Today I Learned 🎓

12 Nov 2024 03:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

12 Nov 2024 01:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

12 Nov 2024 00:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 23:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 20:50

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 19:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 17:50

TIL about the Food Disgust Test, developed by TU Zurich researchers who have discovered that people’s disgust concerning food can be broken into eight distinct scales. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 15:49

TIL That the reason most people did not smile in old photographs was due to long exposure times, ranging anywhere from 20 seconds to 20 mins the subjects had to hold perfectly still. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 14:49

TIL that the first recorded attempt at flight was made by a monk named Eilmer of Malmesbury in 1010. Using wings attached to his arms, he jumped from a tower and flew for a short distance before crashing. This experiment predates the Wright brothers by nearly 900 years. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 11:49

TIL: King Edward VII commissioned a custom "chair" that let him "pleasure" multiple women simultaneously. Three were made, with one "original" and the two others being replicas, one of which is housed in a museum for sex devices. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 07:49

TIL of 'Sokushinbutsu', ascetic Japanese buddhist monks who practiced self-mummification; they would prepare for death by eating a diet rich in pine needles and resin, paired with severe dehydration, until they 'hardened' in place. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 02:49

TIL after Ryan Murphy’s pilot about a transgender father was rejected, he created Glee as a “wholesome comedy that the entire family can watch” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 00:50

TIL Microsoft released the AI chatbot Tay (short for "Thinking About You"), designed to mimic a 19-year-old American, on March 23, 2016. It became a PR disaster when it learned offensive language from trolls, causing Microsoft to shut it down after just 16 hours and sparking debates on AI ethics. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 Nov 2024 21:49

TIL Chad Kroeger asked his stepfather to loan him CA$4,000 so that Nickelback could record the band’s first demo. Half the money was spent to record the EP, while Kroeger spent the other half on magic mushrooms to resell. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 Nov 2024 18:50

TIL that in 2013, LG had an event in Seoul, where they would tie free phone coupons onto balloons and release them into the air. Participants ended up bringing BB guns and pointed staffs to try and get the balloons down. 20 people were injured because of this event. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 Nov 2024 03:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

12 Nov 2024 01:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 23:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 22:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 19:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 18:49

TIL that during and after the Manhattan Project, the US government would inject unknowing subjects with radioactive materials to see how they reacted. Out of a likely 30 subjects, only 1 signed a consent form, which DID NOT fully explain the procedure and risks [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 16:49

TIL in Italy almost half of people have tattoos (48%). The US is third in the world with 46% having tattoos. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 14:49

TIL about Belphegor's prime, 1000000000000066600000000000001, a palindromic prime number with 666 at its heart and 13 zeros on either side. It was named after one of the Princes of Hell, who was charged with helping people make ingenious inventions and discoveries. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 13:49

TIL that the longest democratically elected communist government in history was the 34 year Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front rule in the Indian state of West Bengal [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 10:49

Today I learned that it is illegal to sell rulers with only inches on them in Japan [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 04:49

TIL that Super Bowl XXVII was originally going to be in Tempe, Arizona. However, due to state blocking Martin Luther King day from being recognized, the NFL moved the game to the Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, California instead. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 Nov 2024 01:49

TIL the highest rated episode of 'Breaking Bad' (Ozymandias, S5E14) and the lowest rated episode (Fly, S3E10) had the same director and writer ( Rian Johnson and Moira Walley-Beckett) [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 Nov 2024 23:49

TIL about the theory that myxosporeans, A microscopic parasite, may have originally been a cancer that evolved into it's own independent species. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 Nov 2024 19:50

TIL dolphins don’t just leave their dead behind. Mothers have been seen carrying their lifeless calves for days, even as they decompose, showing a terrible sense of loss. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 Nov 2024 18:49

TIL that the 1985 film Back To The Future was almost titled "Spaceman from Pluto" after executives at Universal didn't like the original title. In response, the film's producer, Steven Spielberg, sent them a memo thanking him for sending his wonderful "joke memo." The original title was kept. [Source]