48 interesting Facts People Just Learned Today
Nathan Johnson
Published
07/23/2021
Stuff they don't teach in school.
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1.
Bronze medal Olympian, UFC champion and WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey used to be a moderator on a Pokemon forum, in her bio it said "I also spend a lot of time doing judo... right now I'm ranked #1 under 20, if you don't believe me look it up" -
2.
A local fisherman in Costa Rica nursed a crocodile back to health after it had been shot in the head, and released the reptile back to its home. The next day, the man discovered “Pocho” had followed him home and was sleeping on the man’s porch. For 20 years Pocho became part of the man’s family. -
3.
Norway hires shepherds from Nepal to build paths in the Norwegian mountains. They have completed over 300 projects, and their pay for one summer equals 30 years of work in Nepal. -
4.
While only 9.7% of Americans don't wear seatbelts, 47% of those who die in car crashes were not wearing seat belts. -
5.
Masks on airplanes generate oxygen by triggering a chemical reaction. If pressure in the cabin is disturbed and masks drop, tugging the mask causes a firing pin to ignite a small explosion in an ‘O2 candle’ where Sodium Chlorate and Potassium Percholorate combine to make Oxygen gas. -
6.
The satanic temple offers academic scholarships to elementary through college students. -
7.
Richard Norris Williams was a Titanic Survivor who spent over 6 hours waist-deep in freezing water - after rescue doctors wanted to amputate both his legs - he refused and went on to win the Wimbledon Men's Doubles in 1920. -
8.
A 59 yr. old woman's smartwatch correctly recognized a tachycardia, alerting her to seek help. She was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation and treated, reducing her chances of suffering a severe stroke. In 2017 the FDA approved the use of this technology to be used for medical purposes. -
9.
Having resulted in 77 people dying in 9 years, Australia's horses and cows are deadlier than its snakes and spiders. Kangaroos killed 60 in that time, while snakes and lizards have only killed 23. Spiders haven't killed anyone since 1979 -
10.
Jean de Selys Longchamps was a Belgian aristocrat who flew with the RAF during World War II. After learning that his father had been murdered by the Nazis, he flew to Brussels and machine gunned the Gestapo headquarters. He was demoted for insubordination but also awarded a medal for heroism -
11.
When the USS West Virginia battleship was finally salvaged 6 months after the attack on Pearl Harbour, a calendar was found in an air tight room where 3 trapped sailors had marked off 16 days until they died -
12.
In 1966, Bill Cosby tried to get 16 year old folk singer Janis Ian blacklisted from tv because he thought she was a lesbian and therefore unsuited for family entertainment. -
13.
Chemists have developed two plant-based plastic alternatives to the current fossil fuel made plastics. Using chemical recycling instead of mechanical recycling, 96% of the initial material can be recovered. -
14.
American rapper Jay-Z stabbed a man at an album release party, with a 5 inch blade in the stomach, after rumors the man was behind the bootlegging of one of his albums. He later pleaded guilty to third-degree assault, accepting a 3 year probation sentence. -
15.
Arthur Tudor, the older brother of Henry VIII, exchanged letters with his fiancée, Catherine of Aragon, in Latin. When they met in person they were unable to communicate however, as they had mastered different pronunciations of the language. -
16.
For the film Stargate, Kurt Russell was paid twice his going rate because he was the only actor at the time to have "zero unlikability" in a global poll. -
17.
In 2018, a woman accidentally paid a Swiss cafe $7709 for coffee because she entered her PIN number as the dollar amount. When she called to get the money back, nobody answered because the cafe had filed for bankruptcy. -
18.
There was an infamous game of roulette played in Monte-Carlo on August 18, 1913, where the ball fell on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost millions expecting it to land on red along the way, making "the gambler's fallacy" famous. -
19.
River Phoenix died right before he was to film his role as the interviewer in Interview with the Vampire. The part was recast with Christian Slater, who donated his earnings to Earth Save and Earth Trust, two of Phoenix's favorite charities. -
20.
Thomas Linley was called "The English Mozart". Mozart called him "a true genius" and said "he would have been one of the greatest", but he drowned in a lake at age 22 and most of compositions were lost or burned in a fire. -
21.
In east Africa, movies are often watched with a "VJ" or "video joker" who provides live narration over the movie for translation, contextualization or comedy purposes. -
22.
In 1927, during the worst flood in the history of the Mississippi River Valley, Herbert Hoover and the Red Cross set up "concentration camps" comprised of African Americans forced to work at gunpoint on the levee, and created a media campaign to cover it up. -
23.
In 1995 a policy known as “the Wall" was created. It discouraged info sharing between the CIA and FBI, playing a critical role in the inability to stop 9/11. It got so bad agents played a CD with Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" into the phone as they were told their access was denied. -
24.
The germs that cause Strep Throat tear apart red blood cells and then dress themselves in the debris. This disguise prevents the immune system from attacking them. Mice survived infection by Mutant Strep lacking that ability, and were then more resistant to infection by Normal Strep germs. -
25.
Thomas de Mahy, Marquis de Favras was a French aristocrat whose last words were "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes", upon reading his death sentence warrant. -
26.
Helen Keller was accepted to Harvard in 1900. Mark Twain introduced her to Standard Oil magnate, Henry Rogers, who paid for her education. And in 1904, she became the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor's degree. -
27.
Taxi Driver (1976) was made with a low budget of only $1.9 million. Robert De Niro & Cybill Shepherd received only $35k for the film while Scorsese received only $65k. Despite the low budget, it went on to receive 4 nominations at the 1977 Academy Awards. -
28.
The oldest living elephant is Vatsala, living at an Elephant camp in a Tiger Reserve. At 105, she has lived for more than double the age of an average Asian Elephant. Though losing her vision to Cataract, she has been able to navigate using her trunk and support from her herd members -
29.
Abraham Lincoln had a high-pitched voice described as shrill, sharp, and like a whistle. However, while unpleasant, these qualities also helped his voice carry long distances. This proved to be advantageous in the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates when everyone in a crowd could hear him speaking. -
30.
In 1996, a Hong Kong ganster "Big spender" kidnapped the son of the richest man in Asia and demanded a ransom of $160 million for his return. After receiving the money, the gangster later phoned up and asked for advice on how to invest the money. -
31.
in WWII, Major Digby Tatham-Warter led a bayonet charge while wielding an umbrella and wearing a bowler hat. He later disabled a German armored car with his umbrella. When saving the chaplain from enemy fire, he said “Don’t worry about the bullets, I’ve got an umbrella”. -
32.
A British man was surprised at being urgently contacted by the NHS about his health, when they calculated his BMI as being 28,000. They'd written his 6'2" height as being 6.2cm tall -
33.
in the original ending of the Inca-inspired animated film "The Emperor's New Groove", the titular Emperor demolishes a rainforest to create a theme park. Sting – who spent 20 years defending the rights of indigenous people – threatened to leave the project unless the ending was changed. -
34.
A 64-year-old manager at a French defense manufacturer was gifted a ride as a passenger in a military jet but he failed to secure himself properly in the cockpit and at one point tried to to hold onto the ejector handle, accidentally activating it and ejecting himself mid-flight. -
35.
The Tour de France has a team that drives each days route and turns genitals graffitied on the road into owls and butterflies. -
36.
Suddam Hussein burned his son Uday's car collection, consisting of hundreds of rare, luxury cars, as punishment for Uday's shooting at a dinner party, which killed several people and injured Saddam's half-brother. -
37.
The Smithsonian Museum has over 3 million 2D and 3D images that anybody can use for free for any commercial purpose. -
38.
Florida had brought in 2 Irula tribesmen from India to catch the invasive Burmese pythons. When 1000 hunters were able to manage catching just 106 snakes, the duo caught 27 snakes in just 4 weeks, including a 16 ft long female. -
39.
In 1990 the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was robbed of 13 paintings worth a total of 500 million dollars, none of them have been found, and the museum is still offering offering a $10 million reward (the largest reward by a museum in history) -
40.
Jimmy Carter is the longest-lived president, the longest-retired president, the first president to live forty years after their inauguration, and the first to reach the age of 95. -
41.
Architect Alejandro Echeverri was approached by the mayor of Medellin, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, to revitalize the city. He focused on building in the poorest areas first to bring people and infrastructure into these neighborhoods. Crime dropped substantially. -
42.
Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl set out to prove that ancient Egyptians could have crossed the Atlantic by boat. Thor left Morocco in a papyrus boat which was lost for a time and the subject to a UN search and rescue. However, the Ra II arrived in Barbados 57 days after its launch in 1970. -
43.
The founder or Texas Roadhouse Restaurants, W. Kent Taylor, has no ties at all to the state of Texas and originally had dreams of opening a Colorado-themed eatery. -
44.
Eric Money is the only person to ever score for both teams in an NBA game. Due to an officiating error by a referee, an NBA game between the Sixers and Nets in 1978 had to be replayed beginning in the middle of the game. Money was traded from the Nets to the Sixers during the span between games. -
45.
Early puberty is a hereditary genetic condition. In one writer’s case, it meant growing pubic hair when he was only 2: “I Was a 4-Year-Old Trapped in a Teenager’s Body” -
46.
The city of Carmel, IN has the most roundabouts per city in the US, with a total of 138. Since regular intersections were replaced with roundabouts, the number of accidents here has reduced by 40%. -
47.
There is a religion in Vietnam called Caodaism. Its followers believe in a single god who sent many prophets. Some of these prophets include Buddha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, Muḥammad, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Victor Hugo, and Sun Yat-sen. It even has a Holy See and Pope figure! -
48.
When Wu-Tang Clan's debut album achieved commercial success, one of the group's members, Ol' Dirty Bastard, was filmed cashing in a wellfare check. This was because ODB had not yet filed his taxes, so the then-recent income did not impact his eligibility.
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