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25 Random Bits Of Knowledge People Just Discovered
Every day, there is something new and interesting to learn and discover. The world and the web are full of information. It's impossible to learn about everything, but people can learn a lot from the Internet. Aside from all of the broad knowledge people have to know, there are millions of small, fun facts to learn about that might surprise someone. From historical events to gossip, there is a lot to read about.
Everyone can take a minute out of their day to discover something intriguing and interesting. Many people find joy in sharing these interesting facts online for everyone to indulge in. Knowing a cool fact can impress someone, fill an awkward silence, or help someone out in a very specific situation.
So, for those who want some food for thought or for those who want to test their own knowledge, here is a collection of 25 facts we only just learned today, so everyone else can learn them, too. Have fun with these odd facts and pieces of knowledge.
TIL When musician Prince died, he left behind a vault containing nearly 8,000 unreleased songs, but he had forgotten the combination.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that Neptune was discovered in 1846 not by accident, but because astronomers noticed Uranus was wobbling off course. Mathematicians used Newton’s laws to predict where a hidden planet should be, and when they pointed a telescope there, Neptune was right there.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that when cars were new, hitting a pedestrian was a serious matter called a 'motor killing'. As it happened, more since there were more cars and more crashes, car manufacturers hired public relations spin doctors to invent the word Jaywalker to shift the blame.
(Source: "":)
TIL in the early 2000s, schools in Perth, Australia gave teenage girls infant simulator dolls that cried and fussed like real babies. The goal was to show how hard motherhood is and reduce teen pregnancy. Surprisingly, girls who got the dolls had higher pregnancy rates than those who did not.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that an Australian man had his car break down in the Outback, 150km away from the nearest town. He walked for the next 120km knowing help would not come, until he finally brushed past a search team looking for him, who found him in "remarkably good spirits".
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that the ‘Age of Piracy’ only lasted around 80 years. It started in 1648 after the Treaty of Westphalia pushed European powers to hire privateers, and declined between 1714 and 1723 when the War of Spanish Succession ended, Nassau was retaken, every famous pirate had been killed or captured.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that in 2010, a woman at a Bangkok airport attempted to smuggle a drugged tiger cub in her suitcase by camouflaging it among plush tigers. She was caught after the X-ray scanner revealed that her suitcase contained a live animal with bones and organs.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL the first recorded human fatality attributed to a leopard seal occurred in 2003 when biologist Kirsty Brown was killed by one while conducting research snorkelling in Antarctica.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL Amazon won the right to produce a Lord of the Rings series (Rings of Power) without pitching the Tolkien estate a specific story. Instead, Amazon promised to work closely with the estate to "protect Tolkien's legacy", which the estate felt they were unable to do with previous adaptations.
(Source: "":)
TIL a programming bug caused Mazda infotainment systems to brick whenever someone tried to play the podcast, 99% Invisible, because the software recognized "% I" as an instruction and not a string.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that Richard Norris Williams survived the Titanic disaster, was told his legs should be amputated due to severe frostbite, but refused, and went on to win the U.S. National Tennis Championships.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL, Bees Can Get Drunk, Guard Bees will notice it in their Waggle Dance and may punish them, including breaking their legs as a warning to other bees.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that the longest time a criminal remained listed in the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list is 32 years, while the shortest time is just 2 hours.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL That the 'City of London' only has a population of 8583 according to the 2021 Census, but over half a million people work there every day.
(Source: "":)
TIL of 'normalcy bias', a cognitive distortion that convinces people nothing is wrong during a crisis. One author said that during a tornado warning, people 'would try to shame him into denial so they could remain calm'.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that, after he killed Julius Caesar, Brutus issued coins to celebrate the assassination, which featured a bust of Brutus himself on one side and two daggers on the other.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that the United States Department of Energy thought it necessary to post a list of things about the nuclear power plant in The Simpsons that doesn't reflect real life.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL Canada made five $1,000,000 face value coins out of pure gold weighing 221lbs (100kg), one of which was stolen during a heist, never to be found.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL The world’s largest tomato processor, The Morning Star Company, has no bosses--employees write their own job descriptions and negotiates responsibilities and compensation with peers.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL Alfred Hitchcock was jailed at the age of 6 because his father sent him to a police station with a note attached to his clothes requesting the jailing after Alfred committed some childish misdeed.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL in 1952 a driver did the 24 Hours of Le Man solo and nearly won, leading by 4 laps with an hour to go only to not finish due to an engine failure.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL The largest human-made structure visible from space is not the Great Wall of China but El Ejido, a large complex of plastic greenhouses in the province of Almería, southeastern Spain.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL The U.S. Supreme Court once ruled that the government could sterilize citizens who were deemed mentally unfit to procreate.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL that an American cybersecurity company used the floating patterns in lava lamps to create a random number generator for encryption purposes.
(Source: Reddit)
TIL fast food restaurants frequently use Columbus Ohio to test out new products because the demographics of the city closely resemble those of the country as a whole.
(Source: Reddit)
