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38 Really Cool And Interesting Facts, As Shared By The ‘Today I Learned’ Online Community
Article created by: Mantas Kačerauskas
In this hectic world, there’s often not much time left for ourselves. And while amid all the chaos we rarely forget to feed our bodies (and if you do, you’re having a burnout!), we often fail to think of replenishing our mind.
But the good news is, it's never too late to pump that brain muscle! So in order to nourish our curious inner child hiding deep behind first-world problems, we are about to feast on some ‘Today I Learned’ bits and pieces of information from the subreddit by the same name.
From things like how a Titanic survivor who spent 6 hours waist-deep in freezing water later won the Wimbledon Men's Doubles in 1920, and a Costa Rican fisherman becoming best friends with a crocodile after he treated it from a headshot, these are things you just don’t learn in books.
And if you’re still hungry for some more trivia facts, make sure to check out our previous TIL posts here, here and here.
- Read More: 40 Really Cool And Interesting Facts, As Shared By The ‘Today I Learned’ Online Community
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
A local fisherman in Costa Rica nursed a crocodile back to health after it had been shot in the head, and released the reptile back to its home. The next day, the man discovered “Pocho” had followed him home and was sleeping on the man’s porch. For 20 years Pocho became part of the man’s family.
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#2
Norway hires shepherds from Nepal to build paths in the Norwegian mountains. They have completed over 300 projects, and their pay for one summer equals 30 years of work in Nepal.
#3
Architect Alejandro Echeverri was approached by the mayor of Medellin, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, to revitalize the city. He focused on building in the poorest areas first to bring people and infrastructure into these neighborhoods. Crime dropped substantially.
#4
Chemists have developed two plant-based plastic alternatives to the current fossil fuel made plastics. Using chemical recycling instead of mechanical recycling, 96% of the initial material can be recovered.
#5
Helen Keller was accepted to Harvard in 1900. Mark Twain introduced her to Standard Oil magnate, Henry Rogers, who paid for her education. And in 1904, she became the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor's degree.
#6
The oldest living elephant is Vatsala, living at an Elephant camp in a Tiger Reserve. At 105, she has lived for more than double the age of an average Asian Elephant. Though loosing her vision to Cataract, she has been able to navigate using her trunk and support from her herd members
#7
River Phoenix passed away right before he was to film his role as the interviewer in Interview with the Vampire. The part was recast with Christian Slater, who donated his earnings to Earth Save and Earth Trust, two of Phoenix's favorite charities.
#8
Norway discovered oil in its country 40 years ago. Knowing the oil would eventually run out, they chose to invest it in a sovereign wealth fund. It is one of the most profitable funds in the world - valued at over $1.3 trillion - enough to self sustain the county for many years.
#9
While only 9.7% of Americans don't wear seatbelts, 47% of those who pass away in car crashes were not wearing seatbelts.
#10
Thomas de Mahy, Marquis de Favras was a French aristocrat whose last words were "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes", upon reading his sentence warrant.
#11
Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived president, the longest-retired president, the first president to live forty years after their inauguration, and the first to reach the age of 95.
#12
in the original ending of the Inca-inspired animated film "The Emperor's New Groove", the titular Emperor demolishes a rainforest to create a theme park. Sting – who spent 20 years defending the rights of indigenous people – threatened to leave the project unless the ending was changed.
#13
TIL in WWII, Major Digby Tatham-Warter led a bayonet charge while wielding an umbrella and wearing a bowler hat. He later disabled a German armored car with his umbrella. When saving the chaplain from enemy fire, he said “Don’t worry about the bullets, I’ve got an umbrella”.
#14
A 59 yr. old woman's smartwatch correctly recognized a tachycardia, alerting her to seek help. She was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation and treated, reducing her chances of suffering a severe stroke. In 2017 the FDA approved the use of this technology to be used for medical purposes.
#15
Florida had brought in 2 Irula tribesmen from India to catch the invasive Burmese pythons. When 1000 hunters were able to manage catching just 106 snakes, the duo caught 27 snakes in just 4 weeks, including a 16 ft long female.
#16
The Smithsonian Museum has over 3 million 2D and 3D images that anybody can use for free for any commercial purpose.
#17
The city of Carmel, IN has the most roundabouts per city in the US, with a total of 138. Since regular intersections were replaced with roundabouts, the number of accidents here has reduced by 40%.
#19
When the USS West Virginia battleship was finally salvaged 6 months after the attack on Pearl Harbour, a calendar was found in an air tight room where 3 trapped sailors had marked off 16 days until they passed away.
#20
For the film Stargate, Kurt Russell was paid twice his going rate because he was the only actor at the time to have "zero unlikability" in a global poll.
#21
In 1930, Chandra, an Indian student showed mathematically that massive stars explode into a supernova and then collapse down into neutron stars, or black holes. Before that Scientists assumed that all stars collapsed into white dwarfs. Chandra's theory was ridiculed as 'absurd'
#22
In 1996, a Hong Kong ganster "Big spender" kidnapped the son of the richest man in Asia and demanded a ransom of $160 million for his return. After receiving the money, the gangster later phoned up and asked for advice on how to invest the money.
#23
In 1966, Bill Cosby tried to get 16 year old folk singer Janis Ian blacklisted from tv because he thought she was a lesbian and therefore unsuited for family entertainment.
#24
The Seiryu Miharashi station in Japan is a train station with no entrances or exits, no roads or paths to connect it, all it serves is a platform for the train passengers to step out and admire the valley
#25
In 1927, during the worst flood in the history of the Mississippi River Valley, Herbert Hoover and the Red Cross set up "concentration camps" comprised of African Americans forced to work at gunpoint on the levee, and created a media campaign to cover it up.
#26
In east Africa, movies are often watched with a "VJ" or "video joker" who provides live narration over the movie for translation, contextualization or comedy purposes.
#27
Introduction of iodized salt in 1920s increased national IQ average by 3.5 points in a decade and in certain states which had high levels of iodine deficiency previously, saw avg IQ increase as much as 15 points within the first decade.
#28
Masks on airplanes generate oxygen by triggering a chemical reaction. If pressure in the cabin is disturbed and masks drop, tugging the mask causes a firing pin to ignite a small explosion in an ‘O2 candle’ where Sodium Chlorate and Potassium Percholorate combine to make Oxygen gas.
#29
That there were only 66 years between the first ever powered flight and the moon landing. The Wright Brothers successfully flew a plane for the first time in 1903; in 1969 Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon.
#30
In 1995 a policy known as “the Wall" was created. It discouraged info sharing between the CIA and FBI, playing a critical role in the inability to stop 9/11. It got so bad agents played a CD with Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" into the phone as they were told their access was denied.
#31
A British man was surprised at being urgently contacted by the NHS about his health, when they calculated his BMI as being 28,000. They'd written his 6'2" height as being 6.2cm tall
#32
The same enzyme that makes apples and potatoes turn brown is also responsible for tanning in humans.
#33
Arthur Tudor, the older brother of Henry VIII, exchanged letters with his fiancée, Catherine of Aragon, in Latin. When they met in person they were unable to communicate however, as they had mastered different pronunciations of the language.
#34
Bronze medal Olympian, UFC champion and WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey used to be a moderator on a Pokemon forum, in her bio it said "I also spend a lot of time doing judo... right now I'm ranked #1 under 20, if you don't believe me look it up"
#35
There was an infamous game of roulette played in Monte-Carlo on August 18, 1913, where the ball fell on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost millions expecting it to land on red along the way, making "the gambler's fallacy" famous.
#36
In 2018, a woman accidentally paid a Swiss cafe $7709 for coffee because she entered her PIN number as the dollar amount. When she called to get the money back, nobody answered because the cafe had filed for bankruptcy.
#37
There is a breed of horse called the Yakutian that is native to Siberia. Bulkier than other horse breeds, it has a extremely long hair for its coat and can withstand temperatures as low a -70C (-94F)
#38
Thomas Linley was called "The English Mozart". Mozart called him "a true genius" and said "he would have been one of the greatest", but he drowned in a lake at age 22 and most of compositions were lost or burned in a fire.
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