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.
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.
From what I remembered what I learned in high school that Satanism has many different sects like Christianity. Only one of those were like what you see in the movies, the rest were a peaceful and loving religion.
Surprisingly, the 7 tenets of Satanism reflect better ethics than the moral compasses of some people I happen to know. Some trivia: The word "Satan" comes from the Arabic/Semitic word "shei-tun" which means a demon, not Satan as lord of hell, which did not exist until the 12th century or thereabouts. Before that, Christians believed only in demons, much like their Jewish counterparts. Because Satan is a Christian concept, that makes me wonder what other religions say about Satan vs demons. Sufis believe Satan is an instrument of God's wrath. This parallels with Jewish texts, where the devil appears as either an adversary or the embodiment of evil, but not necessarily as Lord of Hell. For example, in the story of Balaam, God places an angel in Balaam's path to act as his adversary. Only twice does HaSatan "the Satan" appear in the Torah, but even then the term is often interpreted as The Adversary.
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The seven fundamental tenets of the Satanic Temple - I : One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason. II : The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. III : One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. IV : The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own. V : Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs. VI : People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused. VII : Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
I'm a member of the English chapter of The Satanic Temple. If anybody's curious, you should have a read of our seven fundamental tenets. You may be pleasantly surprised. Also, we are not to be mixed up with Anton LaVey's Church of Satan. They strongly oppose our campaigns and activities which, considering how much we strive to help people, are not what we want to be associated with. If anybody does have any questions, please feel free to ask me and I'll answer as best as I can, or even take a peek at our website, there's a ton of information to peruse! :-) www.thesatanictemple.com
The Satanic Temple isn't actually about worshipping Satan, they don't believe in supernatural beings and use Satan merely as a symbol
Here are the facts about Satanist: They reject the blanket selflessness that Christianity advocates. They are about making sure you take care of yourself and your own interests, and you don't owe anyone anything. That being said, there is a basic respect for the needs of others, and a lot of Satanists want to see the innocent protected and the needy supported. They advocate that you leave others alone to live how they please, unless they encroach on your property/life/space, and if they don't stop when asked, you are within your Satanic rights to destroy them. They don't kill for fun, ever. They don't hurt children. They come from all walks of life. To me, they seem basically decent people doing decent things in opposition to the tenets of Christianity that they find completely meaningless.
Depends on the Satanists - for this post, you might want to read this on their website:https://thesatanictemple.com/pages/about-us
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"Education is the progressive realization of our Ignorance" Bubbles
God has given Life so He also has the right to take it.
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The Satanic Temple is a fantastic organization that works hard to maintain the separation of church and state. By exercising their rights given under the "sincerely held religious beliefs" laws, they protest anti-Constitutional laws being enacted around the world. And the placing of religious images, usually Christian, on public property. They are awesome!
Afraid of competition, Christians have demonized Satanism (pardon the pun), when in fact it is a benevolent sect. Read their literature and you'll be surprised.
No, that is all deception. Don't you know that even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
Load More Replies... I don't agree with Satanists, but you can't deny that they actually have done a lot of really good things for their communities.
I love that you didn't get mad because people have a different opinion like a lot of people-
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I remember reading an article a few years ago, about a conservative state in the USA debating whether they should open up school religious instruction to religions other than the Christian variations... which resulted in a local satanic temple campaigning for their right to hold religious instruction in schools. Apparently, the conservatives freaked and shelved the whole thing.
Christians are much much more evil. Satanists have nothing to lie about while Christians tend to lie in their own self interests.
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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
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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).
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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).
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