80 Surprising Facts That Show How Little We Actually Know About The World (New Facts)
There’s an endless amount of curious and fascinating knowledge out there in the world, and discovering it is part of what makes life exciting. Sadly, we can’t learn it all, even if we devoted years and years to the task. What we can do, however, is take it in bite-sized pieces—something that’s both manageable and genuinely enjoyable.
A perfect place for that is the Today I Learned community on Reddit. There, as the name suggests, people share unexpected and memorable facts they’ve come across. Below, you’ll find a fresh collection of the most intriguing ones.
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TIL after singer George Michael passed it was revealed he had anonymously donated generous amounts of money to multiple charities large and small, and to needy individuals, and would secretly volunteer at a homeless shelters
This is the way you do it. No bells and whistles or fanfares. Just quietly being a good person.
There was a George Michael programme last night on the BBC. He met a woman on a game show. She missed out on the money prize which she wanted for IVF treatment. George quietly paid. Woman had a girl. People only found out after he'd passed and the family asked permission to say what he'd done for them.
Load More Replies...That's sweet. Do you think Elon might ever . . . Oh, sorry, wrong universe.
So I watch the show "Loot" that stars Maya Rudolph as a billionaire who has her own foundation and uses her wealth to help people (it's funny and dear - recommend). Melinda Gates had a very brief cameo in the latest episode. SHE is how billionaires should be.
Load More Replies...His tortured soul roams the earth from November first to December 31. I amuse myself by counting how many times I hear Last Christmas. There seems to be an unwritten law of the multiverse that says you are not a real musician unless you have covered this song
It's a shame he got a bad rep due to his s*x and d**g related antics during his life.
It really is. I allways liked him and can not understand how it is anybodies business who he is having s*x with and where as long as both are consent. As far as i know he did not m****t people, did not affect other people with taking some d***s, still the press made him look like he was the worst pervert who ever walked and nobody cared about all the good things he did. I think the man was just not very lucky in life ☹️
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TIL David Bowie declined the honor to be knighted twice: “I seriously don’t know what it’s for. It’s not what I spent my life working for.”
Many of prominent people have declined knighthoods (and damehoods). One explained "Being a knight will only mean my tailor charges me more."
It's a load of bollox is what it is. How else would David Attenborough be only a sir when Dickie was a lord
It just means he was offered a Knighthood twice and turned it down both times. A Knighthood/Damehood is the highest ranking Order of the British Empire level. Although, it is technically possible to be Knighted more than once as David Attenborough has been. He was awarded the Knight Grand Cross on top of his already existing Knighthood. Honours are announced twice a year- on New Year's Eve and the King's offical birthday in June (just to confuse matters, the King's actul birthday is in November and his mother's was in April but since George II, a monarch's birthday is celebrated in June to avoid the bitter UK winter weather). It's not just famous people who are given honours. They are awarded to anyone who has made a significant contribution in their field so teachers, nurses, charity workers etc.
Load More Replies...Today I learned that in the 2000's, the people in charge of Sesame Street's budget wanted the show to have 25 episodes per season, but the show's staff insisted upon doing 26 episodes per season so that each letter of the alphabet would be the letter of the day for one episode.
Never took off in the UK, did Sesame Street. Four times they tried. The Muppets however, a massive success.
TIL The Netherlands has been closing prisons due to a significantly low prison population, which is a result of decreasing crime rates, shorter sentences, and a focus on rehabilitation. Around 19 prisons have been shut down since 2009.
Why cannot other countries follow what the Netherlands are doing? It's obviously working?
It certainly won't happen wherever prisons are privatized
Load More Replies...They closed too many, to save costs. And now the need for prisons has gone up again, and now there's a shortage. The Dutch government isn't very good at looking further ahead than 4 years. Same thing with Covid. "The amount of people who need hospital care is going down, we're gonna disassemble everything." Few months later: "Oh no, there's a new wave (like everyone predicted), now we have to deny people hospital care because it takes time to assemble everything again."
True. We still have happy children and low crime rates, but things like housing and infrastructure are suffering from a lack of planning ahead.
Load More Replies...Tbf the American mind cannot comprehend anything that isn’t for profit
Load More Replies...Well, I hope the US doesn't do something this reckless or we'll lose our place as #1 in the world - for incarceration. /s
Got $5300? That's what it takes. Look up DAFT (treaty) on Wikipedia.
Load More Replies...Only place in the world where you find freedom plastered all over everyone's g*****n t-shirt. And we jail more people than anyone. Blindly "back the blue" but "don't tread on me". Also deifying the military. Okaaaay. Hey MAGAt, when that government you hate and distrust so much does come for you. Who do you think they're gonna send? Conservative hypocrisy #6489.
TIL when Monty Python's Life of Brian was released in 1979, its religious satire subject matter was highly controversial. It was banned by 11 local councils in the UK, nationwide in Norway and Ireland. The film was marketed in Sweden with the tag line "So funny it was banned in Norway."
The Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood (who represented the Church of England), and Roman Catholic journalist Malcolm Muggeridge missed the first 10-15 minutes of the film when they viewed it privately before their famous 1979 debate with John Cleese and Michael Palin on the BBC show Friday Night, Saturday Morning. The opening minutes of the film are crucial because they clearly establish that Brian Cohen, the main character, is a separate individual born next door to Jesus, and not Jesus Christ himself. This distinction was the central point of the Pythons' defense against accusations of blasphemy. Yet The Meaning of Life (not critcised or targeted the same way at all) was far more "heretical" and explicitly targeted the core tenets of religion and the Church, while Life of Brian primarily satirised blind devotion, hypocrisy, and human behaviour within organised groups. So much for the religious bods!
That Bishop was wearing a foot long crucifix during that interview like he was Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Load More Replies...Went to see this with my mother at the movie theatre when it came out and we came very close to dying during the "Biggus Dickus" scene.
In high school drama class we had to bring in a video clip from a movie that we thought was moving. One guy brought that scene. 😂
Load More Replies...We must fight them! -The People's Front of Judea? - No, the Romans!
Load More Replies...Very popular amongst Canadian university students in the 90s... *stoning scene*
Not the Nine o'Clock News (the 1980s sketch show with various comedians including Rowan Atkinson) did a take-off of the whole Life of Brian Thing. "The film is not about Python. The Xst figure just happens to have been born in the same place as John Cleese..." - "Come on, even the initials, JC!" - "No, no, the Xst figure is not Cleese! Have we forgotten how often he suffered for us? How often the sketches failed? As you know, when two or three Python fans are gathered together they shall perform the parrot sketch." - "It is an ex-parrot." - (All) "It has ceased to be." (Look it up; it is hilarious.)
The woman washing dishes."plop...waaaaaah!...pick that (newborn baby) up will you?"
TIL that a restaurant owner in Kentucky intentionally flooded his own restaurant with clean water to protect it from an incoming river flood.
jocax188723:
It’s like a positive pressure clean room.
Any water will be pushed out by the clean stuff and the mucky water has no way in.
All he has to worry about is water damage. No debris, no mud.
Really clever.
I mean, it's not like they could count on their congressional reps and senators to help them.
There was text from the article in the Reddit link and it said they are in a flood plain near the Ohio River so they can't get insurance so this was a better idea. It's a brick building so it helped make it possible.
TIL Daniel Schorr, the journalist who read Nixon's infamous enemies list on TV live, discovered his own name was in the list while reading it.
It was a badge of pride, of course. But people on the list were often subject to punitive tax audits and other forms of harassment.
It's a good thing that US presidents no longer have enemies lists. Well, YOU know . . . .
Trump prefers to show his enemies list rather than his friends list...
Load More Replies...TIL about Kotaku Wamura, who served as the mayor of the village of Fudai, Iwate between 1947 and 1987. During his tenure, he spent ¥3.56 billion on building a floodgate, which was derided as being a waste of funds. When the 2011 tsunami hit, the gate saved the village from the destruction.
TIL that when President McKinley was [hit] in 1901, the best surgeon around was knee-deep in a complex operation. When told he was needed elsewhere, he replied that he could not leave, not even for the President. Even after he was told who his new patient was, he remained put and finished his work.
"McKinley he hollered, McKinley he squalled. The doctor told McKinley, 'son, I cannot find that ball. You're bound to die, you're bound to die.'"
TIL that the Nuremberg Charter's definition of "crimes against humanity", which was used in the Nuremberg Trials, includes only acts committed during a war of aggression. This was partly because the US was concerned that Jim Crow segregation would otherwise be considered a crime against humanity.
As it was, of course. And the treatment of First Nations people around the world
Which is why I've gotten in trouble with those who demand reparations "You DO realize it is a long line, right? At the front are the Seminole, the Souix, the Chippewa...
Load More Replies...Today's GOP essentially renounced Nuremberg by denouncing Democrats who reminded members of the military that they had a duty to disobey an illegal order.
TIL in 2014 an Indian news anchor was fired after refering xi jinping as "eleven" jinping on tv
😂This is funnier to me because we are watching King Kong v Godzilla and she's in it so she was my first thought!
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TIL that a dude in England stumbled on a buried Roman treasure worth $6,000,000 out metal-detectoring for a lost hammer.
Fine. Take my upvote. But consider it your Christmas present.
Load More Replies...Actually, yes. When the team of archaeologists from the Suffolk Archaeological Unit came to carry out an emergency excavation of the site, they eventually found the missing hammer and donated it to the British Museum along with the treasure itself, known as the Hoxne Hoard.
Load More Replies...the man who found the Roman treasure while looking for a hammer, Eric Lawes, was paid a substantial reward of £1.75 million, which he split with the farmer, Peter Whatling, under UK Treasure Act laws, and he eventually found the hammer too, which is now displayed with the hoard at the British Museum.
TIL that an AI company which raised $450M in investments from Microsoft and SoftBank, and was valued at $1.5B, turned out to be 700 Indians just manually coding with no AI whatsoever.
SistaChans: AI - actual indians
SixEightPee: Anonymous Indians.
JonatasA: All Indian.
No! We cannot have people taking jobs away from AI. How will AI be able to pay its bills and feed its family?
TIL scientists have been able to trace the start of HIV/AIDS to King Leopold’s Belgian Congo, originating as far back as 1909. The first person to be infected probably got the virus in the 1920s.
The first human HIV infection likely came from chimpanzees in West Africa, transferring through hunters' exposure to infected blood while butchering the animals (the "bushmeat theory"), possibly around 1908, with the virus spreading globally from central Africa (Kinshasa) by the 1920s, though pinpointing the single first carrier is impossible as it was a natural zoonotic leap, not a single event, and early cases went unrecognized until the 1980s.
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TIL that in 2016, a monkey fell onto an electrical transformer, shorting it and causing the entire country of Kenya to have no electricity for 4 hours. The monkey survived.
The ENTIRE country? I doubt that. It is a big country, there will be several power plants and the like?
Kenya’s grid at the time was heavily centralized, with major reliance on a few large hydroelectric plants. This monkey accident took place at the Gitaru power station an when it went offline, the loss of such a significant portion of generation capacity cascaded through the system, leaving the entire country without electricity. Link in comment.
Load More Replies...TIL at a 1991 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Andrew Lyne retracted groundbreaking results that he had recently released, which detected the first planet orbiting another star. He received "thunderous applause" from his peers for his integrity & the courage to admit his error publicly.
Did they ever take back what they did to Pluto? I know the science involved, but I still think Pluto should have been grandplaneted in.
Ceres lost planet status long before but no-one cares. its all Pluto, Pluto, Pluto.
Load More Replies...The date is wrong. The Claim (July 1991): Lyne and his team detected tiny timing variations in radio pulses from the pulsar PSR B1829-10, interpreting them as the gravitational tug of a planet. The Error (January 1992): Lyne realized he'd failed to account for the Earth's elliptical orbit around the Sun, a correction that, when applied, made the planetary signals disappear. The Retraction: At a January 1992 AAS meeting, Lyne publicly admitted the mistake, earning widespread respect for his integrity.
Thank you. That is pretty cool he figured it out and then shared the error. I mean that is how science works, the best theory that works until it gets disproved/updated.
Load More Replies...TIL about the “Maze Procedure,” in which heart surgeons literally scarify a maze into heart tissue so abnormal rhythms get trapped while normal ones can pass through. The procedure has an 80%-90% success rate in curing atrial fibrillation.
TIL Oscar voters now must watch every nominated film in a category before casting a vote, no more voting based on buzz or hype.
The Oscars have never been about talent and are awarded based on who did the best campaign and sucked up to the Academy the best. Shakespeare in Love, anyone?
Just because it's a rule doesn't mean they have to follow it though. Do they get quizzed on the movie before the vote? What's to stop them from just playing the movie while napping? And honestly if they were voting based on buzz or hype before, probably means they are the type of people to be influenced by buzz or hype anyways so their votes would be biased.
TIL Philip Pullman was accused of being "the most dangerous author in Britain" because he said "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief" and wrote the "His Dark Materials" books as a rebuttal to the heavy christian message of "The Chronicles of Narnia".
Funny, despite my RC upbringing and having read the Chronicles in childhood, I never made the connection until I was an adult and learned more about C.S. Lewis.
I was the same but it was probably because non religion was the thing in our family. I just enjoyed them for the stories. I was late teens when it was pointed out to me!! I still have them on my book shelf.
Load More Replies...I have always loved the Narnia books and never made the so-called Christian message until a few years ago (I'm 45) Hated His Dark Materials.
His little-known novel, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, is an excellent take on the Jesus story. Pullman has Jesus and Christ as identical twins separated at birth, with Jesus going around doing his goody-goody schtick and Christ following him around messing it all up again. Well worth a read.
TIL 75% of the world's tornados happen in the United States, approximately 1,200 annually.
They're generally not dangerous unless you're wearing red shoes.
Technically silver if you've read the book. MGM just wanted to showoff their new use of Technicolor.
Load More Replies...Rather minor, compared to other destructive forces loose in my country.
Load More Replies...I live in the US in an area that is not known for having tornadoes and yet, at least 4 have caused damage very close to where I live. They are very dangerous and can be huge or small.
Let's see; tornados and floods in the middle; earthquakes, mud slides, fires in the west; and hurricanes, flooding, and minor earthquakes in the east. You can't go south (hurricanes,flooding, fires) or north (10' of snow).
Can you name a place anywhere in the world with no natural disasters?
Load More Replies...TIL of Nandy, a disabled Neanderthal skeleton found in Iraq who suffered blindness, major hearing loss, a missing arm, and other serious healed injuries that likely left him unable to care for himself. Despite this he lived into his 40s, suggesting he was supported and cared for by his community.
There was enough to tell that he was blind from head trauma and was profoundly deaf due to blocked ear canals 🤷
Load More Replies...Even the Neanderthals chipped in to care for their unwell community members!
He grunted it to anyone that would listen.
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TIL a 10-pound mini dachshund named Valerie survived alone for 529 days in the Australian bush after she ran away during a camping trip to Kangaroo Island (a remote island in southern Australia). She was eventually spotted and captured (after 2 months of trying) before being returned to her owners.
Never underestimate dachshunds. They're not as daft as they look plus they are very stubborn and surprisingly good hunters. Souce? I own dachshunds.
She actually gained weight while out there and was pretty healthy
Load More Replies...I'm surpised that one of the 20 billion dangerous creatures living in Australia didn't get her.
Obviously, she was meaner, badder and more dangerous
Load More Replies...Or the Australian bush is heaven on earth for a little dachshund.
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TIL in 2013 a 9-yr-old boy got past 4 security check points at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport "without so much as a wink of suspicion" before boarding a flight to Las Vegas to go see an online friend. He didn't have an ID or a boarding pass & was alone with no parent or guardian with him
Everyone assumed he was with whichever adult was closest to him at the time.
The only reason is that he wasn't carrying more than 3.4oz of fluids, otherwise he would've been busted.
Its backside would have been black and blue when it got home if it were mine.
TIL coffee was first introduced to India in the 17th century by a Muslim saint who, while returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, smuggled seven coffee beans by hiding them in his beard.
TIL the phrase “well behaved women seldom make history” was coined by a historian who argued we should study the lives of normal people more.
It's more like “well behaved women often make history but seldom receive the credit”.
From what I’ve seen of history, I wouldn’t want most of it blamed on me
TIL since 2023 there are more births in the US among women 40 and older than there are to teenage girls.
A Reddit commenter broke it down: Over 40s have 4.1% of the children and teenagers 4.0%. This down from almost 13% in 1990.
I'm nearly 40 and couldn't think of anything worse. No way am I still looking after children and teenagers into my 50s and 60s.
My fertility doctor told me the other day that in Australia, 30% of births are to women 30+, 10% of those are 40+
TIL that the designer of the first shopping malls had envisioned them as mixed-use facilities with libraries, apartments, green spaces, post offices and medical services being placed alongside commercial stores.
That probably would have extended the longevity of many malls that now lie vacant and delapitated...
And as it turns out, that is still the most commercially viable option if you want to exploit one. And it definitely needs a supermarket.
My old local, the largest shopping centre in the southern hemisphere, does have apartments, a hotel, offices, a gym and childcare centre in it. Most shopping centres in Australia will have a post office included, and many have other mixed services.
When I lived in Vancouver WA, the closest public library branch was in the mall. It was FANTASTIC.
My dream, if it is decided to tear down our 100 yr old middle school, is to refurbish it for community housing instead.
TIL that during the filming of The Devil Wears Prada, most fashion industry designers and executives declined appearing as themselves in cameo roles due to fears of upsetting Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who is widely believed to have been the inspiration for the character Miranda Priestly.
TIL of the Great Stink of 1858 London, caused by a combination of hot weather and untreated human waste, which led to the construction of a new sewer system that is still in use today.
The London sewer system was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette. His great-great-grandson, Sir Peter Bazalgette, was the man whose TV production company, Endemol, produced the reality TV show, Big Brother. So, Sir Joseph worked to pump the shít out of society only for his descendent to pump it back in.
And the designer planned the sewers twice as big as they needed to be back then to make them future proof
But no one spent any more money extending them as London expanded, and they are now struggling to keep pace with demand.
Load More Replies...IIRC, it was ignored until the smell began to annoy the House of Commons. Can't have those privileged noses wrinkled now can we :p
TIL when Galileo discovered Saturn’s rings, he sent letters to his fellow Astronomers announcing this, but in code. One of the people who got this letter was Johannes Kepler, who misinterpreted it as saying there were two moons of Mars. The two moons of Mars would not be discovered until 1877.
Phobos and Deimos. They say that Phobos, the larger moon is being pulled towards its planet and in a few million years will eventually cross the Röche limit and form a ring around the planet. Coincidentally Saturn will have lost a lot of its ring material by then
TIL Mithridatism is the practice of protecting oneself against a poison by gradually self-administering non-lethal amounts. The word is derived from Mithridates VI, the king of Pontus, who so feared being poisoned that he regularly ingested small doses, aiming to develop immunity.
odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadly poisons known to man
Load More Replies...Wasn't Mithridites stabbed to death of similar? Hard to develop an immunity to violent death.
shoulda had his pals stab him wi tiny knives for a while to build up immunity,
Load More Replies...TIL that between 1697 and 1698, Tsar Peter the Great of Russia travelled incognito to Western Europe under the alias "Peter Mikhailov" to gain knowledge of their advances in learning. At 6'8" he was likely the tallest man in Europe, and so his disguise was almost certainly laughably ineffective.
As a Dutchie, I had to look this one up. The Dutch Republic had earlier produced Trijntje Keever (1616–1633), the tallest woman in recorded history at 2.60 m (8 ft 6.75 in). But she died decades before Peter’s arrival. Apparently the average Dutch person at the time was only about 5'6".
TIL that a 2,000-year-old Chinese woman, Lady Dai (Xin Zhui), was found so well-preserved that her skin was still soft and her blood type could be determined.
TIL that the United States government still sends $4,500 worth of cloth to the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy every year, and has done so every November 11th for the past 230+ years in recognition of a still-standing treaty with them.
I highly doubt the current administration has kept it. If they did the “error” will be corrected in the next three years. Back to violating 100% of the treaties with Native Americans. Ugh.
Load More Replies...TIL that while tonka beans are prized for their flavor, it's banned in the US since 1954. The beans have the taste of vanilla, licorice, caramel, and cloves. Restaurants in the US that have the ingredient have been subject to raids and chefs relied on smugglers for the beans.
Large doses can cause liver damage, but are always used in very small amounts. But alcohol us legal...
Furthermore: "Many experts believe the ban was an overreaction, as it would take about 30 beans to cause harm, and coumarin exists in many other legal foods like cinnamon and strawberries. "
Load More Replies...Yeah, and 2-3 teaspoons of nutmeg is toxic, but it's still legal. You'd be surprised at the number of toxic foods we consume everyday.
Interesting. I've just read that they contain coumarin, which can be toxic. It's also commonly used as a fragrance.
TIL of a man who found $7.5 million in a "Storage Wars" unit he bought for $500. He had to negotiate with the original owners, who paid him $1.2 million to return their money.
I'd have wanted 1.2million plus the initial £500 I paid. Petty, I know.
1. I am sure the police would be very intersted to know the source of that money and why it was kept in a storage locker. 2. If I had (for some strange reason) millions of dollars sitting in a storage locker, I would be durn sure to pay the rental fees promptly and regularly. 3. The police would be interested yet again to find out why #2 didn't happen.
I just would have kept the whole thing...if they had 7.5 million, you'd think they could've paid their storage fee !
Would you REALLY wanna risk angering someone with that much money hidden?
Load More Replies...I call BS on this one. A friend of a sister's mom told me type of thing told by the Storage Wars guy. Sounds good for business. Link to article below so you can judge for yourself and see if you can find more info.
Apparently it was told by a guy who owns an auction company that sells abandoned lockers and he heard from someone who heard it from someone... Cheesy advertising methinks.
Why return any of it at all???? There was another episode where two young stupid white rednecks unboxed their storage unit and found lots and lots of crystal... if they hadnt recorded their findings, theyd havd been liable. The called the cops and surrendered the stuff. Nothing else in the unit but junk, probably to hide the stash
TIL that the kangaroo rat can survive its entire life without drinking any water.
This is better stated as kangaroo rats don’t drink water but get it from the food they eat.
I mean, anyone can go their entire life without water, they just won't live very long...
This is not phrased very well. The fat could die from dehydration, it could have lived its entire life without drinking water.
TIL In 1653, Dutch sailor Hendrick Hamel and 35 crewmates shipwrecked off the coast of Joseon (modern-day Korea). Due to Joseon's isolationist policy, they were not permitted to leave. After 13 years, Hamel and 7 others escaped by boat to Japan. He then wrote the first Western account of Korea.
TIL that the non-profit that runs Wreaths Across America is owned by the same family that runs the Worcester Wreath Company, the for-profit supplier for Wreaths Across America, and the family’s non-profit use their donations to purchase wreaths from the family’s for-profit business.
This is actually a very common tax dodge amongst America's rich. Step 1: create a chartable foundation in your name. 2. Hire much of your family and friends.2. Make sure that many of the salaries are classified as 'exempt' business expenses that further reduce tax load. 3. Include many other perks as salary compensation or gifts-in-kind that can be counted as part of charitable giving. (These can include rent free apartments, personal loans for living expenses, free access to corporate jets, etc.). 4. Charitable 'events' then use the rich persons' other assets and are billed a pretty penny for it or issuing inflated 'donation' receipts to count against business taxes. (e.g. Trump Foundation holding events at Mar-a-lago or Trump Towers). Honestly, most famous people foundations are utter scams and the laws need to be improved to make sure that they have conflict-of-interest free relationships and are doing actual charity work, not tax workarounds.
Disgusting and not uncommon. You can catch this by looking at the non-profit's IRS Form 990. I ran across non-profit A which was owned by for-profit B. 60% of non-profit A's income was paid to for-profit B - for "consulting and management services". A and B refuse to be more specific.
Figures... the almighty dollar that many Americans are add1ct3d to and keeps them aimlessly chasing the nebulous American Dream.
TIL that in 2013, NBA player Brian Scalabrine, who only averaged 3 points per game in his entire career, challenged 4 volunteers who criticized him over his bench role and claimed that they would beat him 1-on-1 in an organized event. Scalabrine won every game with a combined score of 44–6
Defense and moving the ball are part of winning, just as much as making the actual points. Bad players forget this.
It's not like he grabbed the bench with both arms and refused to go into the game.
TIL that Jackson Pollock abandoned titles and started numbering his works. His wife, Lee Krasner, said, "He used to give his pictures conventional titles, but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is, pure painting."
Thats the point of abstraction. The entire 20th century was about rebelling against what you and Bougereau as leader of the French school of Belle Arts think art is. NOW, we're over it, returned to classical art, ateliers have popped up all over the world. Photography ended realism, AI brought it back. Lots of people say "My kid could do that" but somebody else did it. Like Pterry and Discworld, anyone could have done it, but he did
Load More Replies...What a load of Pollocks. One might say it they were to see a gallery of his work.
Relatives of mine have a painting of his hanging on the wall of their two-story stairwell. Decades ago, I dubbed it "Vomit After Eating Paella."
TIL that the CEOs of Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Adobe and Cobra Beer all attended the same public school in Hyderabad.
Public as in 'open to anyone with skills, money and connections'.
I wonder if they all go to the Annual Bilderberg Conference? (N.b. To help recall the name, I typed 'big secret meeting in the forest' into Google and it was my top result!)
Load More Replies...TIL James Garfield is the only president of the United States to have made an original contribution to the field of mathematics. His proof of the Pythagorean theorem was published in the New England Journal of Education in 1876.
I'd have thought President Trump might have contributed? Him being a real stable genius and everything.
So a tad more intelligent than some more recent US presidents we can think of?
TIL that in Japan during the Edo period, the gonin-gumi system held groups of five households collectively responsible for each other's crimes, so people were punished for things their neighbors did.
The paranoia keeps neighbours spying upon neighbours and keeping them straight without involving police or authorities.
...or create vast group efforts to cover the crimes up.
Load More Replies...North Korea has something similar. If someone commits a political offence (which in North Korea is most things) then three generations of their family can be sent to a prison camp with them.
TIL the youngest mother in history, who gave birth at the age of 5, is still alive today at 92 years old.
Wikipedia says "Lina Marcela Medina de Jurado (born 23 September 1933) is a Peruvian woman who became the youngest confirmed mother in history when she gave birth to her son Gerardo on 14 May 1939 when she was five years, seven months, and 21 days of age. Based on the medical assessments of her pregnancy, she was four years old when she became pregnant, which was biologically possible due to precocious puberty." and "Gerardo grew up healthy, but died in 1979 at the age of 40 from bone marrow disease"
they never were able to verify who the father of the boy was. its speculated that it happened to her so young she didnt understand what was happening and couldnt answer their questions
Load More Replies...TIL that Daniel Fahrenheit (who invented the mercury thermometer) set 0°F to the coldest stable temperature he could maintain in his lab by dissolving salt in water.
TIL in 2008 Chicago sold off all of its city parking meters to private investors for 75 years, and the private investors already made their money back and turned a profit.
Of course they did... Privatisation only benefits the companies and their shareholders.
It is rather socialist of me, but 'business model' thinking does not belong in certain arenas: health care, education, policing/firefighting, and basic civic infrastructute. Those need to be run on a 'public good/civic model'. Otherwise, the people just get robbed by the rich.
Yeah. And this became Mayor Daley's "legacy". Stupidest, most myopic move.
Didn't they get $1 billion for it, which the company made back in a year? I hate street parking in Chicago. I usually look for a garage. The one I sometimes use off Hubbard and N Orleans is like $7 for the first 29 minutes and $20 after that. Although I did just discover parking in a hospital garage is a lot cheaper 😅
Load More Replies...TIL medieval alchemists associated the 7 known metals at the time (gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, iron, tin, and lead) with the 7 classical planets (the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, respectively). Because of this association, quicksilver is called "mercury" today.
TIL Anthony Olson endured 9 years of chemotherapy (2011-2020) for cancer that he eventually learned he never had. He was told that without treatment, he'd be [gone] by the end of the year. When a second biopsy came back negative, he was told to ignore it because it meant the treatment was working.
Carenza Lewis (TV archeologist) was diagnosed with breast cancer and didn't find out it was incorrect until after having a double mastectomy.
TIL The existence of planets outside our solar system wasn't confirmed until 1992.
And the best part is the fact that we discovered the first exoplanets not orbiting around stars but rather around pulsars aka fast spinning neutron stars
The existence of other galaxies wasn't confirmed until the late 1920s. We are quite new to a lot of knowledge.
To be fair, our galaxy resides in a sort of empty part of the universe. If it was in a denser pocket then we’d have discovered other galaxies centuries ago
Load More Replies...TIL China's Last Emperor worked as a Street Sweeper and Gardener in Beijing after serving 10 years in a re-education camp.
As a child, my parents were divorced and remarried to their new partners. For some reason, during a kid-exchange meet up, we all went to the movies together and this was the movie we saw. I have vivid memories of being deeply uncomfortable during the scene when the young emperor is bedding both his wives at the same time.....
Load More Replies...🎼Now in the morning I sleep alone/Sweep the streets I used to own 🎶
And Chuckles isnt much better. If Wulls wants to be King, he'd better make lasting peace in the Mid East
TIL that at the end of the Cold War the ‘Last Supper’ was held at the Pentagon. Over dinner, the heads of major defence contractors were told of coming budget cuts and the need to consolidate. The number of prime defence contractors declined from 51 to 5 in the aftermath.
TIL that Egypt banned all of Marilyn Monroe’s films after she converted to Judaism in order to marry Arthur Miller — and later unbanned them once the couple divorced.
The same thing happened to Elizabeth Taylor for converting to Judaism when she married Mike Todd. I don't know if they ever lifted the ban.
TIL: In the US, performers don't get paid when their music gets played on the radio, only songwriters. If a recording artist doesn't have a writing credit on the song, they won't get paid when it is played on the radio.
If the song is played as an instrumental, does the person who wrote the lyrics still get paid or does the melody writer get it all?
Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to the Star Trek theme by Alexander Courage and Nichelle Nichols sang them, so yes, all 3 got paid. Courage was not pleased
Load More Replies...A lot of famous singers will often only agree to record a song if they can be listed as a co-writer. They may make a couple of minor changes to a song to act as their contribution.
Elvis Presley was one of the worst offenders.
Load More Replies...Which is why, despite his personal rightward bent, Eric Clapton lists McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters), Howlin' Wolf and all the other artists he used songs from. They get a chunk as well.
TIL that Victoria Beckham's self-titled debut album cost £5 million to produce but only sold 54,000 copies in Britain.
Hard to believe she sold that many. Has David Beckham got a few thousand copies boxed up and stored in a warehouse?
It's interesting to see how fast we forget that she made her fame as a singer first. It must have been so painful for her to come out of such a huge bestseller band and to hope to have some success solo too, but for it to flop that hard. Yeah, she wasn't a good singer, but n'either was Geri, and her album was a big hit. And the millions of Spice Girls fans didn't care that half of the band couldn't sing that well, so it never mattered before.
I still remember the Out of Your Mind v Groovejet chart battle of 2000.
TIL: During the Fall of Saigon, Vietnamese pilot Major Buang-Ly escaped with his family of 5 by flying a Cessna to the USS Midway, dropping a paper note on the flight deck. Captain Chambers ordered helicopters to be pushed off the deck to make room for Buang, who landed safely.
Mimi M: yeah, but shoving helicopters off the aircraft carrier flight deck had turned into standard procedure during that event. I've seen the film footage - the crew just shoved 'em overboard. Splash, there goes another one.. Make room for the fliers who are coming in to land, and never mind the excess choppers already landed - we're not going to need them.
Load More Replies...TIL 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU)—almost pure U-235 was discovered in 1993 just sitting out in the open in Kazakhstan.
When the USSR disolved lots of mini nukes went missing.
Load More Replies...That's about 12.4 inches cubed ( a standard ruler is 12") and enough for 20–40 nuclear weapons.
TIL that in 1978, the actor who plays Darth Vader publicly spoiled the “I am your father” twist in Empire Strikes Back two years before the movie debuted.
David Prowse, that is, who you as Vader's body but not the voice or face.
Brits of a certain age know him as the Green Cross Code Man.
Load More Replies...I thought it was a retcon because why else would Lucas have Luke and Leia kissing in A New Hope.
It might be a retcon, but it still makes sense because they didn't know they were siblings at the time
Load More Replies...TIL that novelist Cormac McCarthy was very poor in his early career, despite wide critical acclaim. He and his girlfriend bathed in lakes, ate only beans, and refused offers of $2,000 ($16,700 today) to speak at universities about his work because “everything he had to say was there on the page.”
Well, he wasn't very clever then, was he? Sometimes it pays to put your principles aside and provide for your family...
And he still could have given talks at universities. Rather arrogant to refuse, IMO.
Load More Replies...So, then, who was collecting them money being made off his books? (I rather suspect that his fortunes turned around not due to royalties, but due to film rights.)
His early books didn’t sell. Thar only changed with his Border Trilogy.
Load More Replies...TIL that after the Maersk Alabama pirate hijacking in 2009, the $30,000 cash the pirates stole from the ship and stowed in the lifeboat was never found. 2 SEAL team members were investigated but no charges brought
TIL: The difference between Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 / i9 chips often comes down to how many of the tiny circuits on a wafer survive manufacturing without defects. This is called product binning.
TIL that one inch of rain falling on 1 acre of ground is equal to about 27,154 gallons and weighs about 113 tons.
TIL that there are no longer any people alive who were born in the 1800s. The final verified person from that century was Emma Morano of Italy, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 117.
Is there anyone still alive who were born in the 1700s though?
Shocking fact: the oldest person and the person been born the earliest - are one and the same!
TIL Napoleon's prowess in battle was so legendary, the Trachenberg Plan was drafted to specifically avoid facing Napoleon in battle while instead targeting his marshals and generals separately
A bloke called Arthur Wellesley wasn't so bothered by Napoleon's reputation. Turns out, Arthur was right and Boney was - while far from incompetent - somewhat over-rated as a commander. Gebhard von Blücher wasn't overawed either. 18th June 1815 - you could look it up. 😉 (Euston? Paddington? St Pancras? D****d if I can recall the station they named after that business...)
TIL Mariah Carey makes $2.7-3.3M per year from All I Want For Christmas Is You.
I can and will happily annoy the hell out of everyone one month a year for $3 million.
This is, objectively, the worst song. Not just the worst Christmas song, but the very worst song ever. When she does that warbling singing I feel the need to carry out violent crime.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het: yes, but Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody annoys me just as much. And Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" is much worse than either if you ask me.
Load More Replies...I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but this is one of the few Christmas songs that I actually like.
It's the only Christmas song I want to hear. But that has nothing to do with the Christmastime lyrics; it's just a good pop song. It would be fun to listen to even if it had other lyrics.
One reason I don't listen to mainstream commercial radio stations...
TIL that most of Costco's profits comes from membership fees and not products sales. In 2024, 65.5% of company profits comes from membership fees.
My membership saves me a fortune on road trips. Gas, restrooms and affordable food court.
I have a membership and I have made excellent returns on the small investment by fuelling up there regularly...
Our nearest 'club store' is 45 minutes away. We will not renew our membership, makes no sense. We've been 3 times in the last year.
Yup. Profits, not net income. If you know the difference, this fact barely surprises you.
TIL that the biggest benefit of drinking pickle juice is its ability to quickly stop cramping. The drink has been found to stop cramping 40% faster than drinking water, which is why its favoured by athletes.
It also contains sodium and potassium, so talk to your Dr first before consuming on a regular basis. Especially if you have high blood pressure.
Wonderful user name you have. Is there a story behind it?
Load More Replies...Save the juice, save the jar, put cut up fresh vegs into it, stick in fridge for a week or two. Yum, fresh veg pickles. PS: Can cut up salad vegs and put in as is, other types of vegs, steam lightly before putting in.
Dill pickle brine also makes a fantastic marinade for chicken.
Load More Replies...TIL that the most expensive video game ever made is Monopoly Go!, almost entirely due to its $1 billion marketing budget.
TIL most heavyweight boxers clock in with a punching power of around 1200-1700 PSI, which is 10x stronger than an average person. Mike Tyson, renowned for his "ferocious knockout power", recorded a punching PSI of 1800. (The character Ivan Drago in Rocky IV had a punching power of over 2100 PSI)
TIL in 2002 Eminem settled a lawsuit by paying $100,000 (roughly £70,000) to a man named John Guerra after Em reportedly pulled out an unloaded gun and hit Guerra in the face in response to seeing Guerra kiss his then-wife in the parking lot of a nightclub in 2000.
TIL a 31-year-old Brazilian billionaire with no heirs allegedly left his entire $1 billion fortune to Neymar in a legally registered will because he admired the player’s humility and family values.
Surely there are more deserving people and charities that could benefit from his legacy- other than a pro athlete who already has hundreds of millions of dollars?!?
Oh sure, give all your money to somebody who has a lot allready, why not?
TIL that the hepatitis E virus was discovered by a Soviet physician when he ingested fecal samples from 22 soldiers during a presumed non-hepatitis A outbreak in Uzbekistan, developed hepatitis 36 days later and then had his stool examined under electron microscopy.
TIL Some studies on drunk driving have found that a BAC of 0.01%-0.04% correlates with lower accident risk than being completely sober. This is called the Grand Rapids dip, and is a quirk of statistics.
Those who drive under the influence don't need any encouragement...
I used to drink while driving and am forever ashamed. Nothing ever happened (and no DUIs), but it certainly could have.
Load More Replies...Or of life: it's the effect of one drink, so it tells us people who are responsible drinkers are responsible drivers as well.
That makes sense, actually. Those who have been drinking, but not enough to impair judgment (tolerances with a given percentage in the blood vary widely from one person to another), probably stay more focused and alert to avoid an accident or DUI charge than if they hadn't been drinking at all.
The consensus amongst scientists seems to be that this is because that study had not taken age into consideration: the group of people who hadn't been drinking at all contained way more people under 25 and over 55 than the groups who had been drinking. And people in those age groups cause accidents way more often than people 25-55. When they re-analyzed the data with this in mind, the study shows that 0 drinking is safer than drinking a little bit. And other studies have shown that the likelihood of an accident increases as soon as alcohol is measurable. So no, it's not that you drive better when you've been drinking a little bit, it was just bad science.
TIL "Dry Cleaning" isn't actually dry, it just washes with a solvent rather than water
Really? Now are you going to tell me that nobody named Martin was ever involved in martinizing? What's left to believe in?
Dry cleaning fluid is a harsh and dangerous liquid. It does, however, clean very quickly and doesn't shrink things like water and soap do. Most clothes get damaged by being in the washer so long, with a long agitation cycle. Dry cleaning is harsh but fast, causing less damage. Fun fact, dry cleaning fluid can cause big damage to certain things. It can strip the finish off buttons or metallic details off of fabric. Some things should not be dry cleaned.
I thought everyone knew this, but I guess most people weren't brought up with a mum who loudly protested most things 'chemical'
Ahem. As it happens, water is a solvent. It dissolves more things than anything else. Dry cleaning is called "dry" because it uses liquid solvents that aren't water - normally "non polar" solvents, water being a "polar solvent". I had to look up the meaning of those terms too - isn't the Internet great?
We used to joke as kids that for dry cleaning, they put the clothes in the washing machine and let it run without water
TIL that the A-10 'Warthog' close-air-support plane, infamous for being "a gun with a plane", has to return the spent shell casings from it's massive forward mounted autocannon to the plane to maintain it's center-of-gravity.
My favorite military plane. Parts can be swapped left to right and right to left. They've returned from missions missing substantial parts like wings and rudders. The hydraulic redundancies are really well worked. The pilot sits in a titanium tub. They've tried to retire it many times, but it's just too good at its job.
Had one fly over the house in Michigan. Wife: "That is one UGLY plane"..."It's called a Warthog".."I can see why!"
TIL Lucy Lambert Hale, the fiancé of John Wilkes Booth, was considered one of the most beautiful socialites of her time. She began receiving poems from suitors when she was still a 12 year old child.
Hey BP, copying posts like this without including the picture, makes them useless. The whole point of that post was that she looks like what we in this day and age would call ugly or average. (Click on the grey name underneath the post, that takes you to Reddit where you can see the pic)
I just googled her to see what this beauty looked like. Her family must've been really, really wealthy.
At 17 years old, apparently: 'she was described as having had "dark hair, blue eyes, a clear skin, and a stunning figure" '. Photos of her later in life don't necessarily tell you anything about her when young.
Load More Replies...TIL Michael J. Fox's middle name is Andrew.
He is called Michael J. Fox because "Michael Fox" was already a registered actor with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and he chose the "J" as a tribute to actor Michael J. Pollard. He also wanted to avoid his name sounding like "Michael A. Fox," as his middle name is Andrew
Named after Michael J. Pollard who played the reckless sidekick (the mechanic) in Bonnie and Clyde.
And was in the original series Star Trek episode "Miri".
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TIL that raccoon meat was once a staple at American Thanksgiving dinner tables and is still sold in places like St Louis. Raccoon reportedly tastes like "a combination of chicken and suckling pig" and is endorsed by Marvel actor Anthony Mackie who calls it "honestly the best meat you'll ever have."
Just, no... I personally don't believe in eating wild omnivores or mammalian predators of any kind.
Unfortunately, poverty and hunger are the reasons why many people hunt. Hunting is how my family put food on the table during lean times. Curious though, it's okay to eat cows, pigs, chickens, and turkeys that are raised in hideous, inhumane conditions on factory farms, but not raccoons?? As the vegetarian saying goes, all meat is m****r.
Load More Replies...That's what they want. That's why they wear masks.
Load More Replies...You've never actually met one, have you? Or cleaned up after them? I've heard bat guano is the worst smell ever, but it can't possibly smell worse than raccoon shît.
Load More Replies...TIL Microsoft invested two years and about US$1 billion developing the Kin, a line of mobile phones that was briefly sold in 2010. After only 48 days on the market, Microsoft discontinued the Kin line in June 2010 due to poor sales, They blamed Verizon for not promoting the phones actively enough.
I'm glad they keep fumbling their phones because I loved my Lumia 1020 and now I at least get to spread my data across Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet, Meta and OpenAI.
TIL that Blizzard was tricked into making StarCraft a AAA game: it was to be a modest project but after an impressive demo of Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3 outshone it at E3 1996, it was decided to overhaul it completely. It later turned out that Dominion's demo was a pre-animated fake.
The company Blizzard demoed a small project at a game convention. Dominion showed off their project which was a massive hit. Blizzard decided to upgrade their game in response Which resulted in the hit game starcraft. The Dominion game turned out to be a fake
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