Today I Learned 🎓

13 ноября 2024 05:49

TIL Mozart, Lenin and Hitler were all regulars at the very same bar [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

13 ноября 2024 00:49

TIL Amanita phalloides (also known as death cap) is the most poisonous of all known mushrooms. It is estimated that as little as half a mushroom contains enough toxin to kill an adult human. It is also the deadliest mushroom worldwide, responsible for 90% of mushroom-related fatalities every year. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 22:50

TIL that in 1962, NASA launched the Mariner 1 spacecraft to Venus, but it missed its target by over 100,000 miles. The failure was traced back to a single misplaced hyphen in the spacecraft’s software code, showing how even the smallest errors can have enormous consequences in space missions. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 21:49

TIL researchers studying nominative determinism found that orthopedic surgeons are more likely to have the surname "Limb" than is expected by chance (Limb, Limb, Limb, & Limb, 2015) [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 17:50

TIL Lucy Liu does erotic lesbian art [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 16:50

TIL that in 1835, Richard Lawrence attempted to assassinate President Andrew Jackson, marking the first such attempt on a sitting U.S. president. Lawrence's two pistols both misfired, allowing Jackson who was 67 at the time to respond by beating him with his cane until he was restrained. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 15:50

TIL that the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, Alessandra Mussolini, was a J-Pop singer for a while and has an album which was sold for £4,500 GBP (£10,000,000 ITL) in 2000. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 13:49

TIL Japan railway platforms saw a 84 percent decrease in suicides at stations after they installed blue lights. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 08:49

TIL in 1982, 7 people in the Chicago area died after ingesting Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. James William Lewis sent an extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson, demanding $1 million to "stop the killings." While he was convicted of extortion, he was never charged with the murders. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 04:49

TIL certain East Asian physical traits, like thicker hair, more sweat glands, distinct teeth, and smaller breasts, stem from a gene mutation about 35,000 years ago. Africans and Europeans usually carry the ancestral version of the gene, but in most East Asians, one of the DNA units has mutated. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 03:49

TIL In 1921 conman Stanley Clifford Weyman posed as a U.S. naval officer and convinced an Afghan Princess to give him $10,000 to set up a meeting with the President. He spent it on travel and lodging for her, and got her a meeting with the President. The ensuing press coverage led to his arrest. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 01:49

TIL of Sarah Baartman, the "Hottentot Venus", an African woman from the Khoikhoi tribe who was brought to Regency-era London to showcase her large buttocks. She was depicted in cartoons comparing behinds with Whig politician William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, who was nicknamed "broad bottom". [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 ноября 2024 23:49

TIL The 80 year old Archbishop of Canterbury refused to delegate Edward VII's coronation despite his ailing health. His speech was printed in gigantic letters so he could see it, he couldn't get back up after kneeling, he placed the crown backwards and yelled "go away!" when asked if he was ok [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 ноября 2024 22:49

TIL: There is a figure known as the "unluckiest man in Pompeii". In 2018, archaeologists uncovered his skeleton and a rock where his head should've been, he got struck by the rock and his skull was found in a tunnel a distance away. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 ноября 2024 19:49

TIL that in 2017, an AI developed by Facebook created its own language to negotiate and communicate more efficiently, using shorthand phrases humans couldn’t understand. Researchers had to shut it down because the AI diverged so far from English, it was no longer interpretable [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

13 ноября 2024 03:49

TIL that John Wilkes Booth was present at the hanging of John Brown. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 23:50

TIL that a study shows wearing a mask decreased the quality of chess players’ decisions—a measure of their cognitive performance. However, the disruptive effect of masks is relatively short-lived, gradually weakening so that there is no measurable disadvantage after roughly 4 hours of play. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 21:49

TIL the 'Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills' or Pretty Boy Floyd was a thief in the 1930's who was touted as a hero for destroying mortgage documents whenever he robbed a bank. His funeral had over 20,000 people attend to pay their respects. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 20:50

TIL Since 1950, the Catholic Church has recognized Darwinian evolution as being compatible with Christian beliefs. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 17:50

TIL that 1 out of every 8 Americans has worked at a McDonalds at some point in their life. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 16:50

TIL economists estimate that only 8 percent of the world's currency exists as physical cash [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 15:50

TIL that single men in 1900s Argentina paid "professional lady rejectors" to avoid bachelor tax [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 12:49

TIL "Bezoar stones", undigested matter in porcupines, proboscis monkeys, and other animal's intestines, were once prized in Europe and Asia as magical cure-all stones and worn by royalty on rings. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 05:49

TIL that at the end of the movie A League of Their Own, Dottie is not being played by Geena Davis in age makeup. She's played by actress Lynn Cartwright, who looks strikingly similar to Geena Davis, with Davis's voice dubbed over for the scenes. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 03:49

TIL Pablo Escobar, the infamous Colombian drug lord, invested millions in developing Medellín's impoverished neighborhoods. He funded the construction of housing complexes, parks, football stadiums, hospitals, schools, and churches, earning him a reputation among some as "Robin Hood." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 01:49

TIL Tibetan monks practice chöd, a ritual involving meditation in haunted places and visualizing offering their own bodies to spirits as a feast. They spend nights in graveyards, aiming to dissolve ego, confront mortality, and transcend fear, achieving compassion and detachment by embracing death. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 ноября 2024 00:49

TIL 33% of American women met weekly recommendations for aerobic exercise, as opposed to 43% for men. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 ноября 2024 23:49

TIL that over 50% of all suicides are associated with alcohol/other drug dependences [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 ноября 2024 20:50

TIL there is no official "national identity card" in the United States. Most Americans use their driver’s license as a national identification. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 ноября 2024 19:49

TIL Al Capone, America’s most notorious gangster sponsored the charity that served up three hot meals a day to thousands of the unemployed—no questions asked. [Source]