We all probably carry around random pieces of information that we pull out once in a while as a party trick. For example, I like to tell people that it would take them 19 minutes to fall to the center of the earth.

If only there was a way to share these utterly amazing facts with millions of people the moment you learn about them. Fortunately for us, there is, and it’s called the “Today I Learned” subreddit.

It’s a place where all-knowing people of the earth gather to share their unlimited wisdom with others. From fake diseases to tombs for dogs, these pieces of information really enrich one’s brain. So scroll down to find the all-time best collection of random facts about everything and anything. Perhaps they’ll even inspire some fun trivia for your next dinner party with friends.

#1

TIL a guide dog named Roselle led a group of people including her blind owner down 78 flights of stairs before the North Tower collapsed on 9/11. She only stopped to give kisses to a woman who was having a panic attack.

Image credits: money.cnn

#2

TIL of Syndrome K: a fake disease that Italian doctors made up to save Jews who had fled to their hospital seeking protection from the Nazis. Syndrome K “patients” were quarantined and the Nazis were told that it was a deadly, disfiguring, and highly contagious illness. They saved at least 20 lives.

Image credits: mentalfloss

#3

TIL the former World Chess Champion G. Kasparov described Hungarian female chess player Polgár as a “circus puppet” and said that women chess players should stick to having children. Later in September 2002, in the Russia versus the Rest of the World Match, Polgár defeated Garry Kasparov.

Image credits: qasqaldag

Indeed, trivia games can be great fun. Not only that, but it keeps up good brain health, reduces stress, and improves memory retention.

Think of it as a workout for your mind. It needs exercise to stay in its best shape. Quickly delivering niche facts is an effective way to exercise the brain’s frontal cortex, which is responsible for memory function. In return, your brain becomes sharper, and the information is retained more easily.

#4

TIL hundreds of love letters between two gay World War II soldiers were found and are being made into a book. In one, one of them wrote, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.”

Image credits: mike_pants

#5

TIL:In January 1960, white jazz pianist Dave Brubeck canceled a twenty-five-date tour of colleges and universities across the American South after twenty-two schools had refused to allow his black bassist, Eugene Wright, to perform. He also canceled a tv show where they didn’t want to show him.

Image credits: danruse

#6

TIL During the American Revolution, an enslaved man was charged with treason and sentenced to hang. He argued that as a slave, he was not a citizen and could not commit treason against a government to which he owed no allegiance. He was subsequently pardoned.

Image credits: wikipedia

This game is as much about gaining new knowledge as it is about recalling old tidbits of information. It’s rare to know everything and get a perfect score, so naturally, there will be questions that leave participants baffled. Learning the correct answers keeps brain functions working. Additionally, studies have found a positive connection between intellectually engaging activities such as trivia and higher cognition.

#7

TIL In 1959, police were called to a segregated library in S. Carolina when a 9yr-old Black boy refused to leave. He later got a PhD in Physics from MIT, and died in 1986, one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Challenger. The library that refused to lend him books is now named after him.

Image credits: wikipedia

#8

TIL of Dr. Donald Hopkins. He helped eradicate Smallpox, and is on the verge of killing another disease. He’s taken Guinea Worm Disease down from 3.5 million cases a year to just 28 cases last year.

Image credits: atlantamagazine

#9

TIL Romans were known to create tombs for their dogs and gave them epitaphs to remember them by. One such inscription read, “I am in tears, while carrying you to your last resting place as much as I rejoiced when bringing you home with my own hands 15 years ago.”

Image credits: unnaturalorder

It also has the benefit of reducing stress and making us feel better. Focusing strictly on the game offers a great distraction from whatever is making one feel anxious or stressed. Also, getting together in a relaxed environment is a good opportunity to blow off some steam.

#10

TIL A Japanese company has awarded its non-smoking employees 6 extra vacation days to compensate for the smoker’s smoke breaks.

Image credits: cnbc

#11

TIL that in 1920, the town of Jackson, Wyoming elected an all-female town council by a margin of 2-1 over the men, drawing the most voters the town had ever seen. Known as the “pettycoat rulers,” the women served for 3 years and did a great deal to clean up the notoriously lawless town.

Image credits: featheredoctopus

#12

TIL when NASA used electronic computers for the first time – to calculate John Glenn’s orbit around Earth – officials called on Katherine Johnson to verify the computer’s numbers; Glenn had asked for her specifically and had refused to fly unless Johnson verified the calculations.

Image credits: riedmae

Playing, especially winning, can release a rush of dopamine in the brain, making the person feel satisfied, excited, and even euphoric. Unlike gambling, this surge of feel-good chemicals from trivia doesn’t have any negative effects. Providing all the more reason to participate!

#13

TIL of Adolfo Kaminsky, a 18 year-old French forger who faked IDs for Jews during WWII. He once worked for 3 days straight to make papers for 300 children until he passed out. He kept his work a secret – his own daughter only learned the details while writing a book about him.

Image credits: blueberrisorbet

#14

TIL that everyone in Singapore above the age of 21 is automatically registered as an organ donor. Opting out from this Act will result in you being put at the very bottom of the organ priority list, should you need an organ transplantation.

Image credits: _crash182

#15

TIL Dogs get sprayed by Skunks so often because Skunks lift their tails as a warning, Dogs see this as “Come smell my butt” which is the EXACT OPPOSITE MESSAGE from what the Skunk is trying to send.

Image credits: discoverwildcare

Tony Hightowere is a trivia professional who won $250,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, is a Jeopardy! champion, and has hosted quiz game nights for over a decade. So, he pretty much knows everything there is about preparing for an unpredictable quiz.

He told Inverse (a scientific media outlet) that trivia night participants don’t actually need to have natural recall abilities to win. According to him, it’s all about knowing the game: understanding how the questions are asked, what they’ll be like, and how to make a rational guess quickly

#16

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.

Image credits: SawOnGam

#17

In World War 1, Nobel prize winning physicist Marie Curie developed mobile X-Ray stations to travel to the frontlines and assist army surgeons and preventing amputations when limbs were still intact. It’s estimated that over a million wounded soldiers were x-rayed with her units.

Image credits: MrFlow

#18

TIL after losing her position in her university’s anatomy department in 1938, Rita Levi-Montalcini set up a laboratory in her bedroom and studied the growth of nerve fibers in chicken embryos. This work led to her discovery of nerve growth factor, for which she was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1986.

Image credits: DioriteLover

The better strategy here is to stay curious and read. “The more curious you are, the better off you’re going to be. That’s kind of a good lesson in life anyway.” The more you practice this, you’ll find that something you read this week connects with that from last week, which makes it easier to remember.

He believes that books can only go so far, and it’s a matter of engaging with the world and receiving information from various sources that’s beneficial.

#19

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.

Image credits: Tipper92

#20

After Universidad del Mar was closed by Chilean government due to major financial irregularities, artist Papas Fritas managed to enter its vault and burn tuition contracts amounting to $500 million, making difficult to prove students owed the university this money.

Image credits: Johannes_P

#21

In 1936 Orson Welles produced and directed a version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth with an all-Black cast.

Image credits: mellowmonk

Hightowere also advised that those who wish to get into trivia should start watching as many game shows as possible. Wikipedia surfing is also an underrated skill that could be a great place to start. This includes opening the site, clicking on random articles, and just getting lost in reading.

He further suggests taking a look at online games like “QuizUp, and not being afraid to go to trivia nights. The great thing about them is that they’re social, and you get to spend a night out with friends without talking about your jobs or relationships.”

To him, that’s how you get better at trivia—by focusing and paying attention to it.

#22

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.

Image credits: LegendLarrynumero1

#23

TIL that a 13-year-old opened a hot dog stand in front of his home in Minnesota, causing a complaint to the health department. Instead of shutting him down, the inspectors helped him bring his stand up to code and paid the $87 fee for his permit out of their own pockets.

Image credits: ukriva13

#24

TIL that paper books still outsells e-books by a huge margin, even among young people.

Image credits: MyStolenCow

But the top secret that he reveals is to go to your local quizzes and check out what kind of questions they ask. Some hosts focus on politics or the classics, while others will only ask about what’s trending at the moment. Being aware of the questions can help score a win.

#25

TIL mercy dogs were trained during World War I to comfort mortally wounded soldiers as they died in no man’s land.

Image credits: PageTurner627

#26

TIL A Scottish woman was sentenced to death by hanging around 1721. Maggie Dickson was hung, declared dead, put in a wooden coffin and carted off. She woke up en route to the churchyard, the law said her sentence had been carried out and she lived another 40 years known as ‘Half-hangit Maggie’.

Image credits: bredec

#27

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.

Image credits: brucejoel99

He reminds us that trivia covers a lot, so it’s unattainable to research everything. Start somewhere you like, and then take one step further into something you’re not really familiar with. It’s best to stay curious and keep the ground under one’s feet moving.

#28

TIL that Bill Murray once drove a taxi cab so that the cab driver could spend time playing saxophone in the backseat. The cab driver mentioned that he never had time to play his sax since he had to work 14 hours a day. Murray took the driver’s seat so that he could finally play some tunes.

Image credits: pnutbuttafly

#29

TIL that the firm Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees on 9/11. The CEO, who was taking his child to school that day, later distributed $180 million to the families and offered jobs to all children of the victims. 57 of those children were employed by Cantor Fitzgerald as of 2016.

Image credits: theremarkableamoeba

#30

The Curie family is the family with the most Nobel Prizes. Marie Curie won two Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry. Her husband Pierre Curie won a Nobel in physics. Their daughter Irène Joliot-Curie won a Nobel prize in chemistry.

Image credits: [deleted]

#31

In 2015, a plane made an emergency landing after the crew received an indication of smoke in the cargo hold. It turns out to be caused by the 2,186 sheep farting onboard.

Image credits: qmzwnxo

#32

TIL about the Danish Protest Pig. In the early 20th century, Danes living under Prussian rule were banned from displaying the Danish flag. To protest this, they bred pigs with a red and white color pattern similar to their flag. The breed is now called “Danish Protest Pig”.

Image credits: captaingary

#33

TIL Prairie dog language is complex. They don’t just have a call for “danger”: their calls differentiate human, hawk, domesticated dog, coyote etc. and specify size & color. One study found that they can communicate “Here comes the short human in the yellow” (vs the tall human in blue) to each other.

Image credits: lord_of_the_bees

#34

TIL in 1980 the FBI formed a fake company and attempted to bribe members of congress. Nearly 25% of those tested accepted the bribe, and were convicted.

Image credits: MildlySuspicious

#35

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.

Image credits: malalatargaryen

#36

TIL: Researchers taught African grey parrots to buy food using tokens. They were then paired up, one parrot given ten tokens and the other none. Without any incentive for sharing, parrots with tokens started to give some to their broke partners so that everyone could eat.

Image credits: SeizeOpportunity

#37

TIL: In a village in India, an Indian robin had made a nest and laid her eggs on the village’s switchboard. The village decided to go without street lights for over a month for the safety of the bird and to allow her eggs to hatch. After 45 days, the bird and its hatchlings safely flew away.

Image credits: SeizeOpportunity

#38

TIL there’s a cemetery in the Netherlands consisting of 8,300 US veterans who died in WWII. For the past 70 years, Dutch families have come to the cemetery every Sunday to care for a grave they adopted. Hundreds of people are currently on a waiting list to become caretakers.

Image credits: HeadbangerNeckInjury

#39

Penguins can drink saltwater because of glands near their eyes that remove salt from their bloodstream and then they can sneeze out the extra salt.

Image credits: _maybe-indecisive_

#40

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.

Image credits: _pancake_lover_

#41

TIL that Majel Barrett, the voice of the Starfleet computer on Star Trek, recorded an entire library of phonetic sounds before she died which allowed her voice to be used as the computer for future generations.

Image credits: [deleted]

#42

TIL that Russian President Boris Yeltsin once got so drunk at a state dinner that he drummed on Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev’s bald head, using dinner spoons.

Image credits: chubwhump

#43

TIL Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks containing an image of Yoda sitting next to King Faisal while he signed the 1945 UN charter.

Image credits: geek_fest

#44

TIL of Diego, a tortoise whose high libido helped save his species. He & E5 (another male) brought the population from 15 to 2,000, and now the species is considered self-sufficient. After 80 years in captivity, Diego is now retired in the Galápagos, where he’ll spend the rest of his life having sex.

Image credits: howmuchbanana

#45

TIL that baby owls sleep down on their stomach because their heads are too heavy. They do that until they are large enough to sleep upright.

Image credits: SnailGirl-3310

#46

TIL – In order to bolster its waning popularity as a travel hub, Japan’s Kishigawa Train Line appointed a cat named Tama as its new station master in 2007, leading to a huge spike in popularity as a tourist destination. In 2010 a second cat was hired to “assist” Tama with her duties.

Image credits: SavoirFlaire

#47

TIL the great smog of London in 1952 was so bad that pedestrians couldn’t even see their feet. Some of the 4,000 who died in the 5 days it lasted didn’t suffer lung problems – they fell into the Thames and drowned because they could not see the river.

Image credits: Scrolling2Oblivian

#48

TIL If you grind a marine sponge through a sieve into salt water, it’ll reorganize itself back into a sponge. It’s the only animal that we know of that can do that.

Image credits: thn87

#49

Vears at Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in Montana have jobs: try to open coolers/dumpsters/containers of treats. If bears can’t make more than a tiny hole, the item is certified bear-proof. The GWDC is the only place where products can earn a certificate from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.

Image credits: Miskatonica

#50

Some elephants eat off a specific tree to induce labor – the same tree which Kenyan women brew a tea of for the same purpose

Image credits: AngryPB

#51

TIL of Waverly Woodson, a black medic who treated at least 200 injured men on D-Day while injured himself. As he hit the beach a shell tore apart his landing craft, filling him with shrapnel. Despite this, he set up an aid station and treated wounds for 30 hours, at one point even amputating a foot.

Image credits: SomeGuy671

#52

TIL of a French soldier who was taken as a POW and fed only potatoes during his captivity, and survived. Feeling like he should have died, he made it his life’s mission to convince the world of the nutritional value of potatoes, and his tomb in France is decorated with potatoes as a tribute.

Image credits: bearjew64

#53

There is an Australian pine growing out of an old railroad bridge in the Florida Keys named Fred the Tree. Fred survives with salt spray, lots of sunshine, and no apparent soil. Fred even withstood Hurricane Irma!

Image credits: llama_in_galoshes

#54

TIL in 1992, a California middle school ordered teachers to cover up all “obscene” words in Fahrenheit 451 with black marker before issuing copies to students. The school stopped this practice after local newspapers commented on the irony of defacing a book that condemns censorship.

Image credits: evilclownattack

#55

TIL: In order to get improvements in their job security amidst the emergence of a rival bus line, bus drivers in Okayama, Japan decided to go on strike in a unique way in 2018. While on strike, they supported the community by continuing to drive their routes, but simply not charging customers.

Image credits: SeizeOpportunity

#56

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.

Image credits: SeizeOpportunity

#57

TIL A Stolen teddy bear with dying mother’s voice has been returned after actor Ryan Reynolds and other celebrities offered a $15,000 reward.

Image credits: phantom416

#58

TIL that in 1916 there was a proposed Amendment to the US Constitution that would put all acts of war to a national vote, and anyone voting yes would have to register as a volunteer for service in the United States Army.

Image credits: bpbucko614

#59

Elinor Powell was a black nurse who served during WWII. She was assigned to work at a POW camp, like most African-American nurses at the time, and fell in love with a German POW there. They married and had children despite it being illegal in both the U.S and Germany during this time period.

Image credits: [deleted]

#60

TIL scientists used 2,000 year old seeds to regrow an extinct species of date tree. The tree long disappeared from the Judean desert but archeologists found seeds on digs. Surprisingly, the seeds worked and grew a male and female of the species. They hope to use them to produce biblical era dates.

Image credits: _MikePossibly_

#61

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.

Image credits: malalatargaryen

#62

TIL that in September 1945 Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett defied US restrictions and snuck into Hiroshima by train. Burchett was the first to tell the world about the effects of radiation on the victims of the bombing, which the US denied both before and after his story was published.

Image credits: brg36

#63

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 (it’s still in use today).

Image credits: james8475

#64

TIL that Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream” was painted on cardboard.

Image credits: Twizzyu

#65

The California Genocide, an oft-forgotten event in U.S. history due to occurring at the same time at the California Gold Rush. The Native American population of California decreased from as many as 150,000 in 1848 to 30,000 in 1870. Tribes such as the Yahi were hunted to extinction.

Image credits: cityboy2

#66

In 2014, four tenants refused to move out of their homes when developers wanted to create one of the most exclusive residences in Manhattan. Eventually, they all received huge payouts. The last tenant was so savvy and stubborn he received $17 million, plus use of a $2 million residence for life.

Image credits: WhileFalseRepeat

#67

Ancient Egyptians would shave off their eyebrows when their cats died and shave off all body hair (including their head) when their dog died to mourn until it grew back.

Image credits: [deleted]

#68

TIL: Late wrestler Bam Bam Bigelow once saved three children from a burning house and 40% of his skin was left with second degree burns forcing him to retire and hospitalized for two months. Bam Bam said he had “no regrets” of his act of courage, as long as all three kids were safe.

Image credits: [deleted]

#69

TIL that for 18 months, a village in Wales was mystified as to why their broadband internet crashed at 7am every morning, until engineers “picked up a large burst of electrical interference” springing from one dude turning on his very old TV.

Image credits: ColinOfEmpressCards

#70

TIL of the Schiphol fly, which is a fly engraved on urinals at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The psychology is that men will want to “wash” the fly off the urinal so they focus more when urinating, apparently lowering cleaning bills in public bathrooms.

Image credits: [deleted]

#71

Danny DeVito did the dub for his role as the titular character in The Lorax (2012) in Russian, German, Italian, Catalan, and Castilian Spanish, despite not speaking any of those languages.

Image credits: shoeswontwork

#72

There is a street that is split down the middle by the USA-Canadian border, aptly named Canusa street. People who live in houses on the south side of the street are in the USA, and the north side, in Canada. Crossing the street requires having to report to the border crossing office.

Image credits: russianlexicon

#73

After the 2011 Japanese nuclear plant in Fukushima was disabled by an earthquake tsunami double whammy, elderly Japanese people volunteered to do repairs to save young people from radiation exposure.

Image credits: Grogu4Ever

#74

An 11 year old girl could not afford running shoes, so she wrapped her feet in tape and drew a Nike logo on it. She won several gold medals in local competitions.

Image credits: reddit.com

#75

TIL that elephants are tremendous distance swimmers. They can swim for up to six hours and 25 miles (48km). They are so buoyant that if they tire in the water, they can just rest by floating and will not sink. They can also use their trunk as a snorkel and dive.

Image credits: itsmelen

#76

Researchers found that a blood test called PanSeer detected cancer in 95% of patients up to 4 years before they got a conventional cancer diagnosis. The test determines if the DNA in blood plasma was shed by tumours based on precence of particular methyl groups.

Image credits: Miskatonica

#77

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).

Image credits: NuevoJerz

#78

Slaveholders in the US knew that enslaved people were escaping to Mexico, the U.S. tried to get Mexico to sign a fugitive slave treaty, but Mexico refused to sign such a treaty, insisting that all enslaved people were free once they set foot on Mexican soil.

Image credits: [deleted]

#79

Mexico passed a law that requires food packages to display large black octagonal “warnings” if the product is high in sugar, sodium, calories, or unhealthy fats.

Image credits: Rishloos

#80

A pregnant mother with twins lost one fetus in the first trimester and the other developed a coccyx tumor the size of a fetus that was killing it. Doctors removed baby LynLee from the womb, cut off the tumor, then put her back in the womb and she was ‘born again’ healthy 12 weeks later.

Image credits: LurkmasterGeneral

#81

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.

Image credits: handlit33

#82

TIL of Ken Allen, a Borneo orangutan in the San Diego Zoo who escaped his enclosure three times. He never acted aggressively towards anyone during his escapes, and generally wandered around the zoo looking at other animals.

Image credits: nitrokitty

#83

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.

Image credits: what_is_the_deal_

#84

TIL: there are otter gangs in Singapore who fight for territories. It is well followed by the locals and the press. Each gangs has names and reputations.

Image credits: sage5979

#85

TIL Lithuania withdrew from the 1992 Olympics due to the lack of money after the fall of the USSR. The Grateful Dead agreed to fund transportation costs for the basketball team along with Grateful Dead designs for the team’s jerseys and shorts. They went on to win the Bronze.

Image credits: Lakefargo

#86

Charles Lightoller the second officer on the Titanic stayed onboard untill the end. And got trapped underwater until a boiler explosion blew him free. He survived by clinging to a capsized collapsible B. Later he volunteered in WWII and helped evacuate over 120 men from Dunkirk.

Image credits: Much_Jackfruit5160

#87

TIL Noninvasive spinal stimulation enables paralyzed people to regain use of hands. A team of scientists reports that six people with severe spinal cord injuries — three of them completely paralyzed — have regained use of their hands and fingers.

Image credits: no_lifeguard_on_duti

#88

TIL about pack horse librarians that serviced the Appalachian communities (e.g., rural Kentucky) in the mid 1930s to early 1940s who were mostly women who rode on horses or mules to deliver library books to remote communities during the Great Depression.

Image credits: wyndwatcher

#89

TIL that the juggling done by David Bowie’s character in Labyrinth was actually performed by juggler Michael Moschen, who had to do all the tricks blind while standing behind Bowie. He won a MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” for his techniques a few years later in 1990.

Image credits: LorenzoApophis

#90

Dave Thomas (the founder of Wendy’s) was a high-school dropout. He was afraid his success would convince teens to drop out of school, so at age 60, he went back and got his GED.

Image credits: howmuchbanana

#91

Icelandic horses are not allowed to leave the country. If they do, they are banned from returning. This is because Iceland is an island so they have limited diseases, and this is another measure to prevent it.

Image credits: a_homosexual_carrot

#92

Bill Nye (of Science Guy fame) invented a hydraulic component used on the 747 airliners, and holds three patents for other inventions.

Image credits: Popular-Swordfish559

#93

TIL the founder of Hyundai was born to an impoverished family of peasants in what is now North Korea. In 1998, he sent 1001 cows to his hometown in North Korea as a repayment 1000 times over for a cow that he stole in the early 1930s to afford his train ticket to Seoul and escape from poverty.

Image credits: soyfox

#94

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.

Image credits: dremonearm

#95

TIL a study from Yale found that kids who watched ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood’ retained more information than children who watched ‘Sesame Street.’ They also had a higher ‘tolerance of delay’, meaning they were more patient.

Image credits: szekeres81

#96

TIL that the youngest French resistance hero was a little boy who acted as a courier for resistance fighters, slipping past enemy patrols and carrying messages. In 1950, he was posthumously awarded the rank of sergeant of the resistance. He was Marcel Pinte, and he died for France at the age of 6.

Image credits: Matt64360

#97

Vietnamese farmers after the war repurposed external fuel tanks jettisoned by American planes into river canoes, which have lasted for nearly 5 decades.

Image credits: ameck16

#98

TIL in the months before his sudden death, former Mythbuster Grant Imahara built a fully animatronic Baby Yoda. Having spent 3 months of his personal time designing, programming, and 3D printing the project, he intended to bring it to hospitals to cheer up sick children.

Image credits: GafferTapedPringles

#99

TIL people who speak Icelandic can still understand the old Icelandic Sagas because of how little the language has changed over the past 1000 years.

Image credits: Kool_Kow

#100

A Japanese ice cream company created a commercial to publicly apologize about needing to raise the price of their ice cream bars for the first time in 25 years from 60 yen to 70 yen.

Image credits: drdisney

#101

Walt Disney accidentally “kidnapped” Richard Nixon by dispatching his monorail train before the Secret Service could get on. The agents ran after the train and attempted to jump onboard but the doors had already closed. Monorail pilot Bob Gurr was terrified; Nixon got a kick out of it.

Image credits: WouldbeWanderer

#102

A species of Australian Nocturnal Ground Parrots thought to be extinct for 100 years were found by one man after 15 years of searching. His search began when he found one feather of this bird on a truck and traced it back to the farm of an Old Indigenous Gentleman.

Image credits: FT05-biggoye

#103

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.

Image credits: Wreserve

#104

TIL about Judith Catchpole, a young maidservant in the colony of Maryland, who was tried in 1656 for witchcraft and killing her newborn child. The judge summoned an all-female jury, who determined that Judith did not kill her child – in fact, there were no signs that Judith had even been pregnant.

Image credits: WouldbeWanderer

#105

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.

Image credits: coffeeinvenice

#106

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.

Image credits: mrcoolguy29

#107

TIL: Firefighters use wetting agents to make water wetter. The chemicals reduce the surface tension of plain water so it’s easier to spread and soak into objects, which is why it’s known as “wet water.”

Image credits: SirHermiOdle

#108

TIL Tomohiro Nishikado, creator of Space Invaders, made the entire game himself. Not only was he its designer, programmer, artist, and sound mixer, but he also engineered the game’s microcomputer from scratch.

Image credits: redmambo_no6

#109

TIL of a brawl involving 50 congressmen on the US House floor in 1858. It ended when someone knocked off a man’s wig and the man accidentally put it back on backwards, causing both sides to laugh and stop fighting.

Image credits: [deleted]

#110

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.

Image credits: [deleted]

#111

TIL that Shakuntala Devi from India, also known as the human computer, gave the 23rd root of a 201 digit number in 50 seconds. The answer was verified at the US Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.

Image credits: [deleted]

#112

TIL in the 5th century BC, diabetes was first identified by a surgeon named Sushruta who pointed out that the urine of diabetics was sweet enough to attract ants and sticky to the touch. He noted that diabetes affected rich castes and was related to the excessive consumption of rice and sweets.

Image credits: BigFatJoints

#113

Elephants can hear through both their ears and feet. Through special fat pads called digital cushions, they can hear sounds other elephants vocalize below the range of human hearing from many miles away. This helps warn them of far off danger, incoming floods, and rival elephants.

Image credits: Squaragus_Asparagus

#114

Whoopi Goldberg is the only person in the world to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, and Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award.

Image credits: TomNookTheCook

#115

TIL that A man named Göran Kropp from Sweden rode his bicycle to Nepal, climbed Mount Everest alone without Sherpas or bottled oxygen, then cycled back to Sweden again.

Image credits: SawOnGam

#116

TIL a doctor reviewed the injuries sustained by Marv and Harry in Home Alone 1 & 2, and concluded that 23 of the injuries would have resulted in death.

Image credits: what_is_the_deal_

#117

Not all people have an internal monologue and people with them typically have stronger mental visuals to accompany their verbal thoughts.

Image credits: hockeyh2opolo

#118

TIL That Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge child soldier has personally found and/or destroyed over 50,000 land mines. He now trains bomb experts, curates a mine museum, and advocates for demining and the victims of mines.

Image credits: Wordwind

#119

TIL that the stick — a small tree branch — was inducted into the (U.S.) National Toy Hall of Fame in 2008. Organizers called it one of the world’s oldest toys and said sticks “promote free play — the freedom to invent and discover.”

Image credits: PikesPique

#120

Dogs and cats circle around before bedding down as a throwback to their wild ancestors. Their survival instincts provoked them to position themselves in the direction of the wind to pick up predator scents and choose the best angle for keeping an eye on the environment.

Image credits: BrautanGud

Source: boredpanda.com