TIL : TIL a female reporter attempted to recreate the famous novel "Around The World In 80 Days". Not only did she complete it with eight days to spare, she made a detour to interview Jules Verne, the original author. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL of "Earthquake diplomacy" between Turkey and Greece which was initiated after successive earthquakes hit both countries in the summer of 1999. Since then both countries help each other in case of an earthquake no matter how their relations are. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL John Candy was paid $414 for his cameo in Home Alone. This was a lower fee than was paid to the pizza delivery guy. He did it as a favor to the director and improvised all of his dialogue (www.filmstories.co.uk)
TIL Procrastination is not a result of laziness or poor time management. Scientific studies suggest procrastination is due to poor mood management. (theconversation.com)
TIL Texans Eat Pickles at the Movie Theater, and Many Are Surprised To Learn No One Else Does (www.southernliving.com)
TIL that drinking a four-ounce shot of vanilla extract is equivalent to doing four shots of vodka (www.yahoo.com)
TIL that when Californians wanted to name a new city after San Francisco businessman William Ralston, he declined and said he was not worthy of the honor. So instead they named the city in honor of his modesty: Modesto, California. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Mount Everest is named after Sir George Everest despite him having zero connection to the mountain (he never even saw it) and against his own wishes. He objected to the naming on the grounds that "Everest" could not be easily written in Hindi nor pronounced by the local people. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL: In 1962, a 10 year old found a radioactive capsule and took it home in his pocket and left it in a kitchen cabinet. He died 38 days later, his pregnant mom died 3 months after that, then his 2 year old sister a month later. The father survived, and only then did authorities found out why. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL the FBI struggles to hire hackers because federal rules are that potential applicants need to not have used marijuana in the previous 3 years; for cocaine and ecstasy, it's 10 years. (www.grunge.com)
TIL: The pre-game military fly-overs conducted while the Star Spangled Banner plays at pro sports events is actually a planned training run for flight teams and doesn't cost "extra" as many speculate, but is already factored into the annual training budget. (www.espn.com)
TIL the "empty London" scenes in 28 Days Later were achieved by filming at dawn and simply asking people to stop walking through shots, as there was no room in the $8m budget to actually shut down any parts of the city. (screenrant.com)
TIL Officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato, the oldest living man in Tokyo, on his 111th birthday. Upon arriving to his house, a mummified body wearing underwear and pajamas was lying in his bed. He had been dead for 30 years but his family kept the secret to keep receiving his pension. (www.bbc.com)
TIL Fender Guitars did a study and found that 90% of new guitar players abandon playing within 1 year. The 10% that don't quit spend an average of $10,000 on hardware over their lifetime, buying 5-7 guitars and multiple amps. (www.musicradar.com)
TIL a woman flying from Manchester to Florida had a heart attack during the flight and when the stewardess asked for help 15 cardiologists came to save her. They were flying to a cardiology conference. (www.iol.co.za)
TIL Terry Crews said the reason Fox didn't promote idiocracy was because Mike Judge had companies pay for product placement and then he made them look bad (Starbucks gave out hand-jobs). The film tanked in limited release but made over 20 times its gross domestic box office revenue in DVD rentals. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL the USA was supposed to adopt the metric system but the ship carrying the standardized meter and kilogram was hijacked by pirates in 1793 and the measurements never made it to the States (www.npr.org)
TIL the Cherokee writing system was made by one man, Sequoyah. It's one of the only times in history that someone in a non-literate group invented an official script from scratch. Within 25 years, nearly 100% of Cherokee were literate, and it inspired dozens of indigenous scripts around the world. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL 130 million American adults have low literacy skills with 54% of people 16-74 below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level (www.apmresearchlab.org)
TIL Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks containing this image of Yoda sitting next to King Faisal while he signed the 1945 UN charter (www.bbc.com)
TIL the game Oregon Trail was developed by 3 college students trying to teach history creatively. The first version was coded in just 10 days in 1971 and played by middle schoolers for 5 days. The code was given to an educational nonprofit in 1974, and the creators never profited from the game. (www.fastcompany.com)
TIL Warren Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway purely out of spite. In the 60s it was a failing textiles company which he wanted to sell his stake in. When its president lowballed him, he bought the whole company just to fire him. In 2010, he said it was the biggest investment mistake he ever made. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Prohibition Agent Izzy Einstein who bragged he could find liquor in any city in under 30 minutes. In Chicago it took him 21 minutes and Atlanta 17. However, New Orleans set the record at 35 seconds after he asked his driver where to get a drink and the driver handed him one (www.nationalcrimesyndicate.com)
TIL that less than 1% of nuns in the US are under 40 and the average sister is 80 years old. (abcnews.go.com)
TIL in Nome, Alaska in 1925, a diphtheria epidemic struck and there was no antitoxin left. Land, air, and sea routes were unavailable, so 20 mushers and 150 sled dogs relayed the serum across 674 miles in 5 1/2 days, in subzero temperatures, near-blizzard conditions and hurricane-force winds. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL After hurricane Katrina Brad Pitt set up the Make It Right Foundation to build homes for those effected. The project had famous architects but the homes were not designed or constructed for a New Orleans environment. By 2022 only 6 of the 109 houses were deemed to be in "reasonably good shape." (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Hirsoshima, Japan is one of the few places outside of the US that celebrates Martin Luther King Jr day, due to his outspoken views on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. (www.atlasobscura.com)
TIL of Baseball Hall of Famer Rube Waddell, who, despite his skill, showed various unpredictable behaviours including leaving midgame to go fishing, and was also incredibly easily distracted by shiny objects, puppies (who he would leave the field to play with), and fire trucks, which he would chase. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL: To "protect the truth," a woman recorded hundreds of thousands of hours of TV news between 1977 and 2012. Her archives grew to about 71,000 VHS and Betamax tapes stacked in her home and apartments she rented to store them. Upon her death, the Internet Archive agreed to digitize the volumes. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that a Dutch woman was denied Swiss naturalization despite having lived there for 39 years, because her 'neighbours' deemed her too annoying and not integrated into Swiss society since she often critized Swiss tradition of hanging large bells on cows' necks (news.yahoo.com)
TIL in the 2003 SpongeBob episode "Mid-Life Crustacean", Mr. Krabs is invited to join a panty raid with SpongeBob and Patrick. The episode was removed from streaming services in 2018 by Nickelodeon, Paramount+, and Amazon. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that in the early 90's Bart Simpson T shirts were banned at many schools across the country (www.mentalfloss.com)
TIL more than 1 in 10 Americans have no close friends. The share of Americans who have zero close friends has been steadily rising. From 3% of the population in 1991 to 12% in 2021. The share who have 10 or more close friends has also fallen - from 33% to 13%. (www.americansurveycenter.org)
TIL director Brad Bird was inspired to make the movie "The Iron Giant" after his sister Susan was murdered by her husband, who shot her. His pitch was "What if a gun had a soul, and didn't want to be a gun? (www.pajiba.com)
TIL of a very rare condition called Anton syndrome, in which a person becomes blind however they are unaware of it and will deny it, as their brain generates (false) visual images so they continue to believe that they can see. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL the U.S Army once designed an anti armor grenade that would be the same size and shape of a football so US soldiers knew how to sling it and the prototype was built using a hollowed out nerf ball. (www.ripleys.com)
TIL, after U.S. President Garfield was shot, his doctors were so negligent and gave him such a bad infection that his assassin openly confessed at trial to the shooting, but argued that Garfield’s doctors had actually done the killing (blogs.loc.gov)
TIL Ozzy Osbourne gave up taking acid during the recording of Black Sabbath's Volume 4. He said “I took 10 tabs of acid then went for a walk in a field. I ended up standing there talking to this horse for about an hour. In the end the horse turned round and told me to fuck off. That was it for me.” (www.nme.com)
TIL David Bowie used to travel around in New York carrying a Greek newspaper in the belief that people would assume he was just a Greek man who looked like David Bowie and leave him alone. (www.theguardian.com)
TIL that for a period of 20 years, Argentina ranked as one of the wealthiest nations on Earth, having the highest GDP per capita in 1895 and being among the 10 richest until 1920. Today, the country is in crippling debt, and is considered one of the biggest economic downturns in modern history. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL about Tommy Manville, the heir to the Johns-Manville fortune. The terms of his family trust granted him $250,000 "when he married." As a result he got married 13 times, giving the women a cut of the proceeds before quickly divorcing them. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that famed aviator, Charles Lindbergh, once recieved a Nazi medal, and that when speaking of him, Roosevelt remarked that "if I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this, I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi." (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL after being scolded by a woman who felt that his shoes were too expensive for kids, Shaq forwent a $40 million deal with Reebok & signed one with Walmart. He then brought in designers from Reebok so that his Walmart shoes would look costlier than the $20 price. Over 400 million pairs were sold. (sports.yahoo.com)
TIL that in 2011 a Russian would-be suicide bomber died when her mobile phone detonator was activated by a spam message wishing her a happy new year (www.nbcnews.com)
TIL that most, if not all, uncontacted groups live in voluntary isolation - they are aware of the rest of the world, but choose to not have any contact. This is likely due to fear of diseases novel to them and violent clashes with traffickers and loggers. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL about the small town of Swastika, Ontario. During WW2, the provincial government tried to change the town's name. The town's residents rejected this, stating "To hell with Hitler, we came up with our name first". (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that Wayne Gretzky is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th for most points in an NHL season (records.nhl.com)
TIL about the Asoh defense, a term for just taking the blame when you're at fault. It’s named after a Japanese pilot named Kohei Asoh, who crash landed a full passenger jet in the San Francisco Bay. When asked what happened, he said: “As you Americans say, I f-cked up.” (www.sfgate.com)
TIL ,in 1997, a Russian poacher, Vladimir Markov, shot and wounded a tiger, and stole part of a boar it had been eating. 12 hours later, the tiger tracked down the poacher at his cabin and ate him. (www.npr.org)
TIL brussels sprouts used to have a bitter taste until breeders in the 90s started to cross-pollinate different varieties in order to remove the chemicals that caused the bitterness. The result of their work has lead to brussels sprouts's recent culinary popularity. (www.npr.org)
TIL that in 1977 Bob Marley was diagnosed with melanoma under a toenail. He rejected his doctors' advice to have his toe amputated, citing his religious beliefs. The cancer subsequently spread and he died of metastatic melanoma 4 years later, at the age of 36. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL boxer Jack Johnson was once pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket and gave the officer a $100 bill. When the officer said he couldn't provide change, Johnson told him to keep it as he was going to make his return trip at the same speed. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that 73.9% of North Americans are overweight (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Andre Agassi won 10 of 11 matches after seeing a "tick" in Boris Becker's serve. Agassi could predict where Becker was serving based on whether Becker stuck his tongue out in the middle of his lip or to the left corner of his lip. Agassi told Becker over a pint of beer - after they retired. (www.insider.com)
TIL in a rare move for a large corporation, SC Johnson voluntarily stopped using Polyvinylidene chloride in saran wrap which made it cling but was harmful to the planet. They lost a huge market share. (blog.suvie.com)
TIL Princess Diana didn't initially die at the scene of her car accident, but 5 hours later due to a tear in her heart's pulmonary vein. She would've had 80% chance of survival if she had been wearing her seat belt. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL male genital transplant surgeons exclude the testicles because the deceased organ donor would be the biological father with regard to future pregnancies (www.hopkinsmedicine.org)
TIL: Traditionally Japanese do not eat salmon sushi and it was invented in the 80's by the Norwegians to to try to sell more of their over abundance of Salmon. (www.npr.org)
59. TIL性失眠症，也叫睡眠性失眠症，是一种睡眠中的人进行性行为的疾病，如手淫或主动与他人发生性关系。即使他们的眼睛睁开，发出性的声音，他们也是真正的睡着了，一旦醒来就不知道自己的行为。 (NSFW)
TIL Sexsomnia, also called sleep sex, is a disorder in which sleeping people engage in sexual behaviors such as masturbation or initiating sex with another person. Even if their eyes open and they make sexual noises, they are truly asleep and unaware of their behavior once they are awake. (www.sleepfoundation.org)
TIL that George Washington asked to be bled heavily after he developed a sore throat from weather exposure in 1799. After being drained of nearly 40% of his blood by his doctors over the course of twelve hours, he died of a throat infection. (www.pbs.org)
TIL Orville Wright lived to see jets and the first supersonic flight (www.biography.com)
TIL Actor Kevin Bacon pays off DJ’s when he attends weddings so that they won’t play “Footloose.” (entertainment.ie)
TIL that alcohol consumption in the U.S. was almost 300% higher in the 1800s, and that whiskey at the time was cheaper than beer, coffee or milk. (www.pastemagazine.com)
TIL there is a mall in the capital of the country Moldova called Malldova (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that photographer Carol Highsmith donated tens of thousands of her photos to the Library of Congress, making them free for public use. Getty Images later claimed copyright on many of these photos, then accused her of copyright infringement by using one of her own photos on her own site. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Tomatoes are native to the Americas, so there was no such thing as tomato sauce in Italy until at least the 16th century. (edition.cnn.com)
TIL blacking out from alcohol doesn’t cause you to lose memories, but rather your brain temporarily loses the ability to create new memories during the blackout (so the memories never exist) (www.niaaa.nih.gov)
TIL 27% of Americans 18 and older have cut off contact with a family member (news.cornell.edu)
TIL about millionaire Wellington Burt, who died in 1919 and deliberately held back his enormous fortune. His will denied any inheritance until 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild. The money sat in a trust for 92 years, until 12 descendants finally shared $110 million in 2011. (www.theguardian.com)
TIL about death flights. Captives would be loaded into a plane, stripped, and pushed out over the ocean. These account for 1500-2000 of the 20k-30k estimated to have been disappeared by the Argentine military between 1976 and 1983 in the Argentine Dirty War. (www.historyhit.com)
TIL cats were a common wedding gift among Vikings due to their association with the goddess of luck, Freyja. Men favored women who loved cats, believing that it increased the likelihood of a happy marriage. (scandinaviafacts.com)
TIL that the popular belief in the United States that Daylight Savings Time was enacted FOR the benefit of farmers is wrong; farmers were actually some of the strongest opponents of its implementation. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL no child has been harmed or killed by poisoned or dangerous Halloween candy. (www.cnn.com)
TIL the U.S. military is missing 6 nuclear weapons - the longest missing nuclear weapon hasn't been seen in 71 years, and it is unlikely it will be found anytime soon. (nationalinterest.org)
TIL: the US State Department officially recommends that if you travel to Somalia, you first "Draft a will and designate appropriate insurance beneficiaries", "Be sure to appoint one family member to serve as the point of contact with hostage-takers", "review the Live Piracy Report", etc. (travel.state.gov)
TIL Teddy roosevelt, who is thought of as the national park man, is actually the National forest man. During his presidency he founded 5 of 63 US national parks. As for national forests, he founded 150 of the 154 US national forests! (www.doi.gov)
TIL that Steve McQueen had a habit of demanding free items, in bulk, from studios, when doing movies, it was later discovered that these items (like electric razors and jeans) went to Boys Republic reformatory school, where McQueen had been, as a teenager (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL since its premiere in 1987 the show Unsolved Mysteries has helped locate half of the wanted fugitives it has featured, reunited over 100 lost loves and freed 7 prisoners who were wrongfully convicted. An additional 260+ cases involving murder, missing persons and fraud have also been solved. (unsolved.com)
TIL During the 2000's, Google, Apple, Adobe, Intel, and several other mega corporations had a mutual agreement not to hire each other's employees in order to keep salaries low. This led to a 400 mil class action lawsuit. (www.npr.org)
TIL the pet food company Chewy sends flowers and a card when a customer's pet dies. They will reimburse the purchase of unopened food and suggest it be donated to a shelter. They also offer the option of talking to someone about the grief of losing a pet. (www.today.com)
TIL that scientists had to rename genes because MS Excel would convert those names into dates (www.theverge.com)
TIL, in The Blair Witch Project, the reason they never show the witch on camera is that the cameraman forgot to pan to the left (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children. This myth is based on a single 1978 study; no subsequent study has shown a relationship. (www.webmd.com)
TIL in 1912 4 yr-old Bobby Dunbar disappeared, was found eight months later in Mississippi with a couple that refuted that it was him. Courts ordered the boy to live with the Dunbars. 100 years later DNA verified that the boy was Bruce Anderson and had been wrongly identified by Dunbar's parents (countryroadsmagazine.com)
TIL that when he was an 18-year-old high school senior LeBron James was offered $10 million by Reebok on the spot, under the condition that he would not speak with Nike or Adidas. He turned down the offer and later signed a $90 million deal with Nike. (www.cnbc.com)
TIL Michael J. Fox's first role was in a Canadian series called Leo and Me. Four of the 125 people on the show's set, including Fox, developed early-onset Parkinson's — a disease that usually has an incidence rate of about one in 300. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that the disability with the highest unemployment rate is actually schizophrenia, at 70-90% (www.nami.org)
TIL The band Redbone, who played the 70’s hit “Come and Get Your Love” (repopularized by “Guardians of the Galaxy”), was the first successful rock group formed by Native Americans. (redbone-band.com)
TIL in the early 90s LL Cool J shared with his grandma that he couldn't survive as a rapper now that gangsta rap was popular. His grandma responded, "Oh baby, just knock them out!" which inspired him to write 'Mama Said Knock You Out' a grammy award winning certified platnum single. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL in 2016 a man ate a ghost pepper in an eating contest and drank 6 glasses of water to cool off. He vomited so much he tore a hole in his esophagus and was rushed to a hospital where doctors found his left lung collapsed. He spent 23 days in the hospital and was sent home with a gastric tube. (health.howstuffworks.com)
TIL Senator Strom Thurmond had a child out of wedlock named Essie Washington-Williams who was black. She revealed herself as his daughter after his death at the age of 100. She tried to join the 'Daughters of the Confederacy', as she was eligible through her father's ancestry, but she was rejected. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that in 1845 79 people died in a bridge collapse that happened because a large crowd had gathered to watch a clown in a bathtub be pulled up a river by four geese. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that in 2006, FBI agents attempted to arrest prison guards at the Federal Correctional Institution, Tallahassee, after having learnt the guards were trading drugs for sex with female inmates. One of the guards opened fire with a personal handgun, killing one agent and wounding another. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL an Orange County man named Jeff Reitz went to Disneyland every day for over 8 years, 2,995 consecutive days, and only stopped because of Covid on March 14, 2020. (spectrumnews1.com)
TIL that at the ancient Olympics, cheating athletes would be fined and the fines used to build bronze statues at the entrance of the Olympic stadium, each inscribed with the name of the cheater and how they cheated (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that Jimmy Carter, at 97, is the oldest living President, the longest-lived President, and also has the longest retirement ( 41 years ) of any President (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that in response to fans demanding the show Metalpocalipse be continued, Adult Swim set up a live stream of the a fax machine printing the petition to bring back the show… only for the faxes to be dropped straight into a trash bin. (www.thewrap.com)
TIL The Golden Raspberry Awards has made retractions on two occasions. Bruce Willis had his Raspberry category retracted once it was discovered he was suffering from aphasia. Shelley Duvall's nomination was retracted because of Kubrick's mistreatment on The Shining. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Hummingbirds have an exceptional memory due to an enlarged hippocampus. This allows them to remember the exact location of specific hummingbird feeders along their migration path from North America to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that if two pieces of similar metals touch in a vacuum like outer space, and if both pieces are perfectly flat and polished, they will indeed fuse to effectively make one new piece. Atoms in the metals share electrons and bond permanently. This is called cold welding. (www.spacecentre.nz)
TIL The Carmen Sandiego Show (1991-1995; 295 episodes) was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL: In 1990 a courier was robbed on a street in London, England. The robber made off with bearer bonds to the value of £292 million. Today, this is equivalent to £758 million - or $1.086 billion USD. This is still the highest amount ever stolen in a street robbery. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL prostitution is illegal in Japan but the law recognize only vaginal sex. Oral, anal and masturbations are not criminalized. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that Billie Joe Armstrong once dropkicked a guy in the middle of a Green Day concert after he saw him roughing up a young girl. He stopped the show and challenged him to a fight before jumping into the crowd. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Michael Jackson wore white tape on his fingers so that audience members further away could see the fingers and follow the moves he made with his hands while dancing. He wore white socks so they could similarly follow his feet. (old.reddit.com)
TIL George Lucas not only gave his blessing to make Spaceballs, he also handed the movie over to his effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, to provide the space effects and postproduction. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that in the operatic song in The Fifth Element, composer Eric Sierra "purposely wrote un-singable things" so she’d sound like an alien. When opera singer Inva Muls came for the part, "she sang 85% of what [Eric] thought was technically impossible", the rest being assembled in the studio. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that a player who was knife-killed in the game Counter Strike, spent 6 months tracking down their opponent and viciously stabbed them in real life. (old.reddit.com)
TIL: Bats eat enough insects to save the US over $1 Billion a year in crop damage and pesticide. (old.reddit.com)
TIL to collect taxes, Christian IV of Denmark asked captains of ships crossing the Øresund to estimate the value of their cargo, which was applied as the tax base without further audit. But the king also claimed the right to buy the entire cargo at exactly that price. (old.reddit.com)
TIL after the TV show Teletubbies ended, the owner of the land used had to dig out the hill and flood the field it was filmed in, due to the amount of people trespassing to see Teletubbieland. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the new Rolls-Royce Ghost soundproofing was so overengineered that occupants in the car found the near-total silence disorienting, and some felt sick. Acoustic engineers had to go back and work on "harmonizing" various sounds in the car to add a continuous soft whisper. (old.reddit.com)
TIL a father, John Crowley, was told his two infant children had an incurable genetic disorder that would kill them in less than a year. He refused to accept this, so he founded a biotech company (with no prior experience) which pioneered an experimental enzyme therapy that saved their lives. (old.reddit.com)
TIL in 2000, an art exhibition in Denmark featured ten functional blenders containing live goldfish. Visitors were given the option of pressing the “on” button. At least one visitor did, killing two goldfish. This led to the museum director being charged with and, later, acquitted of animal cruelty. (old.reddit.com)
TIL The Wright Brothers only flew together on the same flight one time, a six-minute flight on May 25th, 1910. They promised their father, Milton, they would never fly together to avoid the chance of a double tragedy and to ensure one brother would remain to continue their flight experiments. (old.reddit.com)
TIL in 2011, a 29-year-old Australian bartender found an ATM glitch that allowed him to withdraw way beyond his balance. In a bender that lasted four-and-half months, he managed to spend around $1.6 million of the bank’s money. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that by letting a wolf population recover, traffic collisions caused by deer are reduced by nearly 25%; the reduction is not based as much on the decimation of the deer population but on the “landscape of fear” created by the wolves. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Outback Steakhouse was founded in Tampa, FL by four Americans who had never visited Australia. They simply saw an opportunity to ride the wave of popularity of all things Australian following the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee. Their concept was “American food and Australian fun.” (old.reddit.com)
TIL dogs "play sneeze" when they're feeling excited or playful. "Play sneezes" mean your dog is having a good time and indicate to other dogs that their behavior is only play. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that after Lance Armstrong was stripped of his wins, seven successive Tour de France races (1999-2005) were officially declared without winners because so many riders who finished behind Armstrong were also associated with doping offences. (old.reddit.com)
TIL: Robin Williams autopsy revealed he had about 40% loss of dopamine neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout his entire brain and brainstem from Lewy body disease (LBD) (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the Animal Planet reality series ‘River Monsters’ ended because star Jeremy Wade was able to catch essentially every exceptionally large freshwater fish species on earth, leaving no remaining content for the show (old.reddit.com)
TIL that a "Silent Man" in the UK repeatedly gets arrested for standing on a certain road to block traffic. He never speaks a word, not even to the court or his own lawyer. Everytime he is released, he repeats the crime and remains completely silent. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Wayne Gretzky's stats were so far ahead of his peers' that if you cut his entire career number in half he's still one of the top 20 players of all time. (old.reddit.com)
TIL an FBI whistleblower reported multiple problems in forensic cases. After years of the FBI seeking to ruin him, his claims were investigated and a report showed that forensic hair analysis was flawed or inaccurate over 90% of the time. (old.reddit.com)
126. 2009年，汉堡王开展了 "牺牲汉堡包 "活动，向在Facebook上删除10个朋友的人提供免费的汉堡包。Facebook暂停了该计划，因为汉堡王提醒人们，让他们知道他们被放弃了一个三明治。
TIL in 2009 Burger King ran the "Whopper sacrifice" campaign, which gave a free whopper to anyone who deleted 10 friends on Facebook. Facebook suspended the program because Burger King was alerting people letting them know they'd been dropped for a sandwich (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (zombie fungus) doesn't control ants by infecting their brain. Instead it destroys the motor neurons and connects directly to the muscles to control them. The brain is made into a prisoner in its own body (old.reddit.com)
TIL during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russians made a small "mouse" hole into a secure anti-doping lab and exchanged "clean" urine samples for those showing their athletes' PED use. Over 100 dirty samples were smuggled out by a Russian agent pretending to be a sewer engineer. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Lonnie Johnson, the man who created the “Super Soaker” (the world’s best selling toy) was awarded $72.9M in a Hasbro Settlement for unpaid royalties. (old.reddit.com)
TIL someone translated Dracula into Icelandic and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made a fanfic-rewrite of what he wanted the story to be. (old.reddit.com)
TIL George Miller had his wife Margaret Sixel edit Mad Max: Fury Road. Miller said that she had never cut an action movie before, and he said if was edited by "the usual kind of guys, it would look like every other action movie we see." She went on to win a Oscar for her editing work in the film. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Jonah Hill was only paid $60,000 to appear in The Wolf of Wall Street, with the studio using his desire to work with Martin Scorsese as leverage to pay him the lowest fee possible. Whereas Leonard DiCaprio, who also produced the film, was paid $10m. (old.reddit.com)
TIL: The inventor of shopping carts, Sylvan Goldman, had to hire "decoy shoppers" to wheel the carts around stores and demonstrate their convenience, due to not catching on initially. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that according to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Javier Bardem's performance as Anton Chigurh in 'No Country for Old Men' was named the 'Most Realistic Depiction of a Psychopath' by an independent group of psychologists in the 'Journal of Forensic Sciences'. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that when all movie theaters were closed in 2020, a filmmaker made a movie in one week and rented out an entire theater to show it in. It was officially recognized as the #1 movie in America on that day. Because he was technically both the studio and the theater, he made all of his money back. (old.reddit.com)
TIL about environmental activist Julia “Butterfly” Hill who lived in a 1500 year old California redwood tree (known as Luna) 180 feet (55 mm) off the ground for 738 days in order to prevent it from being chopped down by Pacific Lumber Company. She successfully saved the tree. (old.reddit.com)
TIL GM recalled 800k cars in 2014 for faulty ignitions. The cars would shut off while being driven which meant drivers lost power steering/brakes, and the airbags wouldn't deploy. They knew about the problem since 2005 but never fixed it because it would be 'too expensive'. 124 people died. (old.reddit.com)
TIL after the massive success of his #1 hit "Somebody That I Used to Know", Gotye stopped recording solo music, went back to his old band and hasn't released a song under the Gotye name ever since (old.reddit.com)
TIL that an underachieving Princeton student wrote a term paper describing how to make a nuclear bomb. He got an A but his paper was taken away by the FBI. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Playboy ran a story that depicted a future where homosexuality was the norm, heterosexuality was outlawed and anti-straight mobs marched the streets. Outraged letters poured in. He responded “If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society, then the reverse was wrong, too.” (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the CIA recruited one of Fidel Castro's mistresses to kill him in 1960, giving her poison pills, but he found out. Handing her his gun, he dared her to shoot, but her nerves failed and they had sex instead. (old.reddit.com)
TIL about the Finnish "Day-fine" system; most infractions are fined based on what you could spend in a day based on your income. The more severe the infraction the more "day-fines" you have to pay, which can cause millionaires to recieve speeding tickets of 100,000+$ (old.reddit.com)
TIL Due to casino distributions, every Seminole Indian child born is a multi millionaire when they turn 18 years old. (old.reddit.com)
TIL the McDonald's corporation quietly phased out Ronald McDonald, the companies clown mascot, due to the 2016 clown scare video fad. (old.reddit.com)
146. TIL洛杉矶是世界上第一个同步所有交通灯的主要城市。横跨469英里的近4400个红绿灯收到了关于交通流量的实时更新，以进行逐秒调整。该系统限制了高达16%的拥堵，同时也极大地减少了空驶时间。
TIL Los Angeles is the first major city in the world to synchronize all its traffic lights. Nearly 4,400 lights across 469 miles receive real-time updates about traffic flow to make second-by-second adjustments. The system limits congestion by up to 16% while also dramatically reducing idling time. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Mike Judge moved to Texas and a storm blew off a part of his fence. After his new neighbors fixed it for him, no questions asked, it became the basis for King Of The Hill - "about neighbors who... ultimately, do the right thing and do right by people and are basically good people." (old.reddit.com)
TIL Nas listed his then 7-year-old daughter, Destiny Jones, as an executive producer on his fifth studio album Stillmatic to ensure she would always receive royalty checks from the album. (old.reddit.com)
TIL a Yosemite Park ranger said designing garbage cans for the park is a difficult task because they have to be easy enough for humans to open, but complex enough so bears can't, citing a "considerable overlap" between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Salvador Dali once conned Yoko Ono into paying $10,000 for a single blade of grass. Yoko had offered to pay that amount for one of his mustache hairs. He substituted the blade of grass because he thought that Yoko Ono was a witch and might use his hair in a spell. (old.reddit.com)
TIL of Eliahu Itzkovitz, a Romanian Jew who witnessed a guard kill his family in a concentration camp. After the war, he enlisted in the same battalion of the French Foreign Legion as the guard and murdered him while deployed in present-day Vietnam. (old.reddit.com)
152. TIL挪威在40年前在其国家发现了石油。他们知道这些石油最终会耗尽，所以选择将其投资于一个主权财富基金。这是世界上最赚钱的基金之一--价值超过1.3万亿美元--足以让这个国家自我维持许多年。
TIL 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 $1.3 trillion - enough to self sustain the county for many years. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Norway hires sherpas from Nepal to build paths in the Norwegian mountains. They have completed over 300 projects, and their pay for one summer, equals 30 years of work in Nepal. (old.reddit.com)
TIL William Steig, the author of the children's book Shrek, was worried that the animated movie based on his book would sanitize his book's crudeness. When the then 93-year old Steig finally watched the movie, expecting to hate it, he was instead overjoyed to find it to be even cruder than his book. (old.reddit.com)
TIL A local fisherman in Costa Rica nursed a crocodile back to health after it had been shot in the head, and released the reptile back to its home. The next day, the man discovered “Pocho” had followed him home and was sleeping on the man’s porch. For 20 years Pocho became part of the man’s family. (old.reddit.com)
TIL the Vikings fed their wounded soldiers a strong onion soup to help gauge how deep a stomach wound was. After a few minutes, they would smell the wound and if they could smell the onion soup, they knew the wound was too deep and the soldier could not be saved (old.reddit.com)
TIL when Brendan Shanahan was 14 years old, he asked star hockey player Rick Vaive for an autograph, but was rudely brushed away. 4 years later, Shanahan was in the NHL, and fought and beat up Vaive the first time they played against each other (old.reddit.com)
TIL that crimes committed by nobility in Aztec society were usually punished more severely than crimes committed by commoners, since nobles and the elite were held to a higher standard and expected to behave better. (old.reddit.com)
TIL as a prank, a man once climbed Mount Hood in the middle of the night and surreptitiously left a morning newspaper and a quart of milk for his friends, who were spending the night on the summit (old.reddit.com)
TIL a homeless man found a 10 000$ check on the street meant for a real estate broker and found a way to return it. So, touched, the broker awarded him a place to live and arranged for a job interview. A year later, he was on the board of directors of one of their foundations. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Michael Jackson was a virtuoso composer, despite being unable to read music or play instruments well. He wrote the the parts to his songs by singing and beatboxing into a tape recorder. "“He would sing us an entire string arrangement, every part. Had it all in his head, harmony and everything." (old.reddit.com)
TIL when former NFL safety Dave Duerson took his life he left a note that read, “Please see that my brain is given to the NFL’s brain bank.” He shot himself in the chest rather than his head so as to preserve his brain. Doctors confirmed that he was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that in 1986 an astronomer trying to trace a 75 cent computer time discrepancy for 10 months eventually found a German hacker selling defense secrets to the KGB (old.reddit.com)
TIL about the April Fool’s Day prank in 1980 by the BBC who reported that Big Ben was going to change to a digital clock. Some people were so shocked by the announcement that they phoned in to complain. (old.reddit.com)
TIL During World War II, an American lieutenant, realizing his position was inundated with enemy troops, called in an artillery barrage on himself. Following a US counterattack later that day, the lieutenant's body was found alongside approximately 100 German soldiers. His name was John R. Fox. (old.reddit.com)
TIL It is commonly claimed 'What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger' however research shows that past stressful experiences do not create resilience to future trauma. Past traumatic experiences increase vulnerability to several mental illnesses. (old.reddit.com)
TIL before any details of Pixar’s ‘Soul’ were public, a Black chauffeur told Kemp Powers (the film’s co-writer & co-director) that he knew Pixar was making a Black movie because he had never driven so many Black people to Pixar before. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, but announced it in Latin. One reporter got the scoop and broke the story because she understood Latin. Most other reporters waited for official translations. (old.reddit.com)
TIL a Japanese man noticed food disappearing in his fridge so he set up a security camera and found out there was a homeless woman living in the top compartment of his closet and been there for more than a year. (old.reddit.com)
TIL although Wayne’s World (1992) was released after Freddie Mercury died, he got to see the car headbanging scene featuring Bohemian Rhapsody shortly before he passed away on November 24, 1991. He loved it and foresaw how the use of the song would ignite a comeback for Queen in the United States. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that in 2019, Brazilian pоlіce seized a parrot who had been taught to alert criminals to pоlіce operations by shouting: "Mum, the pоlіce!" After being seized, the parrot didn't cooperate with the pоlіce, staying completely silent and not saying anything (old.reddit.com)
TIL Texas didn’t have safety regulations on natural gas until after a school blew up and killed hundreds of children. Nobody was held accountable, but they passed strict regulations afterwards. It was so bad that even Hitler sent a letter of condolence. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that at the age of 17, Steven Spielberg directed a sci-fi film called "Firelight". The budget was $500, and it was shown at a local cinema, with 500 people coming, and tickets costing a dollar each. However, one person paid $2, so the movie made $1, making it Spielberg's first commercial success (old.reddit.com)
TIL It would take 375,000 Lego bricks stacked one on top of another to destroy the bottom brick. The tower would be nearly 12,000 feet tall. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the north star is 4000 times brighter than our sun. The light we see when we look at the north star was generated in the year 1587, and it has been traveling through space for 434 years to reach us. (old.reddit.com)
TIL "Highway hypnosis" is an altered mental state in which a person can safely drive an automobile great distances with no recollection of having consciously done so. It is a manifestation of automaticity, where the conscious and subconscious minds are able to concentrate on different things. (old.reddit.com)
TIL about FBI agent Robert Hanssen. He was tasked to find a mole within the FBI after the FBI's moles in the KGB were caught. Robert Hanssen was the mole and had been working with the KGB since 1979. (old.reddit.com)
TIL The Lord of the Rings films originally would have been released by Disney via Miramax but they chose not to fund it due to costs. They let New Line Cinema have it on the condition they pay $10M in "turnaround" costs. The LOTR trilogy will later on gross over $2.9B at the global box office. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Casey Kasem, the original voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo, was a vegan and critic of factory farming. Kasem quit the show in 1995 when he was asked to voice Shaggy for a Burger King commercial. He would not agree to return until 2002 when producers agreed to have Shaggy become a vegetarian. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Judith Love Cohen, who helped create the Abort-Guidance System which rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts, went to work on the day she was in labor. She took a printout of a problem she was working on to the hospital. She called her boss and said she finished the problem and gave birth to Jack Black (old.reddit.com)
TIL that in 1995, a man received a "check" for $95,000 as junk mail. Jokingly, he deposited it into his account. The "check" met all of the legal criteria for a check and was cashed. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that James K. Polk is the only US president who pledged to serve only one term during his campaign. He was known for fulfilling all his major promises and died 3 months after his term ended, making his retirement the shortest. He is also the only speaker of the house to be elected as president. (old.reddit.com)
TIL in 1998, a 10-year-old girl in Austria was dragged into a car and kidnapped. The case remained unsolved until she knocked on someone's door in 2006 saying: "I am Natascha Kampusch." She had just escaped the secret cellar of a local technician that abused her for 8 years. (old.reddit.com)
TIL when former 'Tonight Show' host Johnny Carson died in 2005, 'Late Show' host David Letterman recited a comedic monologue at the beginning of the show, revealing later that every joke had been written by Carson, who had been sending in one or two jokes a week during his retirement (old.reddit.com)
TIL ADHD doesn't always mean 'short attention span'. 'Hyperfocusing' on a task for hours on end is also a known symptom of ADHD, where the inability to stop is considered to be the problem. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and hundreds more, started smoking at the age of 9, changed his last name from Blank to Blanc, survived a car accident resulting in a two week coma, recorded The Flintstones in a full body cast, and died only a year after recording Who Framed Roger Rabbit. (old.reddit.com)
TIL the most successful Nazi interrogator in world war 2 never physically harmed an enemy soldier, but treated them all with respect and kindness, taking them for walks, letting them visit their comrades in the hospital, even letting one captured pilot test fly a plane. Virtually everybody talked. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Joseph Strauss, the engineer of the golden Gate Bridge, mandated that a net be installed under the bridge for safety while being built. This was revolutionary at the time. The net caught 19 men who fell, saving all of them from a certain death. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Martin Scorsese, after requiring 19 takes to get a scene right in his film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, praised one particular 6-year-old extra. “She ate 19 ice cream cones and didn’t get sick, that girl’s gonna be an actress!” That girl was future Academy Award-winning actress Laura Dern. (old.reddit.com)
TIL fish eggs can survive and hatch after passing through a duck, providing one explanation of how seemingly pristine, isolated bodies of water can become stocked with fish (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Wayne Gretzky is the only Hockey player to have scored over 200 points in a season, and did so a total of four times. His stunning success as a Hockey player was immortalized in the fact that not only did is own team retire 99, Gretzky's Jersey number, but the league as whole did as well! (old.reddit.com)
TIL Raven the chimpanzee appeared in the 2009 Guinness World Records book as the most successful chimpanzee on Wall Street after choosing her stocks by throwing darts at a list of 133 internet companies. She became the 22nd most successful money manager in the USA. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Samuel L. Jackson heard someone repeating his Ezekiel 25:17 speech to him, he turned to discover it was Marlon Brando who gave him his number. When Jackson called, it was a Chinese restaurant. But when he asked for Brando, he picked up. It was Brando's way of screening calls. (old.reddit.com)
TIL: Microsoft tried a 4-day workweek in Japan as part of a "Work Life Choice Challenge" by shutting down offices every Friday. Productivity, measured by sales per employee, increased by almost 40% compared to the same period the previous year. (old.reddit.com)
TIL when a 400-year rare old Japanese bonsai tree was stolen, the bonsai master gave out instructions on how the thief could care for the plant so it doesn't die, as he felt it was his child. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Billy Joel got into an argument with a younger man about what the worst era to be young in was. The younger man told Joel that at least he got to grow up in the 50s when "nothing happened." Flabbergasted, Joel began listing the events of the 50s, which later became "We Didn't Start the Fire" (old.reddit.com)
TIL John Krasinski wore a wig in season 3 of The Office so he could film Leatherheads. Krasinski pitched the idea to the producer who rejected it because it would be too obvious. John, who was wearing the wig during the meeting, told him it wouldn't be, took off the wig, and was granted approval. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Tim Curry, a lifelong Scooby-Doo fan, was offered the villain role in the 2002 Scooby-Doo movie, but turned it down after learning the film would include Scrappy-Doo, a character he disliked. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that in Moscow, packs of stray dogs will sometimes send out a smaller, cuter member to beg for food, apparently realising it will be more successful than its bigger, less attractive counterparts (old.reddit.com)
TIL When the British raised taxes on beer in the 17th century, they inadvertently made gin the cheapest alcoholic beverage in the country. The ensuing widespread consumption of gin led to substantial alcoholism problems in Britain, with the death rate overtaking the birth rate during this period (old.reddit.com)
TIL that at an Allied checkpoint during the Battle of the Bulge, US General Omar Bradley was detained as a possible spy when he correctly identified Springfield as the capital of Illinois. The American military police officer who questioned him mistakenly believed the capital was Chicago (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. recruit heavily from the Mormon population because they are usually cheaper to do a security clearance on, they often speak another language from their mission trips and they usually have a low risk lifestyle. (old.reddit.com)
TIL in 1928, the founder of Juilliard overheard an audition of someone improvising on a Rachmaninoff classic. Appalled, he went to confront the blasphemer, but found an 8yo Black girl (Hazel Scott), whose hands were too small to hit all the right keys. She was deemed a prodigy & accepted immediately (old.reddit.com)
TIL in 1998, Alex Trebek donated of 74 acres of open land (worth $2m at the time) in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills for the purpose of conservation and as a wildlife corridor (old.reddit.com)
TIL on the set of Blade: Trinity, Jessica Biel was supposed to fire an arrow directly at the camera, so the camera was surrounded by Plexiglass except for a 2" x 2" square in front of the camera lens. Biel managed to shoot the arrow through the hole and destroy the $300,000 camera. (old.reddit.com)
TIL GoldeneEye 007’s multiplayer mode was so last-minute that neither Rare nor Nintendo management knew about it. The first time executives saw anything was when programmers were playing it. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Joseph Bazalgette, the man who designed London's sewers in the 1860's, said 'Well, we're only going to do this once and there's always the unforeseen' and doubled the pipe diameter. If he had not done this, it would have overflowed in the 1960's (its still in use today). (old.reddit.com)
TIL Nicaraguan Sign Language is a sign language that spontaneously developed among deaf children in Nicaragua in the 1980s. It is of particular interest to linguists because it is believed to be to be an example of the birth of a new language, unrelated to any other. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Apple's policy of refusing to repair phones that have undergone "unauthorized" repairs is illegal in Australia due to their right to repair law. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Genghis Khan would marry off a daughter to the king of an allied nation. Then he would assign his new son in law to military duty in the Mongol wars, while his daughter took over the rule. Most sons in law died in combat, giving his daughters complete control of these nations (old.reddit.com)
TIL that eight years after JFK’s assassination, Jackie Kennedy avoided the public unveiling of their White House portraits, but the Nixons graciously agreed to a secret, private tour for her and her kids. It was her only return visit. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that William Whipple, one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, freed his slave after signing it because he believed one cannot simultaneously fight for freedom and hold another person in bondage. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Shia LaBeouf came under heavy fire for plagiarizing his directorial debut in 2012. When he publicly apologized to the original artist, Dan Clowes, people discovered that Shia's apology was itself plagiarized verbatim off a Yahoo Answers post from 2010. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that graffiti artist Banksy sought to trademark his image of a protester throwing flowers. The trademark office denied it on the grounds of him having no interest in selling his work. In the ruling they used a quote from one of Banksy's books: "copyright is for losers" (old.reddit.com)
TIL Judge Judy earns $47 MILLION a year for taping 'Judge Judy.' In an interview she said that every 3 years she would present her salary request to the CBS TV Distribution President. Once, when he gave her a counter offer in an envelope, she refused to open it saying "This isn't a negotiation." (old.reddit.com)
TIL Larry Hillblom, the H of DHL, regularly took "sex safari" trips to Asia to prey on underage girls. When he died in a plane crash, 4 of the illegitimate children he fathered were able to claim $50 million each from his estate. (old.reddit.com)
TIL when game designer Tim Schafer was interviewed to work at LucasArts, he said he was a fan of their game "Ballblaster." The interviewer told him their game was titled "Ballblazer" and only pirated copies were named "Ballblaster." He eventually got the job, and co-created Secret of Monkey Island. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has disdain for money and large wealth accumulation. In 2017 he said he didn’t want to be near money, because it could corrupt your values. When Apple went public, Wozniak offered $10 million of his stock to early Apple employees, something Jobs refused to do. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Steve Jobs never coded for Apple. According to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, he didn't do any original design and one of Apple's earliest employees also stated that Woz was the inventor while Jobs was the marketing person. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that a school principal once made a student who'd gotten into trouble sit in the basement & read the U.S. Constitution as punishment. That student (who committed the Constitution to memory as a result) was Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first Black Supreme Court justice. (old.reddit.com)
TIL a majority of the people Christopher Walken interacted with as a child were non-native English speakers, including his father. Walken attributes his unique halting speaking style to watching people hesitate to think of the right English word. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Eddie Murphy recorded "Party All The Time" following a $1 million bet with Richard Pryor that he couldn't sing. The album it appears on is dedicated to Pryor, with the liner notes reading "To Richard Pryor, my idol with whom I have a $1,000,000 bet. No Mother Fucker, I didn't forget." (old.reddit.com)
TIL that in the 1830s the Swedish Navy planted 300 000 oak trees to be used for ship production in the far future. When they received word that the trees were fully grown in 1975 they had little use of them as modern warships are built with metal. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the chief baker on the Titanic, Charles Joughin, drank an entire bottle of whiskey as the ship sank and spent 3 hours in the -2°c waters before he was rescued alive (old.reddit.com)
TIL of Loren Krytzer, a man who was living on $200 a month when he sold a 'worthless' blanket for $1.5 million. He learned the value of this Navajo blanket while watching an episode of Antiques Roadshow, where a similar blanket was appraised. The winner of the auction was the appraiser from the show (old.reddit.com)
TIL that 30 years ago you had 15-17 minutes to escape a house fire. Nowadays you only have 3-5 minutes (due to more plastics & petroleum-based products in the house as well as more open floor plans, bigger rooms, & higher ceilings). (old.reddit.com)
TIL astronomer Harlow Shapley firmly believed that there was only one galaxy in the universe but when he was presented with an evidence that disproved his view, he said "it destroyed his universe." Then he completely changed his view and devoted his subsequent career in mapping 76,000 galaxies. (old.reddit.com)
TIL after Marcelo Bielsa became manager of Leeds United FC, he found out that the average fan had to work 3 hours to pay for a match ticket. He called his players together and made them pick up litter from around the training ground for 3 hours, to appreciate how the fans laboured for their passion (old.reddit.com)
TIL That fungi are growing on the walls of Chernobyl's ruined nuclear reactor. They seem to absorb radiation and convert it into chemical energy for growth. (old.reddit.com)
TIL George Clooney purchased a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named Max as a gift for then girlfriend, actress Kelly Preston. When their relationship ended, Clooney kept the pig for an additional 18 years until Max died in 2006. He has jokingly referred to Max as the longest relationship he had ever had (old.reddit.com)
TIL Honeybee venom rapidly kills aggressive breast cancer cells and when the venom's main component is combined with existing chemotherapy drugs, it is extremely efficient at reducing tumour growth in mice (old.reddit.com)
TIL Bob the Railway dog would hitch rides on the South Australian Railways system, travelling thousands of miles sitting in front of the coal space. He had no master but was loved by engineers and trainmen. He was given a collar that read- Stop me not, but let me jog, For I am Bob, the drivers dog. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Pixar's Cars lost the 2006 Best Animated Feature Oscar to Happy Feet, which used motion capture technology. Their next film, Ratatouille, has a stamp in the credits saying "100% Genuine Animation! No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used in the production of this film" (old.reddit.com)
TIL Tchaikovsky had a patron who gave him enough money to quit his job and become a full-time composer, on the condition that they never meet in person. (old.reddit.com)
TIL a field of seagrass converts carbon dioxide to oxygen at over 8x the rate of a forest the same size. (old.reddit.com)
TIL of Jólabókaflóðið, an Icelandic tradition of giving books at Christmas. Books are so popular as gifts that, per capita, they read the most books on Earth and publishing occurs just months before Christmas. Many celebrate Christmas by lying in bed eating chocolates and reading one of their books! (old.reddit.com)
237. [今天我学到了]相机公司柯达在1975年创造了世界上第一台数码相机，但选择了15年不生产任何数码产品，因为他们担心这会侵蚀他们的模拟胶片销售。到那时，市场已经人满为患，他们再也没有恢复过来。
TIL That the camera company Kodak created the world's first digital camera in 1975 but chose not to produce any digital products for FIFTEEN YEARS, because they were worried that it might eat into their sales of analog film. By that point the market was crowded and they never recovered. (old.reddit.com)
TIL African elephants often bury dead or sleeping humans or aid them when they are hurt. One woman fell asleep under a tree and woke to find an elephant standing over her gently touching her. As other elephants arrived they buried her under branches. She was found the next morning unharmed. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Frank Sinatra died the night of Seinfeld's finale and his ambulance made it to the hospital in record time because traffic was so light due to everyone watching the show. (old.reddit.com)
TIL the Make-a-Wish Foundation granted a child to visit the set of Thor: Ragnarok. When Thor sees Hulk enter the arena on Sakaar, the child said Thor should say "He's a friend from work!" (old.reddit.com)
TIL that when filming the TV series "The Mandalorian" in 2019, the crew ran out of Stormtrooper costumes, so they reached out to the local branch of a Star Wars fan organisation, whose members came to join the filming in their own home-made Stormtrooper costumes (old.reddit.com)
TIL Carrie Fisher was a highly regarded Script Doctor; someone who does uncredited rewrites on screenplays. She did rewrites on Hook, Lethal Weapon 3 and The Wedding Singer among many others (old.reddit.com)
TIL Edgar Allen Poe died mysteriously after having been missing for six days. Though still alive when he was finally found, he was wearing someone else’s cheap clothes and not coherent enough to tell where he’d been. He had disappeared en route to his own wedding. (old.reddit.com)
TIL, That since domestication, dogs' eyes have changed. Dogs now have eye muscles that make them more expressive and infant-like. These same muscles are absent in wolves, their closest relative. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that In 2018, A hacker broke into people’s routers (100,000 of them) and patched their vulnerabilities up so that they couldn’t be abused by other hackers. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Theodore Roosevelt's 1880 undergraduate thesis at Harvard was titled: "The Practicability of Equalizing Men and Women before the Law" which argued for women's rights, including property ownership, and argued that women ought to keep their birth names upon marrying. (old.reddit.com)
TIL before his murder spree that resulted in the deaths of 16 people, Charles Whitman left a note requesting an autopsy to see if there was a biological explanation for his actions, and increasingly intense headaches. The autopsy performed found that he a "pecan-sized," brain tumor. (old.reddit.com)
TIL Rome has major struggles with expanding the subway system in the city because diggers keep running into major archaeological finds. The Metro C expansion has been in the works for the past 40 years and has unearthed Hadrian's Athenaeum, a military complex, and an amphitheater . (old.reddit.com)
TIL Curry was introduced to Japan by the British. The British brought curry from India back to Britain and introduced it to Japan after it ended its policy of self-isolation. Curry in Japan is categorized as a Western dish (old.reddit.com)
TIL James Earl Jones decided to go uncredited for his role of voicing Darth Vader because he considered David Prowse’s performance inside the Vader costume to be the more defining of the two performances. (old.reddit.com)
TIL firefighters that responded to last year's fire at Notre Dame knew which works of art to rescue and in which order following a protocol developed for such a disaster. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that one reason Lyndon B. Johnson did not run for re-election was because a study he commissioned had predicted he would die at 64 and thus may not make it through a 2nd term. True enough, he would die on 22 January 1973 at 64, 2 days after what would have been the end of his 2nd term. (old.reddit.com)
TIL, the Brussel sprouts grown today taste better because they are genetically different. In the 1990's a Dutch research identified heirloom varieties that are less bitter and bred them to be tastier and have a higher yield. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that Suzanne Somers was fired from 'Three’s Company' for asking for equal pay with her male co-star, John Ritter, who was earning five times her salary. (old.reddit.com)
TIL about the symbiotic relationship of wolves and ravens. Ravens will lead wolves to prey so that they can take a portion of the leftovers, play games of tail chasing with each other, and develop individual friendships. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that due to a strong dislike towards mixing of science and politics, Einstein said were he a young man again, he'd choose to be a plumber or a peddler, to which many plumbing companies responded by making him the honorary plumber. Also, there are many Einstein Plumbing companies in the US now. (old.reddit.com)
TIL that the most common last name among American physicians is no longer "Smith", it's "Patel". (old.reddit.com)
TIL - CIA revealed a "heart attack" gun in 1975. A battery operated gun which fired a dart of frozen water & shellfish toxin. Once inside the body it would melt leaving only a small red mark on the victim where it entered. The official cause of death would always be a heart attack. (old.reddit.com)
TIL In the Netherlands, if you die and have no next of kin, friends or family to attend your funeral, they will send a poet who shall read a custom poem for you at your funeral so that you won’t be alone that day. It was started by poet and artist F Staril and is named "The Lonely Funeral" project. (old.reddit.com)
TIL That in 2007, Rockstar Games allowed fans to call a number and rant about what they thought was wrong with America. The best calls were featured on a radio station in "Grand Theft Auto IV" (old.reddit.com)