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.
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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.
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.
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.
Richard Norris Williams was a Titanic Survivor who spent over 6 hours waist-deep in freezing water - after rescue doctors wanted to amputate both his legs - he refused and went on to win the Wimbledon Men's Doubles in 1920.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
While only 9.7% of Americans don't wear seatbelts, 47% of those who pass away in car crashes were not wearing seatbelts.
Isn‘t wearing a seatbelt compulsory in the US? It is in Germany and I think most of Europe. The driver is responsible for everyone in his car. If anyone is not belted, then the driver has to pay s fine. It‘s around 50€
In my youth, I hit a patch of ice on the highway and skidded across 4 lanes of traffic and hit the concrete divider. I imagine that, had it not been for my seatbelt, I would have possibly went through the windshield and into the other lane of traffic. Further put my faith in seatbelts from there on out!!
I think the "only" is in respect to the 47% that die due to this idiocy.
Load More Replies...Truth -- Seat belts save lives in head-on collisions, as do air bags. Another Truth -- Seat belts and air bags are not as effective in broadside collisions. My aunt was broadsided by a drunk who failed to yield at a stop sign. In the collision, my aunt was pushed out of the driver's seat into the passenger seat. Had she been wearing a seat belt, she would have been crushed. Still, head-on collisions occur more often and at higher speeds than broadside collisions. I don't put the car in gear unless everyone in the car is buckled up.
My car has an annoying alert if there is a person not wearing a seatbelt when the engine is running. Also any luggage heavy enough to be mistaken for a person (which makes sense as you don't want heavy luggage being flung around loose in a crash either)
Load More Replies...Don’t understand how it’s not a habit for most everyone at this point.
Considering how most people are pretty sloppy drivers -- I want one of those iron cages and the big X strap belt across my chest while I'm wearing a fire suit and helmet! I still have a lot of living to do and someone else is NOT going to take my time away from ME!
Antivaxxers: 53% of people were wearing a seat belt, so seat belts are not effective.
Load More Replies...30% of Americans have said they won't get vaccinated, 99.4% of the new Covid-19 cases are in those who are not vaccinated.
I wear a seatbelt for similar reasons as to why I got the vaccine. Because I’m not a F*****g I***t.
Habit. I don't even think about it, just sit down, buckle up, turn the ignition!!
One of the most famous auto accidents in history, The death of Princess Diana. Of the 4 occupants of the car, ONLY 1 was wearing a seatbelt. The security guard that was seated in front of Diana. Even with the engine of the car basically pushed into his lap, he was the only survivor. Had all 4 occupants been wearing seatbelts, the guy that was the lone survivor very possibly could have been the worst injured, with the other 3 receiving only minor injuries. Wear your seatbelts people.
I read a lot into this sentence. First let me say this reads like a math word problem. So this tells me that either a lot of seatbelts are faulty, people are lying that they wear them, or that when people are in a frame of mind to cause them not to wear a seatbelt, they are likely to get into a wreck. One more or, non americans in US are often not wearing seatbelts.
My mother never wore it. Wanted to be able to "escape the car" in case of a fire. As a child I didn't have much luck convincing her otherwise.
As a kid in the GDR I was in a Trabant (Trabi) and there were no in the back. My father had to break hard and my head knocked to the front glass. Since then 1st thing I do is my seatbelt.
what about the 5% that wear seatbelts some of the time....
My parents installed them in our car as soon as they became readily available. Joked to their friends that it was to control the four of us so we didn't move around, which they did, but I felt unsafe in cars without them, having grown up using them. My late husband was an RN in ER, ICU and flight, and he was an evangelist for seat belts and child car seats, having spent much his work life dealing with the sad consequences of not using them.
My car has a siren if I don’t strap in and there is weight on the seat signalling someone’s on it but not strapped in.
Because they think the earth is flat and so they are strong without vaccinations and so dont need seat belts
You can get arrested in the uk for not wearing one, not sure if it’s law in the states?
What I just learned is that 53% of people who die in car crashes WERE wearing seatbelts 🤔
Its like going without underwear - you may think its ok but its risky.
Brian, do you happen to have the statistics on how many people have died not wearing underwear?... I read a great deal and have not run across them?
Load More Replies...Interestingly, when seat belts became a legal requirement in the UK, not only did the downward trend in deaths pause for 8 years, but the number of "vulnerable road user" deaths actually increased slightly. Unfortunately as we keep making cars safer for the driver, they pay less attention to the world around them. The problem with percentages is they don't show the big picture, they don't show actual numbers, and with just a "snapshot" they don't prove much of anything. How many of those deaths would have been prevented with a seatbelt and how many were so catastrophic that nothing would have helped? How many people have been saved by *not* wearing a seatbelt? I always wear one and always will, just like I always wear proper kit on my motorbike, but some people have a medical reason to not wear a seatbelt and shouldn't be made pariahs for that.
Even worse nowadays with airbags, which are EXTREMELY dangerous to anyone not wearing a seatbelt. The clue is in the name: *supplementary* restraint system. Yet people can still easily and cheaply buy those clips that you put into your seatbelt clip so your car thinks you're wearing it.
"This is 'Murica! I do what I want!". The rest of us just pay the price.
If you saw what happened to people who crashed without a seatbelt on you’d wear one.
USA … land where we sometimes take our freedoms do dangerous extremes. Wear ya damn seatbelts people.
Well, here's one: https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/seat-belts
Load More Replies...people who don't wear seatbelts are idiots so no great loss I guess?
And would have been near 100% death if not for the seat belts. Seat belts don't save you from EVERY crash
Load More Replies...It used to be a law in Florida that as the driver if anyone in your car didn't have a seat belt on you would get a ticket, I would have to yell at the "adults" in my car just to wear a freaking seat belt. Luckily the rule changed to the driver only being responsible for minors, but I still make sure everyone wears a seat belt before I drive
I hope your comment is sarcasm. We have enough of that nonsense already from anti-vaxers. Don't start it with seatbelts.
Load More Replies...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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
Same thing happened for my mom! I bought her a watch as a gift and 6 months later she was having surgery (when other treatments didn't work).
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.
The Smithsonian Museum has over 3 million 2D and 3D images that anybody can use for free for any commercial purpose.
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%.
The satanic temple offers academic scholarships to elementary through college students.
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.
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.
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'
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.
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.
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
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.
From the Yale PDF many people have linked to: "Black refugees were forced to perform the heavy labor that supported the camps and were barred from escaping by National Guard members, who oversaw their work with guns at the ready. Whereas white refugees were placed in indoor facilities, black refugees were detained in outdoor camps on the levee and systematically denied adequate food and shelter, with little promise of their homes ever being rebuilt."
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.
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.
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.
Those little firing pins in oxygen generators incorrectly marked as expired led to an explosion and deadly fire on a plane in the mid 90's. When the NTSB tried to recreate it at a NASA test facility it burned so hot it *nearly melted the measuring equipment*. (Look up ValuJet Flight 592 for the crash details).
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.
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.
RIP John O’Neill -1995, O'Neill became the first agent to recognize Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network as the single greatest terrorist threat to America. He campaigned relentlessly for increased cooperation between the CIA, the FBI, and U.S. and foreign governments, and made decisions that would change the face of counterterrorism. O'Neill won the respect of many powerful figures around the world and earned a legendary reputation as a bon vivant, an innovative leader, and a bridge builder of important alliances. But O'Neill's confident, charming public persona belied several professional disappointments and the growing strain of secretly maintaining a complex web of romantic relationships. When the FBI and the U.S. government continued to disregard his calls to connect the terror trail to bin Laden and his associates, O'Neill became even more disillusioned and ultimately resigned his post at the FBI. Just days later, John O'Neill perished helping others to safety on September 11
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
The same enzyme that makes apples and potatoes turn brown is also responsible for tanning in humans.
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.
"Unable to communicate" why didn't they just write notes to each other?
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"
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.
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.
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)
The Tour de France has a team that drives each days route and turns genitals graffitied on the road into owls and butterflies.
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.
This is a fact that I know to be true a d love. On his Dangerous album, the Michael Jackson song 'Keep It In The Closet', features a females voice singing along. In the video it has Naomi Campbell miming along. But the actual singer was Princess Stephanie of Monaco.
Also a fun fact, the entire Thriller album was tracks laid down by the bassist and guitarist from TOTO, right after they released TOTO IV
Load More Replies...On a timeline, the T-Rex is closer to an iPhone than to a stegosaurus.
Today I learned, yet again, that humans don't do much thinking. Or fact-checking. Never trust "facts" that can be summed up on a bumper sticker unless it's E=mc2 ==== my gramps
Any in particular? I looked a couple up that I found suspicious and they were legit (e.g. calendar on the sunken ship, number of roundabouts in an American town).
Load More Replies...This is a fact that I know to be true a d love. On his Dangerous album, the Michael Jackson song 'Keep It In The Closet', features a females voice singing along. In the video it has Naomi Campbell miming along. But the actual singer was Princess Stephanie of Monaco.
Also a fun fact, the entire Thriller album was tracks laid down by the bassist and guitarist from TOTO, right after they released TOTO IV
Load More Replies...On a timeline, the T-Rex is closer to an iPhone than to a stegosaurus.
Today I learned, yet again, that humans don't do much thinking. Or fact-checking. Never trust "facts" that can be summed up on a bumper sticker unless it's E=mc2 ==== my gramps
Any in particular? I looked a couple up that I found suspicious and they were legit (e.g. calendar on the sunken ship, number of roundabouts in an American town).
Load More Replies...