"TIL the Masai Tribe in Africa donated 14 cows to the United States after 9/11"
"TIL: Bats eat enough insects to save the US over $1 Billion a year in crop damage and pesticide"
"TIL Scientists at the Parkes radio telescope in Australia spent 17 years trying to identify powerful but extremely short radio bursts that would appear at seemingly random intervals. In 2015 they finally identified the cause: a microwave oven at the facility being opened prematurely"
"TIL in 1999, Danish physicist Lene Hau was able to slow down light to 38 mph (61 kmph), and was later able to stop it completely, manipulate it, even move it to a different location"
"TIL about Secessio Plebis which was a form of revolt first introduced in ancient Rome. When the ruling class of Rome would become too corrupt or unjust to the commoners, the commoners would band together, evacuate the entire city and leave the elites to fend for themselves
"TIL that in the operatic song in The Fifth Element, composer Eric Sierra "purposely wrote un-singable things" so she’d sound like an alien. When opera singer Inva Muls came for the part, "she sang 85% of what [Eric] thought was technically impossible", the rest being assembled in the studio"
"TIL that 26 of the 36 missing children featured in the original music videos for Soul Asylum's Runaway Train have been found. Most recently, the remains of Aundria Bowman were identified in 2020, 31 years after she was reported missing"
"TIL to collect taxes, Christian IV of Denmark asked captains of ships crossing the Øresund to estimate the value of their cargo, which was applied as the tax base without further audit. But the king also claimed the right to buy the entire cargo at exactly that price"
"TIL A Canadian makeup developer helped Crayola create "Colors of the World" crayons that are meant to accurately reflect human skin tones. He pared down the 40 shades he had created for Cover FX to 24 distinct colors that kids can use to draw themselves"
"TIL the iconic Einstein-sticking-his-tongue-out photo was his annoyed reaction to paparazzi goading him to smile on his 72nd birthday. It achieved cult status mostly because Einstein himself asked for a cropped version, ordered many prints and proceeded to send them to friends"
"TIL figure skating competitions in the 1800s involved the act of skating pictures into the ice. This required precision and wasn't as fast-paced as modern figure skating"
"TIL about Jean Boulet who in 1972 set the world record for the highest altitude reached in a helicopter, 40,280ft. During descent his engines failed, and he landed the helicopter without power, setting another record in the process for the highest unpowered helicopter landing"
"TIL Joseph Armand Bombardier invented the snowmobile after his son died of appendicitis when a blizzard prevented him from getting him to a hospital in time"
"TIL that on the entire 4300 mile length of the Amazon river there are no bridges"
"TIL that American ice cream company Häagen-Dazs sued American ice cream company Frusen Glädjé to stop them from using a "Scandinavian marketing theme". The court ruled against Häagen-Dazs as they had also marketed themselves as Scandinavian without having any real connection to the region"
"TIL that the Feeling of "impending doom" is an official symptom of a Wrong blood type Transfusion. (ABO incompatibility)"
"TIL the 7 year rule for dog aging is incorrect - compared to humans, dogs age faster when young and slower as they age"
"TIL after the TV show Teletubbies ended, the owner of the land used had to dig out the hill and flood the field it was filmed in, due to the amount of people trespassing to see Teletubbieland"
"TIL that a suicidal teen from the UK used several fake online personas to convince his best mate to kill him, he survived the attack but became the first person in UK history to be charged with inciting their own murder"
"TIL Florence Nightingale was not only a nurse but a statistician who created one of the first pie charts and authored 150 books, pamphlets and reports"
"TIL that a fire destroyed most of Harvard Library’s collection in 1764. Only a small number of books were spared, including 144 that were checked out at the time. One of these books was found and returned in 1997"
"TIL The London Underground has its own subspecies of mosquito that lives exclusively in the stations and tunnels"
"TIL that the first commercial airliner shot down by hostile forces was refurbished, returned to service, and later became the third commercial airliner to be shot down by hostile forces"
"TIL there's a gene that controls how long you sleep. "Short sleepers" function the same off of 4-6 hours of sleep as a typical individual getting 8"
"TIL Mr. T's trademark gold neck chains and jewelry was the result of customers losing the items or leaving them after a fight at the nightclub where Mr T. worked as a bouncer. A banned customer could return to claim his property from Mr. T wearing it conspicuously right out front"
"TIL the last king of Egypt, Faud II, is still alive and ascended to the throne when he was just 192 days old. He was deposed a year later after his father was exiled and Egypt declared a republic"
"TIL about Alexis St. Martin who, after not properly healing after being shot in the stomach, was used in experiments for 12 years as doctors could view his digestion in real time through his wound. He lived another 58 years"
"TIL that the Animals broke up because, while touring in Japan in 1968, their manager was kidnapped by the tour promoters, who were Yakuza, and put him up for ransom. After the manager escaped, the band was forced to flee the country or be killed by the Yakuza, leaving all of their tour gear behind"
"TIL Frank Dixon, author of the Hardy Boys books and Carolyn Keene author of the Nancy Drew Series don't exist. They are actually pseudonyms for a variety of writers who wrote those stories"
"TIL About "Judas goats", which are trained to associate with herds and gain their trust so that other animals follow them - to a slaughter. The Judas goat is rewarded by not being killed, and used to lead other herds to the same fate"
"TIL amidst early concerns about leaded gas, the engineer who discovered tetraethyllead as an additive demonstrated its 'safety' by pouring it over his hands and inhaling its vapor, stating he could do this every day without issue. He later took a leave of absence due to lead poisoning"
"TIL that when deaf people experience stroke-related brain damage, they often lose the ability to sign in remarkably similar ways to the different forms of linguistic aphasia (difficulty speaking, forming words, sentences being nonsensical)"
"TIL Alexander Fleming's mold that produced the first antibiotic, penicillin, was kept frozen since 1945 and its genomes are used for regrowing nowadays"
"TIL that a Wall Street restaurant, The Exchange Buffet, operated on the honour system, where customers would tally their own bills. It ran successfully from 1885 to 1963"
"TIL the energy released by turning just one kilogram of hydrogen into helium is the same as burning 20,000 metric tons of coal. The sun is doing this constantly through nuclear fusion"
"TIL The national anthem of Italy mentiones Poland and the national anthem of Poland mentions Italy, both in a positive way"
"TIL about Kriegspiel, a chess variant where each player can see their own pieces, but not those of their opponent. Players attempt to move on their turns, and the umpire declares their attempts 'legal' or 'illegal'. If the move is illegal, the player tries again; if it is legal, that move stands"
"TIL Weird Al's biggest problem with services that illegally distributed his music was that they would misattribute songs to him. Al was especially annoyed by profane songs like, "Baby Got Jack” or “Ugly Girl”"
"TIL Bach wrote the Brandenburg Concertos in 1721 as part of a job application to the Margrave, which he never received a reply. The concertos were unpublished until 1850 and almost lost again during WWII"
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#2 that's weird because the federal government orders farmers to destroy countless crops.