully lobby against the issue. 8 years later, pay toilets were all but nonexistent throughout the US
TIL car trunks got emergency release handles because a middle aged woman and her husband escaped being kidnapped and fought for it until it became a requirement
“To make this happen, I must recommend that schools consider doing The Let Grow Project (which is free and takes almost no class time). Kids get the homework assignment, ‘Go home and do something new, on your own, without your parents.’ With just this little push, parents let go and kids take off: riding bikes, exploring towns, running errands, playing, cooking, building,” Lenore said.
“Our at-home version is called The Let Grow Independence Kit—same idea, and same price: $0.00. When everything is done for you or taught to you, it is hard for curiosity to flourish. But you—a teacher or a parent—take a step back, no matter how old your kids are (I’m doing it right now and my son’s 22!), you can watch them come back to life.” The beauty of it is, going outside our comfort zones to get our curiosity back works for adults, too.
TIL that one of the 2 co-owners/founders of Macy's died on the Titanic, along with his wife, because he refused to board rescue ships before women and children were helped. His wife chose to stay behind because she did not want to abandon her husband, so they both died together aboard the Titanic.
And also the orchestra didn't stop playing when the titanic was sinking so they were drowned with the couples....as well :(
TIL that during the Danish Colonization of Greenland, missionary Hans Egede found that local Inuit had no concept for what bread was and so he changed the Lord’s Prayer to say “Give us this day our daily seal”.
TIL In 2007 a man in a wheelchair was hit by an 18 wheeler. The handles were ensnared within the grill of the truck and he was pushed at over 60 mph for several miles on the highway. Amazingly, he escaped without injury.
Wheelchair go vroom (I know it’s a bad joke please don’t downvote lol)
The TIL subreddit was created on December 28, 2008, which means it celebrated a whopping 12 years in existence recently.
In other words, if the subreddit were a kid, it would probably be in 6th or 7th grade by now (most likely telling its parents all about the new things it learned at school that day). If the community were a business, it could pop the champagne because surviving and thriving for more than a decade is no easy feat.
Saying that we should always be hungry for knowledge and constantly learning is incredibly easy. In practice, however, real-life gets in the way. Promising ourselves that we’ll start delving into a new field, furthering our education, or even brushing off the rust from our old degree sounds good on a Sunday evening. But once Monday morning rolls around, you can find that you’re low on energy, motivation, and just want that first cup of Joe.
TIL that although Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was written to include cannons firing and cathedral bells, synchronising them with an orchestra proved all but impossible. It wasn't until 1954 that composer Antal Doráti mixed a studio recording with cannons and bells, finally playing it as intended.
TIL Reagan and Gorbachev Agreed to Pause the Cold War in Case of an Alien Invasion
TIL that Britain's worst nuclear accident, would have been much worse, were it not for Sir John Douglas Cockcroft. Whom insisted on installing filters onto the exhaust shaft of the Windscale Nuclear Power Plant. When the accident happened the radioactive dust was reduced by 95%.
'Whom' insisted??? Come on, he was an Englishman. Have some respect and use correct English. Either write "...were it not for Sir John Douglas Cockcroft. He insisted..." or "...were it not for Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, who insisted..."
However, you don’t need to restructure your entire life to ensure that you’re learning all life long (though that would help). Even small shifts to your schedule and how you spend your leisure can have large effects. Feeling tired all the time? Try going to bed a tad earlier, even if you feel like you’re missing out on your leisure time. Can’t concentrate and feeling irritated all the time? Try reducing the amount of caffeine and sugar you consume daily by a small amount. Get the basics like exercise, nutritious food, hydration, and sleep down first before moving on to complex solutions.
Meanwhile, Forbes suggests switching part of your TV time out for reading a book. And, yes, before you ask, binging random YouTube channels and scrolling through TikTok counts as watching TV. Forbes also explains that meditating can help unclutter the mind while meeting new people can open you up to new ways of thinking. What’s more, playing games makes learning a lot of fun. That’s why you see a lot of apps like Duolingo that gamify education.
But, at the end of the day, these are all crutches. What really matters is a powerful personal desire to keep learning. For me, it’s the desire to get closer to the Truth about the world and life. For others, constant education might have practical ends (e.g. getting a new job or learning a new skill) or might be embraced for its own sake. What’s your reason, Pandas?
TIL if you get a zebrafish drunk and put it in a tank of sober zebrafish, the sober fish will adopt it as their leader and follow the drunk fish around the tank.
TIL that in 2012, a survey in eastern Germany (regions formerly part of East Germany/GDR) was unable to find a single person under the age of 28 who believed in God
In the 90s I worked in Germany on a green card. I'm pretty sure some of my wages went to a Christian tax of some sort or maybe a local church? Perhaps someone could confirm that for me?
TIL Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter in the film series was allergic to his own glasses. He had a nickel allergy and suffered for weeks with mysterious bumps around his eyes, where the glasses touched his face. The nickel glasses were quickly replaced with hypoallergenic specs
He was also supposed to have his mothers eyes, and so he had to wear colored lenses, which made his eyes red an puffy and watery so eventually these were left out of the movie
TIL a Harvard research showed that having no friends is as deadly as smoking. Researchers have discovered a link between loneliness and the levels of blood-protein which can cause heart attacks and strokes.
What if I have no friends and am a smoker? Uh... anyone wanna play Among Us? Or L4D2?
TIL that the life expectancy number we know for the midde ages includes the infant mortality, so 13th-century English nobles had 30 year life expectancy at birth, but when they reached the age of 21, they would normally have a expectancy of 64.
Life expectancy numbers always include infant mortality. Nowadays average life expectancy in Western countries is almost 80 years but it is significantly higher for everyone above the age of 30.
TIL the phrase "Turn a blind eye" (willfully ignore information) originated from Admiral Lord Nelson in 1801, who used his injured eye to see through his telescope during the Battle of Copenhagen when he wished to ignore his commander's signals, which resulted in their victory.
TIL in 1933, Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt were at a White House event when they whimsically abandoned their guests for a joyride. Both took turns flying and Roosevelt later stated, "It does mark an epoch, doesn't it, when a girl in an evening dress and slippers can pilot a plane at night."
TIL Hermann Göring's brother strongly opposed the Nazi party, and forged his brother's signature so people could leave the country. Once, he joined Jews who had to scrub the streets, so the SS officer stopped the activity in order not to humiliate Hermann Göring.
TIL Jesús García Corona made the decision to sacrifice his own life to save the people of Nacozari by driving a dynamite laden train that had caught fire away from the town instead of jumping to safety, Mexico, November 7th, 1907.
TIL Squanto was taken from his home village, transported to Europe, conscripted into slavery, escaped and made his way back to his homeland, only to find he was the last of his tribe.
TIL Stanford researchers showed that mealworms can safely consume various types of plastics including toxic additive-containing plastic such as polystyrene with no ill effects. The worms can then be used as a safe, protein-rich feed supplement
TIL that the Latin name of a ferret is Mustelidae putorius furo, which translates to “stinky mouse thief”
TIL of 'Death by GPS,' or the deaths of people who follow their GPS systems off cliffs, into lakes, and deep into the desert. These deaths are mainly attributed to "uncritical acceptance of turn-by-turn commands and paying more attention to the navigation system than what is in front of them."
TIL a majority of the people Christopher Walken interacted with as a child were non-native English speakers, including his father. Walken attributes his unique halting speaking style to watching people hesitate to think of the right English word.
So interesting. And Wm. Shatner 's cadences as Captain Kirk are due to his training as a Shakespearean actor.
TIL that when Princess Diana died in 1997, the funeral's broadcast attracted an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide. Which makes it one of the biggest televised event in history.
So sad how such a wonderful woman got literally hounded to death by the papperazzi
TIL Martin Luther King, Jr.'s mother was also assassinated, and his brother was found dead in a swimming pool at age 38.
TIL Subway Rolls Contain So Much Sugar They are Not Considered Bread In Ireland
TIL Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 and further investigated it across his lifetime. He died in 1997 aged 90, less than a decade before the New Horizons launch to Pluto. To honour his wishes his ashes were launched inside the spacecraft, making it the longest post mortem fight ever recorded.
Honestly, I miss Pluto being a planet. I grew up memorizing the order and size of planets, watching Sailor Moon, and it just makes me kinda sad in a nostalgic way. Anyone else feel that way?
TIL a man named George Raveling holds Martin Luther King, Jr.'s manuscript for the "I Have A Dream" speech. Raveling volunteered as a security guard at the event and asked for the document. King gave it to him, and Raveling, now 83, still has it today. He's turned down $3 million for it.
TIL Years after her death, an archive of Marilyn Monroe’s poems, letters, notes, recipes, and diary entries surfaced. The archive included Monroe admitting that her first marriage, at the age of 16, was to keep her out of the orphanage when her caretaker was in the psychiatric hospital.
TIL St. Marina the Monk was a crossdressing Catholic saint who joined her widowed father in the monastery. "Brother Marinos" was accused of impregnating a girl, and rather than reveal her sex to save face, humbly let herself be cast out and supported the child like a father.
TIL that Civil War General John Sedgwick was killed when he stood up behind Union fortifications and proclaimed “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!!” and was promptly shot by a Confederate sniper
TIL that Bobby Darin wrote "Splish Splash" after a DJ bet him that he couldn't make a hit song that started with "Splish Splash, I was takin' a bath"
TIL that in 2012 doctors around the world voted the 1846 paper describing anesthesia as the most important discovery in modern medicine, ahead of things like antibiotics and X-Rays
Yeah, it's very useful for patients to not hurt themselves freaking out that there's a hole in their chest.
TIL in the 90s, video game designer Kenji Eno learned he had blind fans, who played his games with great effort. So he designed a blank-screen game just for them: "Real Sound: Kaze no Regret." He made Sega send 1000 consoles (w/ the game) to blind people. It is still a popular game for the blind.
That warms my heart. Imagine being blind, or imagine being the parent of a blind kid, and you or your kid receive such a game. That must haven been SUCH a big thing for them. Also, it makes me realise this is an area that needs way more games. Maybe text adventures with the text being voiced. Music games. Games where the vibration of your controller is your cue to act.
TIL of Erwin Kreuz, a German tourist who planned to visit San Francisco but accidentally disembarked early, and then spent days looking for the Golden Gate Bridge and other Bay Area landmarks in Bangor, Maine. Amused and touched, Maine residents turned him into a local celebrity.
TIL of French telecom CEO Didier Lombard, who was found guilty of moral harassment after 18 employees committed suicide under his leadership from 2008 to 2010, including an employee who stabbed himself in the stomach during a staff meeting and a woman who threw herself out of a window.
TIL that after a Far Side cartoon featured a chimpanzee referring to Jane Goodall as a "tramp", the cartoonist received a letter from Goodall's lawyers calling the comic an "atrocity". Goodall herself later saw the cartoon and loved it, and wrote the introduction to one of the Far Side collections.
TIL In 1986, two Russian airline pilots got into an argument over whether one could land the plane without vision. The main pilot pulled the curtains over the windows, insisting he could. Then, the plane missed the runway, flipped and killed 70 of the passengers
TIL Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia. A paranoid person thinks everyone in conspiring against them, whereas a pronoid person thinks everything is secretly conspiring to help them.
TIL in the 1920s, one reason corsets went out of style was because they were made of lots of metal which was needed for tools during WWI. The U.S War Industries Board even asked women to stop buying them which helped them save enough metal to build two battleships.
TIL In 1986, Optimus Prime was actually killed off in the Transformers movie, in order to make way for new and more expensive toys. He was eventually resurrected due to Hasbro underestimating the backlash over his death
I remember seeing it as a kid, it was dark but one of my favourite films...
TIL that the famous photo of the Soviet flag being raised during the Battle of Berlin in 1945 was actually doctored. Photographer Yevgeny Khaldei added smoke to make it seem more dramatic, and also removed one of two watches from a Senior Sergeant's wrist, as it would have implied looting.
TIL the idea caffeinated coffee & tea dehydrate you is misunderstood. It's true that caffeine can be a weak diuretic - (stimulates urination) - but the loss is negated by the water in the drink itself. You're ingesting more fluids than urinating when drinking a cup of caffeinated coffee or tea.
TIL in 2017, a man in Texas purchased a working Sherman tank and parked it outside his house. After sending a “sternly worded letter” and realizing that they couldn’t tow the vehicle, the local HOA began issuing parking tickets on the tank. The owner left it there for two more weeks out of spite.
TIL Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels had severe depression and mourned his birthday by wearing black clothes.
TIL At Frank Sinatra's birth, the doctor thought he was a stillborn. Blue and not breathing, the doctor laid him on the counter while he attended to Sinatra’s mother. It was only when his grandmother picked up the newborn, ran him under cold water and slapped his back that Sinatra started breathing
TIL That from 1906-1920, there was a movement in the US to remove all silent letters and irregular spellings from the English language (eg: although->altho), funded by Andrew Carnegie and supported by Teddy Roosevelt
TIL Ants sleep by taking about 250 one minute naps throughout their day. It totals just under 5 hours of sleep. This allows for 80% of their colony to be awake, working and prepared at any given moment.
TIL in 2016, the Swedish Tourism Council created a single phone number that connected the caller to a random Swede for you to have a conversation with. In the 79 days it was open, almost 200,000 calls were made with a combined 367 days worth of conversations.
TIL that a 1992 Japanese TV show combined English lessons with gymnastic exercise programs. On the show, three gymnasts would perform synchronized exercises while chanting phrases like, "Hasta la vista, baby," "Spare me my life!", "I was robbed by two men!", and "I have a bad case of diarrhea."
TIL that between 1978 and 1983, John Williams won six Grammy Awards for Best Score in a row. He won them for Star Wars, Close Encounters, Superman, Empire, Raiders, and E.T.
TIL African surgeons are often advised to treat hippo bites as a crushing injury rather than a penetration wound, due to the severity of damage to bones and internal organs. A majority of hippo attack survivors are left with a disability. Amputations are very common.
My grandmother was once briefly chased by a hippo in Kenya back in the 80s. She is still alive now, well into her nineties. :)
TIL that David Dunbar Buick was a plumber who invented the process for adhering enamel to cast iron, clearing the way for cast iron bathtubs in homes. He would later start the Buick Motor Company
TIL that Weird Al wrote "The Saga Begins" before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out. He gathered most of the information from online leaks, and was surprised at how accurate he was after seeing a charity pre-screen of the movie. He made minor alterations to the song after seeing it.
TIL The Inca did not have a written language but they did store and transfer information via a system of knots in rope that is still being decoded
TIL that Johnny Cash's brother, Jack, died when he was 14 after getting mangled by a table saw after cutting wood. Johnny, who admired his brother a lot, was heartbroken. According to his sister, Johnny helped dig Jack's grave.
TIL that Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, refused to license his characters for toys or other products. He made an exception for a 1993 textbook, Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes, which is now so rare that only 7 libraries in the world have copies. A copy sold for $10,000 in 2009.
TIL that rock music has died out in the UK so much that the Rock & Metal Number One spot consists of practically nothing but Don't Let the Bells End around every Christmas, and Bohemian Rhapsody for the rest of the year.
TIL that popcorn, being relatively inexpensive, became popular during the Great Depression. It became a source of income for many struggling farmers, including the Redenbacher family. In fact, when sugar was rationed during WWII, Americans ate three times as much popcorn as they had before.
TIL iTunes helped save "The Office" when it reached four of the top five slots for downloaded TV shows in the platform. That’s when the people behind the show learned that their audience skewed young, rather than the white-collar workers they thought would be watching.
The picture above this one is of an Iron Lung and the first thing I thought was Creed saying he was in one when he was younger and Micheal asking how old is he... Next picture I see, the office. almost like fate
TIL of Jan Davis, who protested the banning of BASE jumping at national parks due to safety concerns, by BASE jumping off El Capitan. Her parachute failed to open and she died.
Isn't BASE jumping always dangerous? I mean, why are national parks more dangerous than other places? She could have had the same kind of accident anywhere else, too.
TIL the word "gorilla" comes from the Greek word meaning, "savage hairy women."
It actually means, a tribe of hairy women, replace savage with tribe and then you actually did learn something, The American physician and missionary Thomas Staughton Savage and naturalist Jeffries Wyman first described the western gorilla (they called it Troglodytes gorilla) in 1847 from specimens obtained in Liberia.[7] The name was derived from Ancient Greek Γόριλλαι (gorillai) 'tribe of hairy women',[8] described by Hanno.
TIL that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are able to fly across the Golf of Mexico, a distance of 500 miles, in one 20-hour non-stop flight. This requires more calories than the bird's weight, so they prepare by doubling their fat mass. They expend the entire caloric reserve during the flight.
TIL Buddy Holly asked his wife out on their first meeting and proposed to her on the second. His manager disapproved of the relationship saying it would upset his female fans, so during his tours she was presented as his secretary.
TIL researchers successfully killed MRSA (the antibiotic resistant superbug) with a blue laser and peroxide. They found a blue light can "bleach" the protective layer of the MRSA membrane which then makes it more vulnerable. This weakened it enough for hydrogen peroxide to finish the job.
Ok. So you just need to expose all your body tissue with blue laser and peroxide when getting the super bug. Seem a little impractical..
TIL the world record for longest stare (40 minutes, 59 seconds) was set in 2011 at an Australian staring competition. At 17 minutes, the crowd became angry. At 30 minutes, contestants said they were bored.
TIL that although they failed to find missing pilot Steve Fossett for years, in the days following his disappearance, they DID find EIGHT other previously unidentified crash sites
TIL Jerry Seinfeld is banned from the New York soup stall that he used for the basis of The Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld. Weeks after the episode aired, Seinfeld went in for lunch, and chef Al Yeganeh asked him to leave, unhappy with the moniker the show had given him.
TIL "larger crocodiles can go for over a year without eating a meal. In extreme situations, crocodiles appear to be able to shut down and live off their own tissue for a long period of time."
TIL after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which killed 200.000 people, UN peacekeepers from Nepal were sent to the country. Sadly, the peacekeepers brought cholera with them leading to a massive outbreak which infected 800.000 people, and killing at least 9000.
In October 2010, cholera appeared in Haiti for the first time in nearly a century. The Secretary-General of the United Nations formed an Independent Panel to "investigate and seek to determine the source of the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti". To fulfill this mandate, the Panel conducted concurrent epidemiological, water and sanitation, and molecular analysis investigations. Our May 2011 findings indicated that the 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak was caused by bacteria introduced into Haiti as a result of human activity; more specifically by the contamination of the Meye Tributary System of the Artibonite River with a pathogenic strain of the current South Asian type Vibrio cholerae. Recommendations were presented to assist in preventing the future introduction and spread of cholera in Haiti and worldwide. It was never proven it was from the un peace keepers
TIL about the proposed Titles of Nobility Amendment to the US Constitution, which has been pending for 210 years. The Amendment would strip US citizenship from any citizen who accepts a title of nobility from a foreign country.
Given how time consuming and expensive giving up your American citizenship can be if that ever passes there are going to be smaller nations that will make a killing selling titles to people who want to no longer be American.
TIL that gut fermentation syndrome (called auto-brewery syndrome) is a rare disorder in which intestines produce ethanol from carbohydrates. If you have this disease, you're drunk all the time.
Oh. I thought the man in the picture was dead from falling down the stairs. Whew.
TIL about a chess tournament in which a grandmaster by the name of Jan-Krzysztof Duda lost every single game he played against his opponents, until the very last one: a win against Magnus Carlsen, the current world chess champion, ending Magnus' 2-year, 125-game winning streak.
Molière's legendary death: collapsing on stage while performing in the last play he had written, insisting on completing his performance, collapsing again, died hours afterwards.
TIL there was a caste in medieval France and Spain who had to use separate entrances to churches and were fed communion at the end of the spoon because they were thought to be contagious. We're still unsure why they were persecuted, because they were not ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities.
TIL in 1991, a man broke into the Florida State Capitol & blockaded himself inside. His demands included pizza, beer, cigarettes, chinese food, weed, 666 donuts (for the cops) and phone calls w/ Ice Cube, Timothy Leary, & Lemmy from Motörhead. No demand was met, but the standoff ended peacefully
TIL Ariel Castro, the kidnapper who locked up and abused 3 missing girls including Amanda Berry for 10 years, committed suicide one month into his 1,000 year prison sentence.
I remember watching a documentary about this a long tome ago. Amanda Berry had the chance to escape the house because her six year old daughter had told her when he left. Amanda's mother died before she was found, and the other two girls had been gone 10+ years if I remember correctly. It was horrible.
TIL that Stan Lee, the co-creator of comic book characters including Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Daredevil and the X-Men which have populated a film series that has grossed more than $11bn worldwide, was a victim of elder abuse by his business manager Keya Morgan.
TIL In the film Gladiator (2000), Emperor Commodus was killed by Maximus in the Colosseum. In reality, Commodus was strangled to death in the bath by the wrestler Narcissus. In the film, Marcus Marcus Aurelius was murdered by Commodus. In reality he died from the Antonine Plague.
TIL There is no actual difference between frogs and toads, with the popular comparison being used only informally with no taxonomic or evolutionary history. All toads are frogs and toads are just species or families of bumpy frogs.
TIL that within 24 hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan successfully invaded the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), much of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Guam, and other strategic areas all over the western Pacific.
They also landed in Thailand and invaded British Malaya (now Malaysia). This invasion started more than 1 hour before the Pearl Harbor attack.
TIL that although the Mormon Church has banned hot coffee, they do actually allow caffeinated soda. Medical marijuana is also acceptable if its used as prescribed by a doctor.
It's the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not the Mormon Church. https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/eng/style-guide
TIL when you see CNN playing in airport terminals you're actually watching a special version of the channel CNN produces just for airports.
TIL the original job of the Senate Sergeant at Arms was not to protect the senators, but rather to make sure that the senators could not leave the chamber while business was being conducted.
TIL that In the film Psycho (1960), an actress was flushing a toilet, with its contents (torn-up note paper) fully visible the first time. It was a concern, since no flushing toilet had appeared in mainstream film and television in the United States at that time.
TIL about Alex Zanardi who in 2001 crashed his racing car which ripped off his legs. Two years later he had recovered enough to complete his remaining 13 laps with the help of prosthetics and hand controls. Zanardi overcame his injuries and resumed full time racing again in 2004.
What is even more interesting is that Alex Zanardi had a really bad accident while on his handbike in june 2020, being hitten by a truck and in a coma since then. The doctors said he was injured pretty badly, and that even if his body was functioning after the procedure the neurological damage could possibly mean he would never regain consciousness. He woke up from the coma a little while ago, with what would appear no brain damage as he knows who he is and remembers family members, and just a five days ago he spoke for the first time :D
TIL in the 1950s, the average size of a new home was 983 square feet and a household size of 3.37 people. In the 2010s, the average size of a new home was 2,392 square feet and a household size of 2.59 people.
TIL that when the Rolling Stones were forced to make another single to fulfill their contract, they recorded a vulgar song known as "C**ksucker Blues." In retaliation, their former label released an album of the band's greatest hits - despite the Stone's renunciation, it hit top 10 on UK charts
TIL that Paul McCartney's first Hofner bass used on iconic Beatles recordings was stolen from him at Twickenham Film Studios in 1969 and has never been found. This particular model was only produced for four months and is one of the most sought after instruments in rock history
TIL that the story of the Chernobyl power plant didn’t end with the tragedy of 1986. There was actually a second fire that broke out on Reactor 2 in 1991, and it wasn’t until 2000 that the last operating reactor was fully shut down.
TIL Siegfried and Roy were fired from their first gig together for bringing a live cheetah on a cruise ship.
Roy was actually a passenger on the ship and was asked on stage to assist during the act, Roy was not employed by the cruise, Eventually, Fischbacher found work performing magic on the ship TS Bremen under the stage name Delmare. While performing aboard the ship, he met Horn and asked him to assist him during a show. Roy was born Uwe Ludwig Horn, but were scouted by a cruise line based in New York and began performing together as a duo. So only partially true
TIL that Cher was the first woman to regularly display her belly button on television, becoming the first woman to do so in front of a live studio audience in 1971
Done. I am in middle school and I don’t like also how they do not teach us actually important things like how to file taxes or how to properly invest... we should team up and start an online petition
Load More Replies...
Finally some information that I could enjoy. I love learning new things. Yes, I agree that not all of these were new to me.
Done. I am in middle school and I don’t like also how they do not teach us actually important things like how to file taxes or how to properly invest... we should team up and start an online petition
Load More Replies... Finally some information that I could enjoy. I love learning new things. Yes, I agree that not all of these were new to me.
