91 Interesting Facts For You To Remember When You Want To Surprise Your Friends (New Pics)
If you’re a fan of learning something new every day, you are probably well familiar with the ‘Today I Learned’ community, or TIL, for short. If you’re not, let us introduce you to one of the biggest treasure chests of interesting facts you can find online.
Created back in 2008, the community on Reddit now has over 40 million members, seeking to learn something new every day. So, if you’re eager to do the same, check out a sneak peek of what you can expect from the community on the list below. Or, browse our category of interesting facts for more similar content that can help you scratch that curious brain of yours.
On the list below you will also find Bored Panda’s interview with Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, Dr. James C. Kaufman, who was kind enough to answer a few of our questions.
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TIL that in 1978, a 30 people hostage situation in Melbourne was resolved when the perpetrators mother stormed the place, hit him over the head with her handbag and told him to "stop being so stupid".
Can I have older moms sorting the behaviour in trains? Slapping feet from seats etc?
I sit on people's bags if they have them on seats
Load More Replies...And the police department hired her immediately as their hostage negotiator.
I’m just imagining all these police standing around outside debating what to do, when in storms mama with a “I didn’t raise you like this you little s**t. Let them go!”
TIL Beastie Boys won a lawsuit for company using their songs "Girls" without permission, then donated all to a charity that is STEM programs for females.
All the musicians whose songs are being used by Trump, despite Cease and Desist being filed, should contact the Beastie Boys' attorney.
Fun Fact - you can file a cease and desist whether you have legal standing or not. Unfun Fact - you cannot prevent someone from using your song if you do not own the rights to it and the rights holder has licensed the use.
Load More Replies...There was a council area in Australia that was playing a Wiggles song (I think fruit salad?) non-stop in a public area to dissuade homeless people from congregating there, until the Wiggles made them stop. The council got a huge amount of backlash from it.
At night and during the weekend my credit union blast bagpipe music for this purpose. I don't love the whole trying to chase away the homeless thing (housing prices have skyrocketed here, it's a massive problem) BUT a homeless person did once set up camp in front of the only customer entrance and I'm not sure how that played out. He was there when I stopped by during non business hours to use the drive through atm and I don't know how long he stayed.
Load More Replies...Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Inner Excellence Boys, greatest rap group ever.
TIL a 2018 study found that male gorillas who participated the most in babysitting duties sired more than five times the offspring as male gorillas who avoided child care. Male gorillas are "often quite snuggly, letting infant and juvenile gorillas cuddle, play and just hang out in their nests."
I love watching these great silver backs dealing with the hectic antics of the young ones. They take it all in stride.
Everyone should go try this. Find your nearest zoo, climb in the gorilla pen, and try snuggling the biggest gorilla in there.
And then watch as the snipers execute the gorilla to protect the stupid from the innocent.
Load More Replies...Gorillas are like humans. If you want a little romance, show the woman you appreciate all she does
Talking about learning something new everyday, Dr. James C. Kaufman noted that, assuming what you’re learning is actually true and not misinformation, it can have a positive effect on your creativity.
“One way that we think of creative ideas is associating different concepts or ideas together in our minds. The more distant or random the connections, the better the chance that it can be creative – assuming we can think of something that is not only new but also useful or task-appropriate in some way,” the expert told Bored Panda. “Simply being able to make a connection between red pandas and Diet Mountain Dew together in your head would only be creative if you did something with it, such as draw a funny cartoon.”
TIL that while filming John Wick 4, Keanu Reeves gifted stunt performers customized T-shirts showing how many times they "died" in the film, with some dying over 20 times. His personal team of stuntmen also received custom Rolex Submariner watches after filming, as a token of appreciation.
You spelled alive wrong (as he's got to be one of the nicest people to walk the planet).
Load More Replies...It's an odd choice of roles for a man with a reputation of having Dolly Parton levels of niceness.
The first John Wick film needed investment and somehow Eve Longoria was told about it. She invested $6m and she went on to double her investment.
TIL Anthony Bourdain called “Ratatouille” “simply the best food movie ever made.” This was due to details like the burns on cooks’ arms, accurate to working in restaurants. He said they got it “right” and understood movie making. He got a Thank You credit in the film for notes he provided early on.
I have this movie saved on one of my streaming apps. I have seen it a couple times before, and it's such a cute movie. I keep putting off watching it, but tonight I'm watching it just to see the credit.
I highly recommend owning physical copies of any media you wish to enjoy in the future
Load More Replies...I didn't realize he was involved, but that helps explain why it was so awesome. Pixar is usually pretty good at doing their research, and as is the case with most animated movies, the details are everything (when you spend an hour rendering a single frame of a movie; you want it to be the best). Also, RIP, sir.
No, he wasn't being ironic. A quick internet search verified that he was being sincere with his compliments and praise.
Load More Replies...According to Prof. Kaufman, having a wide array of trivia, fun facts, and interesting details about many different topics can be a way of having creative ideas, and being able to use strong and distinct examples to illustrate your point.
“And often, I would guess, the decision isn’t ‘I’m going to learn a very small amount about something or I’m going to deep dive and learn a lot.’ It’s ‘I’m going to learn a very small amount about something or I’m not going to learn anything about it’,” the expert added.
TIL Titanic survivors who said the ship split in half before sinking were not believed for 73 years, with one survivor saying people would 'argue' with her about what she really saw, until the Titanic's wreckage was found in half in 1985.
It's useless arguing with crazy people who think they know everything.
Mansplaining at its finest... "That is not possible, you must remember it wrong..."
And the majority of survivors were women and children, which was another reason the accounts weren’t believed.
Load More Replies...Well, I wasn't there. Heck, I wasn't even born then, but that doesn't matter. What matters is my opinion, not the facts. Okey-dokey.
Note that one survivor being told she was lying was a woman, of course. I had a guy online insist I was remembering something from my younger days wrong. It was a lighthouse on the harbour in St. John's, Newfoundland. Sometime before we arrived in 1975, it had been converted into a three-level entertainment complex. Restaurant, bar, and event space for rent. I knew it well. My parents were the managers for five years. "No, you must be thinking of a different city. That has never been in my town!" Yeah, I spent the next two hours tracking down the best picture I could find to prove it. Never heard from him again, of course, not even to apologize. W****r.
There’s nothing worse than the self-righteousness of misinformation.
"Hey, I saw it on the internet. What do you know, you were just there."
Jack Thayer was adamant about this -- even drew it in his sketches of the sinking. https://www.fotmpdc.org/jack_thayer
TIL: Ancient Athens had a system called ostracism, where citizens could vote to exile someone for 10 years without a trial, often used against powerful or controversial figures to protect democracy.
Just a thought 🤔 we should bring this back in the United States.
Agree. Along with a few other countries who shall not be named.
Load More Replies...I know chimpanzees and catfish ostracize member(s) for social competitiveness, behavioral deviation, and unusual appearance like albinism. Other animals practice ostracism, but usually due to illness to protect the clan/group.
No, we have elections where the voters put threats against democracy back into office.
Load More Replies...For those interested in word origins, the word 'ostracism' comes from the word for potsherd, ostrakon. The Athenians would write on a potsherd the name of the politician they wanted to banish. They would then count up the votes on the potsherds. With enough votes the politician was banished from Athens for 10 years.
“Potsherd: a broken piece of ceramic material, especially one found on an archaeological site.“
Load More Replies...Ancient Greece was all like that... Offend, and be killed, unless you have powerful friends, then you get exile. Some major thinkers had multiple periods of exile.
TIL there is a Titanic monument in DC, funded by women, to honor the men of the Titanic who died so that women and children could live. Only 20% of men survived, while over 70% of women and children made it.
The statue, which depicts a n**e man draped with a robe, represents "Self Sacrifice". His arms are outstretched in the shape of a cross and his eyes are closed. He is standing on an uneven block above a relief of waves on the pedestal. The following inscriptions are on the memorial: Front: TO THE BRAVE MEN WHO PERISHED IN THE TITANIC APRIL 15 1912 THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES THAT WOMEN AND CHILDREN MIGHT BE SAVED ERECTED BY THE WOMEN OF AMERICA Side: GERTRUDE VANDERBILT WHITNEY 1931 Back: TO THE YOUNG AND THE OLD THE RICH AND THE POOR THE IGNORANT AND THE LEARNED ALL WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES NOBLY TO SAVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN Wikipedia
Are we censoring the word"n u d e" now? Really? Stupidity in Bored Panda is reaching new heights!
Load More Replies...Except the 3rd class passengers who could find their way out due to their location in the ship and not being able to follow the instructions due to language barriers. It's not true that they were locked in down there deliberately.
Dude. The movie wasn't even 75% accurate, the only thing that got almost perfect, was the chronology and the way the ship went down. Even Cameron had since apologised for some of the "dramatisation" and "artistic licence" that was totally wrong
Load More Replies...This is why I hate the movie Titanic. It turned the people who gave their lives to save others into murderous animals. No-one was locked in steerage; lower classes had lower survival rates because they were predominantly male and largely non-English-speaking, having a difficult time understanding what was going on around them.
I've never seen "Titanic" (1997). Why should I watch a movie that its star isn't even interested in? (Because it's more than 25 years old.)
Load More Replies...They were literally prepared to shoot men who were trying to get into half empty lifeboats, because “woman and children first”. There is a wonderful podcast series on the sinking of the Titanic on “The Rest Is History” podcast
That's a man??? Sorry, but they made the face much too feminine, and the body too slim. Not a good representation of most men.
They moved it when the Kennedy Center was built, it now stands in front the Coast Guard headquarters near the Marina.
The problem with this is that they didn't "die so women and children could live" the lifeboats were half-empty.
Apparently, the order for "women and children first" was misunderstood, so many lifeboats were launched with only women and children on with no men, rather than what it is believed the instruction was meant to be, 'let the women and children on first, then the men' (I suspect I'm paraphrasing...)
Load More Replies...Though "Women and children" first isn't a default rule, it's everyone as fast on the life boats as possible even back then because usually ships don't sink as relatively slow as the Titanic did
Who is ‘they’? And while I understand the cynicism on some level, I’m pretty sure today anyone who gives their life for another would still be lauded by most. That’s still not ‘the bare minimum’.
Load More Replies...Prof. Kaufman continued to point out that the learning process itself is often inherently creative. “When we learn an interesting factoid or fun piece of trivia, we often think about it. Maybe we are visualizing something in our minds, or we are making an association to a different fact we know, or we are thinking about how it might relate to our lives. These personally meaningful insights—which may not mean anything to anyone else—still ‘count’ as being creative.”
TIL a judge in Brazil ordered identical twin brothers to pay maintenance to a child whose paternity proved inconclusive after a DNA test and their refusal to say who had fathered the child. The judge said the two men were taking away from the young girl's right to know who her biological father was.
I hope that made them a little more focused on saying who was actually the father.
This reads like the brothers had known which one was the father and were trying to game the system.. though, with so many high-drama stories nowadays, I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been a plot twist and they really didn't know.
"The judge said the twins had used their resemblance to impersonate each other and date as many women as possible, and then defend themselves from allegations they were cheating on girlfriends." From https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-47794844.amp
Load More Replies...When I worked at the welfare dept like 40 years ago sometimes we'd get these affidavits going into hilarious detail about why she doesn't know who the father is.
I understand that sometimes these situations can be funny or entertaining, I did watch The Maury Show back in day. I don't find these situations funny or very entertaining, at all these days. Now, when I see these or hear about people with multiple children by multiple different partners or aren't sure who the father is, I feel sad for the children. They are innocent and had no say about the family they were born into. I hope to see these types of situations to decrease dramatically within my lifetime.
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TIL Yale psychologists compared 'Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood' to 'Sesame Street' and found that children who watched 'Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood' tended to remember more of the story lines and also demonstrated a much higher “tolerance of delay”, meaning they were more patient.
Don't look at me, I watched both as a kid and mostly just remembered Mister Rogers' entering his house and taking off his jacket then putting it back on at the end of the show. Oh, and maybe a few puppets. I was also about 5 at the time. Nothing against Mister Rogers, but a fuzzy blue monster singing about cookies was much more memorable to me at the time.
That's me exactly. I vaguely remember bits and pieces from Mr Rogers', but Sesame Street was memorable.
Load More Replies...Had two people who later went on to win Oscars. Rita Moreno was the first person to win an Emmy, Grammy , Oscar, and a Tony.
Load More Replies...We're the ones who understand the lyrics to "Flowers on the Wall" by the Statler Brothers. And a shout out to Mr. Greenjeans and Bunny Rabbit!
Load More Replies...What did they find out about children that watched Beavis & B******d?
My bf watched Beavis and B******d. He’s the kindest, most generous person you’ll ever meet. So there’s that 😂
Load More Replies...From the beginning, the short cartoons teaching letters and numbers and such on Sesame Street were treated like TV commercials for kids. A few were even repeated within the same episode in the early seasons to drive the message home. Mister Rogers always had much longer segments on fewer topics.
TIL that Benjamin Franklin never patented any of his many inventions, writing that “as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”
Now we have Musk carrying on this same belief. /s just in case anyone thinks I'm serious.
Wasn't the only thing he was free and generous with, just ask the ladies of negotiable affection in Paris.
"Ladies of negotiable affection" ! That is a nice turn of phrase
Load More Replies...Brings to mind (Volvo?). Inventing the seat belt and putting it out there for safety's sake.
While his intent appears noble, this really is something that only a wealthy person can say about their many inventions.
And he fancied older women saying in essence "They don't tell, don't 'swell' (as in pregnancy) and they appreciate it like hell" - quite the old dog, he was. hehe
Somebody's profiting off my bifocals when I buy them. And I don't buy expensive frames.
Load More Replies...Nowadays, many people gain knowledge and learn all sorts of things using the internet, which can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s brimming with information about anything and everything, but on the other—much of that information might not be true.
“I think there’s good and bad when it comes to AI, social media, and other technological advances. We have amazing access to information, but it often is shallow and, worse, it can be wrong,” Prof. Kaufman shared.
“It might simply be a misunderstanding of a concept or an urban legend, but wrong information is also out there for more nefarious purposes, like changing people’s minds, [encouraging them] to follow a political agenda, or scamming people.
“Similarly, I think things like AI can not only give wrong or hallucinated info, but can also give relatively shallow coverage of a topic. I don’t think it’s bad to just know a little bit about something, but it can be hard to find more in-depth knowledge or more analytical takes on topics in a sea of identical or very similar search results.”
TIL Simón Bolívar, born into Venezuela’s wealthy elite, voluntarily gave up his fortune and freed his own slaves to lead independence wars against colonial powers, becoming an enduring icon revered by leftist militias across South America today
Not allowed. School shooters get life, but they're asking for the death sentence for Luigi
Load More Replies...If anyone's wondering about the connection, the currency used in Venezula is the bolívar.
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TIL 9-yr-old Jodie Foster was mauled by a lion on the set of Napoleon and Samantha, leaving her with scars on her back & stomach. While being held sideways in its mouth & shook "like a doll", she saw the crew running off. The lion did drop her when told to, but it left her with lifelong ailurophobia
Even though definitions say it is an irrational or abnormal fear of cats, it is in her case totally legit.
Load More Replies...I know it wasn't Jodie's fault but, what a**hole thought it was a good idea to put a 9 year old in close proximity to an apex predator.
She was on The Graham Norton Show discussing this just as calm as can be. She may have the physical scars, but it seems PTSD scarring didn't happen.
Or she had PTSD but also good therapy that healed her PTSD.
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TIL Divorce papers in the roman empire had to include a culpable party, which had potential legal complications. To avoid this, couples who wanted to divorce amicably, would officially put the blame on "an evil demon" that got between them and forced them to split up, thus avoiding culpability
When I was younger, adultery was the only grounds for divorce in several states.
That seems so lame lmao. Like “sorry you two aren’t compatible but we’re gonna force you to stay together forever”
Load More Replies...According to Dr. Kaufman, not everything we learn is equally valuable. And not everything has to be learned from books, courses, or the almighty internet. “We can learn knowledge, facts, or information, but we can also learn how to do something ‘hands on’ or even learn something about ourselves if we simply think and reflect.”
So when you’re done browsing these interesting facts, feel free to continue to our previous edition of ‘Today I learned’ or take time to reflect, and maybe today, you’ll learn something new about yourself!
TIL Jamestown governor John Ratcliffe, the villain in Disney's Pocahontas, died horrifically in real life. After being tricked, ambushed & captured, women removed his skin with mussel shells and tossed the pieces into a fire as he watched. They skinned his face last, and burned him at the stake.
Makes sense. The women were treated worse than the men.
Load More Replies...Surely he would have dīed from shock before they got too far into the flaying?
Nope, you can live for 24 hours without your skin. You wouldn't want to, as the nerves being exposed makes even a gentle breeze feel like red-hot glass being dug into your flesh. It's not the lack of skin that kills you, it's the infection.
Load More Replies...@vermonta, you're a misogynist idiot. And those women were brutalized and rightfully got their revenge.
Well yes and no. What they did was understandable but there is no excuse for t*****e.
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TIL: In 1355, Portuguese King Afonso IV had his son Pedro’s mistress, Inês de Castro, decapitated in front of her children to end their romance. When Pedro became king, he had her k**lers’ hearts publicly ripped out—saying they had pulverized his own.
Not really, given that turning down the king when given a direct order is kind of a fatal choice in the 1st place.
Load More Replies...King Pedro had her body exhumed and she was crowned queen. So I guess afonso's plan didn't work.
That may have just been a legend or myth although it is pretty awesome sounding. I’ve read a few old horror comics that featured this one.
Load More Replies...Going to bring this up next time someone says women are too emotional to lead.
KÌLLERS, BP. Either tell the punchline or don't tell the FÙCKING JOKE.
Gee, why go after the executioners? Good ol' Dad was the one who gave the order.
Things have progressed. Today the Queen would just have worn white at her son's wedding.
TIL in 2012 as a man was cleaning out his great-aunt's home after she died, he found 345 well-preserved comic books in a closet, including Detective Comics No. 27 (first appearance of Batman), Action Comics No. 1 (first appearance of Superman) & Batman No. 1. In total. the collection sold for $3.5m.
No one in my family is cool enough to have a stash of comic books, so no money for me.
No one in my family is cool ehough to leave entire house for me
Load More Replies...Maybe he should have held onto them for a bit longer. I read recently that a copy of Action Comics No 1 sold last year for $6 million
TIL that during the Habsburg monarchy, belief in vampires was so widespread that Empress Maria Theresa sent her personal physician Gerard van Swieten to officially investigate. He concluded that vampires did not exist, leading her to specifically outlaw all forms of "anti-vampire" corpse desecration.
Van Swieten was the inspiration for Van Helsing in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
It seemed to me that Van Helsing reached a very different conclusion about vampires.
Load More Replies...It wasn't just the belief that was the problems. The anti-vampire rituals that were performed cost the government quite a lot of money...
TIL When the fork was first introduced as an eating implement it was normal for people to have their own knife and fork made which would be kept in a special box called a cadena. Whenever someone threw a dinner party or a feast all the guests would bring their own cadenas to eat with.
"This is my fork, there are many like it but this one is mine"
I carry a knife, fork and spoon around with me. Very useful when an eatery only provides flimsy wood or plastic cutlery.
Plus, you never know when you might decide to eat something on the go & there is no silverware.
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TIL that in 2018, Saudi Arabia lifted a 35-year ban on cinema. The first film to screen publicly in the country after the ban was lifted was "Black Panther"
Good choice. Didn't have all the Western propaganda hated by some Arabs.
Black people aren't that popular in the Middle East either though, less extreme in public Saudi Arabia to be fair
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TIL that Domino’s Pizza used to have a mascot called The Noid. In 1989, a man named Kenneth Noid held two Domino’s employees hostage, believing the mascot was designed to mock him. The employees escaped while he ate pizza. Noid was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and acquitted due to insanity.
On January 30, 1989, Kenneth Lamar Noid, a mentally ill man who believed that the "Avoid the Noid" campaign was personally directed towards him and was antagonizing him, entered a Domino's restaurant in Chamblee, Georgia. Armed with a .357 Magnum, Noid then held two employees hostage for over five hours. After ranting to the employees that the then-owner of Domino's, Tom Monaghan, was fraudulent and had stolen his name, he first forced them to call the Domino's headquarters to demand $100,000 and a white limousine as getaway transportation for him. After offering to exchange a hostage for a copy of American postmodern author Robert Anton Wilson's 1985 novel The Widow's Son, Noid reneged on his offer when an officer brought him the book. Noid then became hungry and forced the captive employees to make him two pizzas; while Noid ate the pizzas with his gun in his lap, the hostages escaped. Noid surrendered to the police shortly after. Two shots were fired during the incident. Wikipedia
If you youngsters don't get it, when you bought a pizza, the cheese used to get stuck to the top of the box. Domino's said when this happened, you would get a noid (annoyed?). They popularized using a little plastic spacer to keep the top of the box from the cheese; it was cheaper than making heavy corrugated boxes.
He wasn't "acquitted due to insanity." He was found "not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect." An acquitted person would go free. Noid did not. He was placed in the custody of the Georgia Department of Human Services which sent him to the Georgia Mental Health Institute. There he was held until doctors deemed him fit to be released at which time he was allowed to apply for parole.
@Michael Largey I find it genuinely fascinating that you can't work out the difference between being free and being a ward of the state.
Load More Replies...Our local Navy recruiter had this guy tattooed on his shoulder
In 1995, still convinced that Dominos was set on making his life miserable, Noid killed himself in his Florida apartment. Dominos dropped the Noid mascot shortly afterwards.
God, that poor man! I don't blame Domino's, but he must've suffered so much 😕
Load More Replies...wasn't this guy the inspiration for the Pizza Tower boss The Noise?
TIL: James Carter received a $20,000 royalty check for a song in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" that he had sung 40 years earlier but didn't remember.
I don't know why Bored Panda is using the shot from the siren's song. The song was actually the one of prisoners chopping logs. It is called "Po' Lazarus". It had been recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959 at Parchman Farms and published by him on an album. All he knew was the name of the main singer, James Carter, so it was listed on the album as being by "James Carter and the Prisoners." After the soundtrack album won a Grammy Lomax's daughter and others searched until they found John Carter in Chicago. He was presented with a royalty check of $20,000 and got to go to the Grammys. When they told him the album was out-performing Michael Jackson he said, "Tell Michael I'll slow down so he can catch up." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Carter_and_the_Prisoners
And the resulting tour by the artists was out of this world! Very long, but worth every minute.
Load More Replies...A very good movie. I like to watch it back-to-back with Blues Brothers from 1980.
TIL: "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" needs to go on my to-watch list.
TIL Mikhail Kalashnikov, creator of the AK-47, regretted its deadly legacy and feared he was responsible for millions of deaths.
Taking remarks out of context confuses things. Mikhail Kalashnikov designed a weapon to defend his motherland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Kalashnikov: 'he took pride in his inventions and in their reputation for reliability, emphasizing that his rifle is "a weapon of defense" and "not a weapon for offense"'. It was used for purposes other than defending the USSR. That troubled him, and towards the end of his life he worried about all the deaths his design had caused. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/1/13/kalashnikov-felt-guilt-for-ak-47-victims .
Load More Replies...Mikhail Kalashnikov designed a rifle to defend his motherland. "Blame the N@zi Germans for making me become a gun designer", "It’s the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence", "I’m proud of my invention, but I’m sad that it is used by terrorists", but also "The pain in my soul is unbearable. I keep asking myself the same unsolvable question: If my @ssault rifle took people’s lives, it means that I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, … son of a farmer and Orthodox Christian am responsible for people’s deaths" More here: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mikhail_Kalashnikov and here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jul/30/russia.kateconnolly and here: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/1/13/kalashnikov-felt-guilt-for-ak-47-victims
Not what he said, and he kept designing weapons until the 1990s. He said he regretted how a weapon he designed to protect him homeland was used to killed to innocents, but he never regretted designing weapons or them being used in general. The Media took it out of context and invented a narrative around it.
I'm always annoyed by these revelations of guilt after the fact. It's not like weapon designers confused their inventions with a new dessert topping.
So what would your brilliant idea for defence be when Nàzi Germans have their beady eyes on your country? Throw potatoes at them?
Load More Replies...Him and the Remington heiress should've got together to talk about their woes.
That’s just a theory. “Although Schmeisser was undoubtedly in the Soviet Union when Kalashnikov was creating the AK-47, there is no hard proof that Schmeisser was involved in the project directly or contributed in any way.”
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TIL the 1944 Nobel Prize went to male German physicist Otto Hahn solo for the discovery of nuclear fission, despite the fact he had done the work in collaboration with Lise Meitner, a German Jewish woman forced into exile who had in fact even been the first to use the term 'fission' and explain it
I had to read three times to realize that. I read your comment, went back to the name and found nothing wrong, and then came back to your comment again. I did these 3 times to finally realize what's wrong.
Load More Replies...Better late than never, there have been efforts of restoring the credits to Lise Meitner's achievements in the last years.
At least he was anti-N**i and had to flee, but I don't get why Meitner wasn't named, given it happened after the War.
Presumably this was because of Lise Meitner being a woman and not about her being Jewish.
Load More Replies...How many times have we seen this.... I'm crying for all the women whose work was stolen.
Nobel Prize committee: "I love you." Otto Hans solo: "I know."
TIL that of all the world's existing companies that are 200 years +old, over half are Japanese.
Because that companies won't claim "bankruptcy" to avoid paying damages
Edit to apologize for initial rudeness Most of the older Japanese companies are small, family owned/privately held, and more traditional businesses. If you’re interested in this, you can read below. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200211-why-are-so-many-old-companies-in-japan
Load More Replies...Interesting. I bought wine from a man called Schmidt, whose family has been in the wine business since the 1300s.
TIL Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond was a tribute to Syd Barrett who left the band in 1968 due to his d**g use and declining mental health which impaired his ability to integrate with the band. The band felt guilty about removing him but were concerned about his severe mental health decline
Years later, an overweight disheveled man wandered into the recording booth of studio while the band was recording "wish you were here" It took the band a good long while to realize that it was in fact, syd Barrett. "Syd, is that you?" Hello boys "Syd....what happened to you" Well....i quite like pie" While it was long assumed that Syd suffered from schizophrenia, more recent hypothesis attribute his overt instability to his excessive d**g use and state his underlying issues as low-functioning aspergers
TIL that a group of artists secretly built and lived in a hidden apartment inside a Rhode Island mall for four years before being discovered.
They figured out there was an entire section that wasn't being used for any reason, an error on the blueprint or something. I thought it was pretty ingenious. A lot of thought went into this.
Like the woman in Midland Mich who lived in the mechanical room on the roof of a store. Pretty well appointed is my understanding.
TIL in 2012, Spain’s King Juan Carlos I went elephant hunting in Botswana. The trip was meant to be secret, but he was badly injured and needed a medical flight home. A scandal erupted over the cost—and since he was an honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund at the time.
TIL that in 2017 Microsoft announced that it would replace Paint, its longstanding Windows drawing software, with Paint 3D. After "an incredible outpouring of support and nostalgia" from users, the company offered both to users. Microsoft later removed Paint 3D, but Paint is still available.
Paint has been useful for me at work recently when the formats templates for flyers etc have not been editable. While not the main purpose of it, being able to add text wherever you click has been great. Plus it's a program I'm familiar with, unlike things like Canva. I am not a technophobe, but it takes me a while to figure out new programs and is stressful so I like going back to familiar ones.
Paint is great, because you don't need to download even more add filled apps
TIL the 1997 death of unknown "Baby Garnet" remained unsolved until 2022, when a woman took an at-home DNA test which revealed her grandmother did it.
Cece Moore is not the woman who took the test but the scientist who used the DNA to find the killer.
Load More Replies...In 1997 a deceased baby was found in a campground toilet. They weren’t able to identify her and there were no witnesses. Years later, a woman took a DNA test. She got a call from a detective that her DNA matched the mystery baby. Investigation ensued. On June 1, 2022, detectives spoke with her mother, Kara, who agreed to provide her DNA. Kara was the half-sister of Baby Garnet, according to court records. “I feel like that is when, like, all of the puzzle pieces kind of started falling together for her,” Jenna said. “And she told detectives that, if it’s going to be anybody, it would be (her) mother.”
This was a really interesting article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/12/us/baby-garnet-cold-case-michigan/index.html
Load More Replies...…..did what? Solved a cold case murder? (Hashtags don’t work on BP, by the way).
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TIL Oscar winners are forbidden from selling or disposing of their trophies without first offering it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for $1.
It dies with you? I don't know, but I think they are allowed to be exherited.
Load More Replies...No....it doesn't make sense. Apply that logic to, say a house. Before you're permitted to sell your home, which your name is on the deed of, you have to offer it to the previous owner for $1. It's something that literally has YOUR NAME engraved on it, why the hell should anyone else have influence over what YOU do with YOUR property?
Load More Replies...I know Shelley Winters donated hers to the Anne Frank House because she won it for playing Mrs Van Daam in the movie.
Load More Replies...TIL Thomas Jefferson wanted the official motto of the US to be "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." When it was rejected he appropriated it for his own seal.
I agree with the sentiment BUT NOT 'obedience to god', change that to moral duty and I'm with you.
TYRANT: an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution. Well guess what ....
Hey Kamloops! I was just driving through there haha
Load More Replies...God does oppose speaking evil against leaders, so it's actually the opposite of obedience. Acts 23:5 and Romans 13:2.
TIL in 2006 a jury awarded $5.6m to the family of a man who had the shaft of a screwdriver implanted into his spine by a surgeon after the two titanium rods he planned to use were discovered missing during the surgery. The screwdriver snapped & after 3 more back surgeries, the man died 2 years later
I thought it was someone's job to keep a tally of all instruments, and to count them before closing up?
I think in this case the surgeon purposely used the screwdriver in place of the missing titanium rods
Load More Replies...Reading some additional information from the thread, the Dr. had his license suspended in TX and OK before moving to Hawaii were the incident occurred, Dr. also had a d**g a*******n.
Everything seems like a good idea when you’re s****d.
Load More Replies...Don't they have a checklist they go through before they cut a patient open???
US medical care is highly variable. You can bet that the patient was charged for titanium, rather than the 70 cent screwdrivers
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TIL In 1919 Britain's most remote colony, Tristan da Cunha, learned that World War One had started and ended after not being resupplied for 10 years.
They're a patient people! I'm surprised they didn't find someone else to pledge their allegiance to after being kept short for that long.
The island was frequently left at the mercy of passing ships. With out a good harbor, or much in the way of supplies this was an infrequent occurrence. In 1885 fifteen men were lost in a lifeboat when in rough seas they tried to chase down a passing ship hopping to trade with them. Some speculated they drowned others speculated they were picked up and sold as slaves.
Load More Replies...No, they mean 1919. “After years of hardship since the 1880s and an especially difficult winter in 1906, the British government offered to evacuate the island in 1907. The Tristanians held a meeting and decided to refuse, despite the government's warning that it could not promise further help in the future. No ships called at the islands from 1909 until 1919, when HMS Yarmouth stopped to inform the islanders of the outcome of World War I.”
Load More Replies...TIL in 2017, five bald men were k**led in Mozambique because their k**lers believed that the heads of bald men contain gold.
Years ago I read that certain tribes in Africa eat humans who have vitiligo because they think they will cure something else (don't exactly remember what. Read it probably 30 years ago). I have vitiligo, I don't even live in the same continent but whenever I see an African person deep down i get scared that I am getting killed today
Load More Replies...So am I? No wonder why so many people say "What - is - in - your - head???"
Load More Replies...When I’m feeling sorry for myself and my life I’m going to remind myself of this. My husband however should probably steer clear of Mozambique 😉
TIL about YInMn Blue, a near perfect blue colour, which was discovered accidentally in an Oregon State University lab and is noteworthy for its vibrance and unusually high near infrared reflectance.
It's very expensive. Indium and yttrium aren't cheap to obtain. E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium#Production_and_availability. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YInMn_Blue#Commercialization
Load More Replies...At least it's not like Vanata Black or that pink colour that was bought by the guy who designed the Chicago bean. Thousands of scientific and medical applications and some a*****e hoards it for himself
Vantablack is a set of specialist engineering coatings which are readily available on the market for anyone with the means to pay. Anish Kapoor (Chicago Bean) got the exclusive rights to use Vantablack for art without affecting its availability for other purposes - after all, the point of developing the coatings was for them to be used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack (Vertically Aligned (carbon) NanoTube Array + black)
Load More Replies...I've never been a fan of the color Blue unless it's vibrant, which usually means a splash of red to boost it, but this YInMn Blue is incredible.
It has been a while but I remember seeing this on the news I believe that some scientists or chemist's created a white paint that was more white than the whitist paint and I belive it reflected light so much more than the current white paint.
The whitest white :) there’s also the blackest black (vanta black)
Load More Replies...Just looked it up, and holy c**p, that stuff is a total eyegasm O.O
TIL warships used to demonstrate peaceful intent by firing their cannons harmlessly out to sea, temporarily disarming them. This tradition eventually evolved into the 21-gun salute.
That was back before cannons had wheels. It took about 6 minutes to reload them
Which brings to mind the 2nd amendment. Want to see a law you can have as many guns as you wish...all muzzleloaders.
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TIL Nissan spent $500 million in 1981 to rebrand their cars from Datsun to Nissan because Nissan executives were annoyed that Honda and Toyota had become household names.
My dad bought a Datsun pickup (it was small) and slapped a giant camper on the back. lots of trips, but he killed the engine. It was a family joke, sometime we were sure the d**n thing would blow over.
Wow. Just wow. Way back when they were still Datsuns, they were liked here in the UK for the bullet-proof reliability of their engines - the bodywork tended to rust away long before any of the mechanicals failed... 😁
Load More Replies...I had a Datsun in the 80s. At that time, in New Zealand, you could take your Datsun into a dealer, and they'd give you a grill badge with Nissan on it. Plastic; gold on black from memory.
My first car was a Datsun 180B. Super reliable. Loved it. Also the joke about "raining Datsun cogs" hasn't worked since the name change...
You can't just drop the punch line without the joke...The joke may be old but it's not bad for us who still remember Datsun as it was.
Load More Replies...The company hired a high-priced consultant to create a name. They gave him only a day to come up with the name. He said "Dat soon?"
Interesting that they didn't also take the opportunity to rename their "Cedric" car to something with a bit more oomph
I learned to use a manual transmission in my dad's Datsun 280z. Loved it. Me: "Dad, when do I shift to fifth?". Dad:"when I am no where near the car."
TIL that many countries used to take ships that were no longer seaworthy, anchor them near shore, and use them as prisons. During the American Revolution, more Americans died as POWs on these ships than in combat.
There were no Americans (except Native, of course) during the Revolution. They were British subjects until they won their independence.
I think you'll find the rebelliion only succeeded because of the French. 😉 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yorktown
Load More Replies...Dickens wrote about prison hulks in 'Great Expectations'. The UK Conservative government repurposed a ship a few years ago to house asylum seekers. Thankfully it didn't last long.
I have a strong suspicion that the Group 4 security regime is a major factor in making such facilities hell. Because when I was a student, a bed in a non-draughty hellhole (one year, the third floor attic above a takeaway on top of a hill) would have been paradise.
Load More Replies...That's what led to settling Australia, all the prison ships in Britain were overcrowded so they started transporting the prisoners.
You shouldn't have printed this one Donald Trump will now be in the market for unseaworthy ships. Tariff free of course
If Trump is seeking unreliable vehicles, all he has to do is to turn to his friend Elon.
Load More Replies...TIL ancient Roman tourists would visit Egyptian tombs and write negative reviews in graffiti, like not enjoying anything but the sarcophagus and being unhappy they couldn't read the hieroglyphs. These would ironically end up becoming valuable historical records themselves.
I keep imagining you and Forrest Hobbs as Statler and Waldorf from Muppets Show.
Load More Replies...They would fit perfectly in modern America, degrade and deface that which you can't understand.
I knew someone would say that. Graffiti happens all over the world, and yet people love to blame Americans for anything & everything that goes wrong with it.
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TIL Looney Tunes’ Porky Pig’s original voice actor, Joe Dougherty, had a stutter he couldn’t control. It caused production costs to became too high as his recording sessions took hours. Mel Blanc replaced him, allowing the stutter to be controlled and used comedically
As a huge Looney Tunes fan, I'm aware of this one. Amusingly enough, Blanc's first Looney Tunes short was a Porky Pig cartoon, Picador Porky in 1937. He voiced one of Porky's friends who dresses up as a bull and gets drunk. His first short as Porky occurred not too long afterwards with Porky's Duck Hunt in 1937. This short was also the debut of a certain little black duck who Blanc also voiced for the first time.
If I remember right, Mel Blanc hated carrots, but it was the only thing that made the correct sound for Bugs Bunny eating a carrot and talking.
Load More Replies...A seriously brilliant talent. His line deliveries were great.
Load More Replies...This wouldn't be permitted today due to " political correctness " and the fear of insulting people with a stutter.
Why would someone hire a voice actor with a stutter in the first place? What are auditions for?
Someone who doesn't understand a stutter can't be controlled or used purposely for comedic moments. Similar to someone thinking OCD is 'cute' etc.
Load More Replies...TIL George Clooney hung a photo of himself as Batman in his office as a reminder of what can happen when you make movies solely for commercial reasons.
I won't mind doing anything for commercial reasons as long as I get paid. That's called capitalism
That’s actually called “the free market”. Capitalism is when you can buy the means by which other people can produce things.
Load More Replies...I remember he was on the Graham Norton show, and. Norton said “I heard you once apologised for Batman & Robin?” Clooney’s reply was “I always apologise for Batman & Robin!”
TIL: Elderly Americans lost over $3bn to scams in 2023
I hope there is a special place in hell for people who take advantage of the elderly.
I agree, but until we sentence them to be pulverised as fertiliser, they will keep going.
Load More Replies...Already have. Lost $74k of my 401k as of Friday. I'm sure I'll have been shafted out of more today. Thank you so much you ugly orange despot
Load More Replies...Billions and over 80k jobs, not counting green cards and visas he revoked...just because he could
Load More Replies...Americans in general have lost $5 TRILLION since ultra-scammer Trump and his sidekick Dogeboy took office in January.
Happened to my dad. He was living alone and had early onset dementia. A door to door salesman scammed him out of thousands by selling him the same product time and again and only delivering once. He got him to write so many checks because he couldn’t remember making the sale. I found out when the super called me to say he was getting evicted from his apartment. It was so heartbreaking and infuriating that someone would take advantage of someone so vulnerable. We took care of him after that.
Australians have lost more than $3 billion to scammers in 2022 with Gen Z and Millennials being the most likely victims despite being more internet savvy.
Different scams affect different age groups too. Gen Z and millennials are falling for the newer, more sophisticated, evolved, high-tech scams, while older adults fall for rental or employment scams and elderly folks tend to fall for computer support scams. It’s a very interesting (and depressing) subject.
Load More Replies...TIL that Michael Keaton only had 17 minutes of screen time even though the movie was called "Beetlejuice."
True, but Keaton chewed up each minute so impressively it seemed there was more of him in the movie.
The shark was only onscreen for for minutes in Jaws and it was a longer movie.
TIL that Dr Harold Shipman is believed to have murdered so many of his patients that his trial, where he was charged with the murder of 15 people, investigated only 5% of his speculated victims.
Serial k!llers are scary enough, but when they're in a profession that practically allows them the freedom to expand, that's horrific.
Horrific indeed, but unlike most serial killers his motivation was (Almost?Probably?) entirely financial, having first persuaded his victims to make him the beneficiary of their wills.
Load More Replies...Killed healthy old people. Finally caught because he forged a will. Died by hanging himself in prison at the age of 57.
And looked more like 75 at the time of his arrest
Load More Replies...At the time, family General Practitioners (GPs) were solely responsible for signing death certificates, and only certain patients would be referred for post mortem examination. The Shipman case caused a monumental shift in the way deaths were dealt with, certainly in England.
He was a man before his time - Rishy and Boris were trying to do this far less effectively during Covid and Two Teir/Theives are freezing them just now.
I agree wholeheartedly. They exposed our most vulnerable citizens to horrific deaths, which saved a fortune in care fees and pensions that no longer had to be paid. Then of course, there was all that lovely bonus money to be made from the Inheritance Tax levied on their estates. Kerching, kerching, kerching, luverly jubbly. They've given a lifetime of service, let's squeeze that last bit out of them.
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TIL that in 2024 a construction company built an entire family home on the wrong lot in Hawaii after miscounting the number of telephone poles on the land. They then sold the home without the landowner knowing.
Judge ruled it be demolished by construction company, but not that the land has to be restored to its pre built state. I couldn't find anything after that (in June 2024).
The property I owned was marked off with metal poles pounded into the ground in the back corners. I wasn't familiar with this sort of border marker that could be so easily moved to gain more land.
Mine were wooden stakes. Promptky built a fence along the lines. I dont know why gps is not usually in deed and they still use metes and bounds.
Load More Replies...I would have expected there to have been survey markers staked out on the land.
TIL Rhode Island Hospital was fined $50,000 and reprimanded by the state Department of Health after brain surgery was performed on the wrong side of a patient's head three times in 2007. The state also ordered the hospital to develop a neurosurgery checklist that includes the location of the surgery
Atul Gawande did a very good article on this in the New Yorker ages ago. How in large aircraft the captain doesn't have sole control over checking if everything is correct. He wrote how a gallbladder operation went really wrong and how having nurses and other doctors involved in the operations do perform these checks is a better practice. He's a great writer.
His books are really good. But to the point of incorrect surgery, recently someone had their liver removed instead of their spleen. You can live without a spleen, but you die without a liver. And they are two very different organs on different sides of the body.
Load More Replies...Before I had an operation a few months ago. Although I had been marked up with green marker, the theatre staff still asked what surgery I was in for, and which leg was to be operated on.
Someone I know had knee surgery.. before going into the hospital, they wrote on their good knee, "The other knee, dummy!" The medical staff had a sense of humor and thought it was great (and a great idea).
Load More Replies...Three different patients and different surgeons. I'm wondering why they continued the surgery - wasn't the condition they were operating for not present on the wrong side? $50k seems like a really light fine for such a large and repeated bungle, especially considering one of the patients died a few weeks after the surgery.
Wow, i read it wrong and thought it was the same patient and they kept messing up.
Load More Replies...In 2005 the WHO introduced the Surgical Safety Checklist that helps prevent wrong site surgery. Unfortunately, even with all the checks in place, wrong surgery still occurs. Just less often
Law of large numbers. Even if it is a . 1% error, 1 / 1000 would be wrong
Load More Replies...The first time I had my dodgy knee operated on, a nurse used a marker pen to put a big arrow on my leg, pointing to the correct body part - and some words, I forget what, it was many decades ago.
Same with my eye operation, an X over the correct eye. I did hesitate when they asked me which eye was meant to be operated on though (I'm still not 100% sure which eye it was).
Load More Replies...I'm going to get "Left" and "Right" tattooed onto my skull just to be on the safe side
Better get it swapped, because the person looking at you might use their left instead of yours.
Load More Replies...TIL that in the first edition of “The Hobbit,” Gollum willingly gave the ring to Bilbo for winning a riddle game, and the two parted amicably. After Tolkien began working on “The Lord of the Rings,” he edited the story for future printings.
Intrigued, I went off and downloaded that part from the first edition. Gollum did indeed intend to give Bilbo the ring, was very apologetic when he went to his island and could not find it, but Bilbo of course had already found it by then. So instead Gollum was tasked to help Bilbo escape, which he did. "What has it got in its pocketses?" does not appear in that version.
So, i am not old and forgetful. I remember the riddle , and Bilbos solving it. But when i saw the movies i thought i was mistaken.
In one version he apparently intends to give the ring as a gift, but in the version we know he can't find it and then suspects Bilbo has it. Was there no riddle contest in the movie, I can't remember?
Load More Replies...“Riddles in the Dark is the 5th chapter in The Hobbit. In 1951 Allen and Unwin published a second edition of The Hobbit in which J.R.R. Tolkien substantially revised this chapter to bring the story of the ring and the character Gollum more into line with the forthcoming ‘New Hobbit””
Load More Replies...TIL that George Boole, founder of Boolean logic, died after walking three miles in cold rain to give a lecture in wet clothes. He developed pneumonia and was treated by his wife with cold water, which worsened his condition and led to his death.
This is where there is so much confusion about catching a cold due to being improperly rugged up in cold weather. You can catch your death "of cold". It will be hypothermia or pneumonia, not the cold viruses that do it.
Although some influenza viruses do thrive in colder weather. In his case he probably did have hypothermia which weakened his immune system
Load More Replies...It was in the 1800s, i don’t think she was an idiot for not knowing the same medical information we know in 2025.
Load More Replies...TIL Salvator Mundi is a painting by Leonardo de Vinci, in 2017 it was sold for 450 million dollars.It is the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. The painting was bought by a Saudi Prince, who has not put it on display.
There's a painting called Salvator Mundi ('Saviour of the World") attributed to Leonardo de Vinci, but some scholars dispute the attribution. Which would worry me if I'd bought it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Mundi_(Leonardo) also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Mundi
It's still very much in dispute whether it is a real da Vinci or not. Personally, I think it is. But, I'm no art scholar. See the documentary The Lost Leonardo referenced by @SouthernGal for more info on this.
Load More Replies...The attribution issue is exactly, I would think, why it hasn't been put on display.
TIL the earliest recorded autopsy was performed on the body of Julius Caesar. Only one stab wound (out of 23) would be fatal on its own.
5 out of the 23 were significant. Many of the wounds were probably inflicted after death
They stabbed him right in the Rotundra, and you know how painful that can be.
TIL at the premiere for "Saving Private Ryan," while Mike Myers was still tearing up after the movie because his parents fought in World War II, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg pitched him "Shrek" and Myers thought “Well, that’s the worst f**king title I’ve ever heard in my life.”
TIL that the Crimean War helped to popularise facial hair in Victorian times. This was due to the large number of soldiers who returned home with the beards and mustaches they had grown to keep the cold out.
TIL Heath Ledger directed both of the Joker's hostage videos in The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan wanted the homemade shorts to reflect the sadistic perspective of Ledger's own horrifying Joker, but it was Ledger's impressive work on the first video that convinced Nolan to let him direct the second
TIL that a boy was trapped in his own body for 12 years, fully conscious but unable to move or speak. Doctors thought he was in a vegetative state, but he later regained the ability to communicate and wrote a book about his experience.
Which was later adapted to a movie with Robin Williams and Robert deniro called awakenings
TIL about Prions, an infectious agent that isn't alive so it can't be k**led, but can hijack your brain and k**l you nonetheless. Humans get infected by eating raw brains from infected animals.
I feel like the censoring emphasizes the words rather than just lets them be. We all know what the words are so its pointless
Load More Replies...Prions can be destroyed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion#Sterilization. Look at it like this: a boulder dropped on your head will k!ll you but you can't k!ll a boulder, right? Only that's not the point: you can grind it into dust so it's no longer able to bash your skull in.
Not just brains, but brains AND spinal cords. Among the cannibalistic tribes of New Guinea, it was known as Kuru. It can take DECADES before the disease becomes active and symptoms begin to show, but once they do, it's 100% fatal within about 2 years of the first symptom.
Never mind New Guinea, go talk to Brits that ate burgers in the 80s. I'm actually banned from donating blood here in France because it can't be screened and the only way to remove it would destroy the blood...
Load More Replies...Really? No. Humans are infected by eating the meat of infected animals or by having medical equipment used on a person with the disease used on them, or tissue (mostly corneal?) from infected people used on them.
Keep in mind that oxtail can contain prions also - one of my favorite dishes
Now i feel better about not being able to afford oxtails anymore.
Load More Replies...There is a disease called CJD that is a prion disease and it's caused by eating beef tainted by mad cow disease. It presents similar to early dementia and it's fatal.
The version of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) caused by infected beef is "variant" CJD (vCJD) and is distinct from the originally identified CJD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variant_Creutzfeldt%E2%80%93Jakob_disease
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TIL that even after losing muscle, extra nuclei from past training stick around, making it easier to build muscle back.
TIL that sharks, whose oldest known fossils are from ~450 mya, are much older than Polaris, the youngest, largest, and brightest star in the Polaris system being only 70 myo.
Million years ago? Million years old? Edit to question why I am being down voted??? I am guessing the mya and myo in the OP. Is that somehow offensive? Controversial? What?
"mya" means "Million years ago". I can't find a source to justify "myo" for "million years old". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_years_ago.
Load More Replies...TIL when Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake were Mouseketeers on “The Mickey Mouse Club,” they lived together in Orlando, Florida. Timberlake’s mother became Gosling’s legal guardian when his mother had to return to Canada for work. Gosling and Timberlake talk infrequently, but support each other.
Steelo Brim & Michael B. Jordan rent or used to rent a flat together. When Michael had very good success in his film career Steelo , on Ridiculousness, just wished him love and blessings and was genuinely happy his friend was successful. Steelo is the genuine class act. Not a jealous bone in that mans body, just peace, love, w.e.e.d & w.i.n.e :)
Idk why you’re getting downvoted. That one Canadian woman who was detained in prison for 11 days for no actual good reason last month was such a scary story. I was supposed to go to Vegas and Alaska this year, but both trips have been cancelled because it’s just not safe for us in the US right now. My tourist money will go elsewhere this year :)
Load More Replies...TIL J.K. Simmons found out he had landed the role of J. Jonah Jameson from a kid who was part of Spider-Man fan sites, which had leaked the news, before his agent informed him officially three hours later.
Love him in everything I've seen him in. Including insurance commercials
Load More Replies...Absolutely terrific in RED ONE. Worth watching, if only for him and the Rock.
TIL that researchers have developed a blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer before symptoms appear, with a false positive rate of less than 1%
Please tell me it's at the clinical trials stage, and doesn't have anything to do with that bītch Elizabeth Holmes.
I'm sure the Trump administration defunded this already
Load More Replies..."Works in the lab" and "works in the real world" are often far apart.
Load More Replies...TIL In 2000 Performer Uri Geller sued the sued video game company Nintendo for £60 million over the Pokémon species "Kadabra", which he claimed was an unauthorized appropriation of his identity since he was well known for bending spoons in his act.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 2003. He filed others throughout the years. In 2020 he apologized and asked Nintendo to bring back the character.
Kadabra used CONFUSION! Uri Geller became comfused... He hurt himself in his confusion... XD
I'm amazed that he had the audacity. For this, and more of his startling feats, watch this clip from the Johnny Carson Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD7OgAdCObs It is a bit slow at the beginning, but does get better as it goes on.
They forgot to add the fact that Kadabra is called Yungerer in Japanese which IS an allusion to Uri Geller (L becomes R in Japanese)
TIL that Japan's most luxurious car the Century has not been positioned and marketed as a sign of wealth or excess. Marketing literature states roughly that, "the Century is acquired through persistent work, the kind that is done in a plain but formal suit."
Wow. Their like $180,000 second-hand in NZ (70.000 ks). That's a lot of plain but formal suit wearing.
Quite honestly, I'd prefer a Century to a Bentley or Rolls on any given day.
TIL of King Charles II of Navarre. Known as The Bad, he was a scheming and ineffective ruler in southern France. To treat his ailments, he was sewn into a brandy-soaked canvas, a common practice at the time. Unfortunately, the fabric was accidentally set on fire, and he burned alive in 1387.
Surely the new Secretary of Health could easily be convinced to favor this treatment.
Load More Replies...Bad, and accidentally set on fire, are the key statements here.
TIL French cyclist Jean Robic would cheat in the Tour De France downhill sections by having an assistant give him a lead or mercury filled water bottle for the descent. Because of this his nickname was "The Heavy Metal Descender".
It seems that the tactic wasn't officially cheating at the time. Nor was the use of performance enhancing d***s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Robic#Doping
TIL the earliest known depiction of Christ on a cross is a piece of mocking graffiti in an ancient Roman boys school. Jesus is depicted with the head of a donkey, the text "Alexamenos worships his god" carved underneath.
TIL when AOL used to charge users an hourly fee for access to their services, they would add 15 seconds to the time a user was connected to the service and round up to the next whole minute (for example, a person who used the service for 12 minutes and 46 seconds would be charged for 14 minutes).
This is common practice in all communication companies. To round up fees
TIL Elizabeth Greenhill (1615-1679) and her husband William Greenhill had 39 children together (32 daughters & 7 sons). All were single births save one set of twins, which is unusual as the most common cause of such a large number of children, hyperovulation, typically manifests as multiple births.
She lived to at least 64 years old. It is mind-boggling, though. One of her sons has a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Greenhill_(surgeon)
Load More Replies...On "You Bet Your Life", a contestant with 11 children told Groucho Marx "It's because I love children." Groucho replied, "Well, I love my cigar, too, but I take it out every once in a while."
TIL Benedict IX is the only person to have been pope more than once.He served as pope for 12 years, was forced out of Rome, returned, sold the papacy to his godfather to marry his cousin, changed his mind, was deposed by Emperor Henry III, seized the Papal Palace, and was driven out for good in 1048
Pope Benedict IX (Latin: Benedictus IX; c. 1012 – c. 1056), born Theophylactus of Tusculum in Rome, was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States for three periods between October 1032 and July 1048. Aged about 20 when first elected, he is the youngest pope in history. He is the only person to have been Pope more than once and the only person ever accused of selling the papacy. Wikipedia
But buying the papacy is a whole different discussion.
Load More Replies...TIL Astronauts' bones shed weight in Space, losing as much as 1.5% of their mineral density each month, and recover *most* of it back on Earth. Interestingly, astronauts with permanent mineral density loss don't seem to experience more bone fractures than normal.
Some devices have been developed to cope with this; bone structures are maintained by piezoelectric affect (with the orbital stations in free-fall they can't walk which is what keeps the bones healthy). On a side note, broken thigh bones are treated with traction which keeps the bones aligned; they heal off center but with exercise the bones remodel to normal - when you see someone with a 2 or 3 inch sole on their shoes, it is often b/c they were treated w/o traction
TIL that JRR Tolkien disliked the title of “The Two Towers” and changed his mind several times about which towers the title referred to. There are actually five towers relevant to the story.
IIRC, after 9/11 there was a petition to change the name of the film because Peter Jackson was cashing in on the terrorist attack
Tbf he’s not the only one, the emergency services should hang their head in shame in America taking advantage of the publicity to push their phone number!
Load More Replies...TIL that at the Battle of Agincourt, the French army lost three dukes, nine counts, one viscount, an archbishop, their constable, an admiral, their Master of Crossbowman, Master of the Royal Household and roughly 3,000 knights and squires.
I spy a decent joke. Only: they knew who'd been killed by searching the battlefield and identifying the dead from their coats of arms and so on. So, not so much lost as found... 😬 Grim stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt#Aftermath
Load More Replies...TIL during the American Revolution, John Adams questioned why his cousin Samuel Adams was burning handfuls of documents in his fireplace. Sam Adams replied, “Whatever becomes of me, my friends shall never suffer by my negligence.”
Til. That's were the name Samuel Adams, as in the beer, comes from.
TIL about the Soviet 'Dead Hand' system — an automated doomsday mechanism designed to launch nuclear retaliation strikes without human intervention after detecting incoming missiles
It's possibly not quite as scary as it sounds. Maybe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand
TIL that despite it being usually assumed that Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on Ed Gein, the film's writer Tobe Hooper had only vaguely heard of him. Hooper was inspired by a pre-med friend of his from college who wore a cadaver's face to a party as a joke.
Medical students learn about anatomy by dissecting human cadavers. Some medical students have an unfortunate sense of humour - add the two together and things like that happen. The worst I've heard of was a complaint about a male medical student exposing himself to a female medical student. Investigation showed that, yep, he showed her *A* p3nis, only, umm, it wasn't actually *his*. He didn't graduate... I've heard tales about London medical students taking body parts on the Tube (most often when drunk, during Rag Week, apparently) - oops, what's that's just "accidentally" fallen about of my bag? An arm?. 🤣? or maybe: 😬🤢 They've tightened things up, apparently.
Load More Replies...They said “better get your party face on” and he took it seriously
Load More Replies...TIL King Philip IV of Spain’s first wife was 13 years old - when he was 10. They had 10 children, but the only son surviving infancy died at 16. Desperate for an heir, Philip then married his 14 year-old niece when he was 44. They had 5 children together. He also had 30 illegitimate children.
The reason the rich and Royals had such high infant mortality was they employed the use of doctors more often. The treatments often did more harm than good. The lower middle classes had better health because they couldn't afford doctors as often. The poor were obviously poor and unhealthy and mostly dead.
I think, aged ten, tha he had a bit more waiting to do than she did.
Load More Replies...TIL when Emma Stone registered for the Screen Actors Guild at age 16, the name Emily Stone, her birth name, was already taken. She briefly went by Riley Stone but switched to Emma because it was difficult to adapt to Riley.
I read somewhere recently that she's decided to go back to Emily. Not officially, but prefers to be referred to as Emily
TIL speedrunner Niftski set a world record by completing Super Mario Bros. (NES) in 4 minutes, 54 seconds and 56 milliseconds, which is only 0.3 seconds slower than the established theoretical perfect time.
TIL Breaking Bad was originally going to be set in Riverside, California but was moved to New Mexico due to favorable financial conditions. Vince Gilligan then made the decision to move the story setting itself to New Mexico to avoid the Sandia Mountains in all eastward shots.
I presume that should be to avoid removing the Sandia Mountains in eastward shots
TIL despite being key to the premise of Jurassic Park, scientists have been unable to extract DNA from insects fossilized in amber, even from those fossilized during the current Holocene epoch.
And you were surprised the premise of a work of fiction wasn't true? The book was written in 1990, the stone ages of DNA knowledge! (Edit to remove autocorrection)
TIL that Felicia Pearson, the actress who played Snoop in The Wire, is a fictionalized version of herself. She was in jail for second-degree murder before becoming an actress and was discovered by Michael K. Williams (Omar) in a real Baltimore club.
TIL In 1945 when the representative for Canada was signing the Instrument of Surrender document for Imperial Japan, he signed on the wrong line. The next several countries had to sign below where they were supposed to.
The American president can’t even read the documents he’s signing so idk why you’re bashing Canadians 😂 I just looked at your profile to see if you’re a MAGA American and you’re spouting a lot of hate and transphobia so I’m going to go with yes.
Load More Replies...TIL that many women who flee North Korea turn to matchmaking agencies, which help North Korean women meet South Korean men. These men are charged approximately $2,500 for several blind dates within a year.
That is a bit confusing. It is not uncommon for korean women or man to contact those agencies, no matter of they are from north or south. Blind dates are normal for a long time and this agency just helps and of course you have to pay for it. This sounds like the north korean women do go to the south just to meet men. I think that is not their priority
It sounds like the men are the ones being charged for the service. Maybe there’s a preference for North Korean women among some men over there.
Load More Replies...TIL butterflies are often unintentionally drawn to look like they're dead
Since I'm terrible at explaining it, I made an imgur account just for you guys that I'll probably never use again. This shows the difference in wing position between a living and dead butterfly: https://imgur.com/a/most-butterflies-are-unintentionally-drawn-to-look-dead-2ONxFl8
In what way? I have never noticed drawings of butterflies looking dead?
It's because of their wing position. Living butterflies don't hold their wings up over their heads like the butterflies in most pictures. That's actually a position that collectors pin their wings in to show off their patterns.
Load More Replies...The best way I can think of to explain it in my sleep-deprived state is this: imagine that the top edge of the butterfly's top wing is actually an arm. In most drawings of butterflies, they're drawn with their arms stretched above their head; kinda like a human doing the Y part of the YMCA. It's the position that collectors usually arrange them into in order to show off their colors and patterns when they're pinned down after death. This isn't the way a living butterfly usually holds its wings. They normally hold them in more of a T-pose. Most people don't know this, so yes; most butterflies are unintentionally drawn to look like the dead specimens that are kept by collectors. I've been seeing more and more drawings of T-posing butterflies though, so that makes me happy 😁
Load More Replies...TIL in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy and marched to Rome, where his army defeated the Papal forces. The 80-year-old Pope Pius VI was arrested for refusing to grant authority to Napoleon. He was taken prisoner and died in captivity 18 months later.
On Napoleon's side, obviously - the Pope being proven to have displeased God by his forces losing. It all makes perfect sense. You maybe want to be asking what the Pope was doing wiith an army... I mean, isn't Christianity supposed to be about peace and love and all that? 😉
Load More Replies...So I guess it was him, rather than Stalin, who first asked "And how many divisions has the Pope?"
At that point Italy was still highly fragmented, and parts under foreign control (particularly Austrian). The Papal States were only a fraction of the whole thing, and over the years Napoleon both ended many Italian states (including the Republic of Venice) and initiated new ones (often short-lived).
TIL that in 2008, an American football player called Chad Johnson decided to legally change his name to Chad Ochocinco, "eight five" in Spanish, because his jersey number was 85, only to legally change his name back to Chad Johnson 4 years later.
TIL that the Nut Island effect is a behaviour phenomenon where teams of talented employees become isolated from managers, thus leading to a loss of ability to complete a task or a key function.
The core issue is that a team, often performing a vital but "behind-the-scenes" task, becomes disconnected from the main activities and decision-making processes of the organization.
TIL Neil Armstrong claims he said “One small step for A man…” but the “A” was dropped in transmission
TIL actress Sean Young was so desperate to win the role of Catwoman in "Batman Returns," she made a homemade Catwoman costume and attempted to contact Tim Burton and Michael Keaton. When that didn't work, she appeared on "The Joan Rivers Show" as Catwoman pleading to Tim Burton for the role.
Not really...https://www.cbr.com/how-sean-young-catwoman-audition-batman-returns/
That article says exactly what the post said….and a quick google shows that’s exactly what happened….which part are you disputing? Sorry for being confused
Load More Replies...TIL of the Battle of B-R5RB, fought in the game Eve Online. One of the the largest player-versus-player battles in gaming history, the in-game cost of the losses totaled an estimated real-world value of $300,000 to $330,000
There were probably a lot of in-game purchases made
Load More Replies...TIL about Death marches: an long period of crunch time before the release of a video game that is so bad that developers sometimes sleep in their office, don't see their family for months and lose weight
I work making video games. We just call it crunch time. About 6 months before launch we switch to unlimited (voluntary) overtime and some mandatory. On my last game we had about 10 mandatory overtime hours per week. Then for another couple months after launch. Depending on the game's popularity. I worked on one that sold so poorly we cut OT funding about 3 weeks after launch
in 1973, the world famous rock band, "the who" were performing in san francisco. their drummer, keith moon was well known for his d**g use and antics. an hour before the concert, he had taken a large dose of ketamine. just as the first song was ending, he passed out. after taking him back stage, pete townsend turned to the audience, "any one out there knows how to play drums? and i mean good" 18 year old scott halpin was near the stage and raised his hand at the urging of his friends. they invited him up and tested him out. he then sat in on the drums for the rest of the show. after, they gave him and his friends free tour merch and had them party with them.
Keith Moon passed out *during* the show. According to Wikipedia, due to "sedatives and brandy" and (so Wikipedia says) he was revived with a cold shower and cortisone injection before passing out again. Moon probably hadn't taken ketamine - for one thing, it doesn't typically make you pass out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Moon#Passing_out_on_stage and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scot_Halpin#Playing_with_The_Who
Load More Replies...TIL: That sometime after WWII a person took over off the coast of England what was a anti aircraft platform and since it was outside of England's range of national waters he created a micro nation and called it Sealand with it own laws and regulations. It's own currency. It's own sovereignty.
Reginald Bates who now lives in Essex though caretakers still live on this Maunsell Sea Fort. He booted off a pirate radio station to grab the fort.
Load More Replies...FUTURE version of TIL: Trump was the worst president in American history
in 1973, the world famous rock band, "the who" were performing in san francisco. their drummer, keith moon was well known for his d**g use and antics. an hour before the concert, he had taken a large dose of ketamine. just as the first song was ending, he passed out. after taking him back stage, pete townsend turned to the audience, "any one out there knows how to play drums? and i mean good" 18 year old scott halpin was near the stage and raised his hand at the urging of his friends. they invited him up and tested him out. he then sat in on the drums for the rest of the show. after, they gave him and his friends free tour merch and had them party with them.
Keith Moon passed out *during* the show. According to Wikipedia, due to "sedatives and brandy" and (so Wikipedia says) he was revived with a cold shower and cortisone injection before passing out again. Moon probably hadn't taken ketamine - for one thing, it doesn't typically make you pass out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Moon#Passing_out_on_stage and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scot_Halpin#Playing_with_The_Who
Load More Replies...TIL: That sometime after WWII a person took over off the coast of England what was a anti aircraft platform and since it was outside of England's range of national waters he created a micro nation and called it Sealand with it own laws and regulations. It's own currency. It's own sovereignty.
Reginald Bates who now lives in Essex though caretakers still live on this Maunsell Sea Fort. He booted off a pirate radio station to grab the fort.
Load More Replies...FUTURE version of TIL: Trump was the worst president in American history
