Nate
There’s so much information available to us that it’s impossible to know everything — even though most people on the internet pretend they do. In some ways, this is good because you can always continue to learn new things.
From fun facts to historical events you may not have known about, learning something new is always fun.
Maybe you’ll learn something you can share during an uncomfortable silence at a social event you didn’t want to be at, or maybe you can just tell the cashier at the store. You can do whatever you want with these cool facts and tidbits that people are sharing in this popular group.
1. “TIL that two buttons in WWII RAF uniform can be put together to make a mini compass which indicates towards north.”
2. “TIL in the Red Sea, giant moray eels have been observed hunting cooperatively with coral groupers. The grouper approaches an eel’s hiding place and shakes its head rapidly to indicate that it wants to hunt. The eel recognizes the signal and accompanies it on the hunt where they work in tandem.”
3. “TIL the wolves/dogs used to film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005) had to have CGI butts/tails because they were too happy to appear menacing.”
4. “TIL that figure skater Mabel Fairbanks, who was was banned from rinks as a child due to her African American and Native American ancestry, went on to coach skating greats like Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Debi Thomas, and was the first African American in the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame.”
5. “TIL about Operation Meetinghouse – the single deadliest bombing raid in human history, even more destructive than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. On 10 March 1945 United States bombers dropped incendiaries on Tokyo. It killed more than 100,000 people and destroyed 267,171 buildings.”
6. “TIL in 2015 an Australian woman put a bet on a horse at 100-1 and won $825, she then took a selfie with the winning bet slip, posted it to Facebook, somebody saw it and put the barcode into an automated betting machine and stole her winnings.”
7. “TIL that In 2015, that a three-story tall lamp post became so corroded by urine that it snapped and fell over, crushing a nearby car.”
8. “TIL that some urban birds like finches and sparrows use cigarette butts as a form of pest control for their nests. The nicotine in the cigarettes helps keep parasites away.”
9. “TIL that by 400 BC, Persians had developed Yakhchal, Ancient Refrigerators capable of storing solid ice in the summer in the desert.”
10. “TIL the mother of the last Comanche chief was a white woman who was kidnapped at age 9 & assimilated into the tribe. She later married a chieftain & bore him 3 children before she was found at age 33 & returned to her bio-family. She never accepted white society & committed suicide by starvation.”
11. “TIL that during his time as the narrator for the US version of the first four seasons of the children’s TV show Thomas the Tank Engine, George Carlin spoke his lines to a teddy bear in the booth because he was nervous about performing without an audience.”
12. “TIL that Michigan police once rounded up a group of local drug dealers by inviting them to the fake wedding of two of the dealers’ regular customers, who were really undercover police officers. The arrests got underway after the band (also undercover police officers) played ‘I Fought the Law’.”
13. “TIL the crawfish farming industry in Louisiana grew after rice farmers began breeding them in their rice fields. They realized that they could farm crawfish throughout the year without it affecting their rice. It also served as an extra source of income for them.”
14. “TIL that, on average, half of all service dogs fail their training. Due to this poor rate, South Korea experimented with cloning service dogs that had already passed their training. The resulting clones passed at rates much higher than average.”
15. “TIL Miranda Gibson lived on a small platform 60 metres above the ground in a 400-year-old Eucalyptus tree to protect the surrounding forest. A bush fire forced her to evacuate after 449 days but Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area was officially extended by 170,000 hectares a few months later.”
16. “TIL 45 years ago, ahi (tuna) were caught for fun and ground into pet food. In Japan, tuna was called neko-matagi, meaning ‘fish that even a cat would disdain’.”
17. “TIL that the Animal Planet reality series ‘River Monsters’ ended because star Jeremy Wade was able to catch essentially every exceptionally large freshwater fish species on earth, leaving no remaining content for the show.”
18. “TIL that Iceland was once covered in trees until the Vikings came and cut them down to make room for sheep.”
19. “TIL Freshwater snails are one of the world’s most deadly animals because they transmit the organism that causes schistosomiasis (aka bilharzia), which is, in and of itself, one of the most deadly parasites on the planet! Nearly 230m people were infected in 2014 and there are~200,000 deaths annually.”
20. “TIL Women have been legally allowed to go topless in public in New York City since 1992.”
21. “TIL that smokers whose insula got damaged after a stroke were able to quit smoking easily one day after the stroke, with no relapse and urges, suggesting that this brain region might play a role in nicotine addiction.”
22. “TIL that during a murder trial in 1994 an English jury got drunk and consulted an Ouija board to determine the killer. This led to a retrial.”
23. “TIL that a proposed 1896 Pennsylvania law required motorists who encountered livestock to: stop their vehicle, disassemble it, and conceal the parts until the livestock were sufficiently pacified.”
24. “TIL that in 1429, King Charles VII of France exempted the town of Domrémy from paying taxes ‘forever’, after a promise to Joan of Arc. Taxes were imposed again during the French Revolution.”
25. “TIL Eurypterids, an order of arthropods completely wiped out by the world’s biggest mass extinction, were scorpion-like giants that could reach almost ten feet in length.”
26. “TIL Oreo has to call the white center “creme” instead of “cream” because the FDA does not allow manufacturers to use the word “cream” to describe a food that contains no cream at all.”
27. “TIL about Frieda Caplan, a pioneer in the world of produce who built a successful business in the 1960s by promoting items that, at the time, were relatively unheard of in the U.S. such as mangoes, shallots, and a New Zealand fruit originally called ‘Chinese gooseberry,’ which she dubbed the kiwi.”
28. “TIL Rio de Janeiro was once the capital of Portugal. Following the conquest of Portugal by Napoleon, the Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil (1808-1821). They then established the capital of Portugal in Rio de Janeiro.”
29. “TIL that during a college football game in US, many people gathered upon the roof of a glass blowing factory to watch for free. The roof collapsed, spilling fans onto a furnace. Twenty-three people were killed but the game continued. The event is known as The Thanksgiving Day Disaster.”
30. “TIL that dingoes were brought to Australia by humans around 4,000 years ago, and are actually an ancient breed of domestic dog.”
