30 little-known facts from the series “Today I learned” (31 photos)

Studying does not stop when you graduate from school/institute: if you are open to knowledge and energetic enough, you can learn something new and expand your horizons literally every day. This is exactly what the participants of the r/todayilearned subreddit do, and at the same time share their discoveries with others. So, let's continue the phrase: “Today I learned that...”



1. “Today I learned about Don Ritchie, an Australian who intervened and stopped at least 180 suicide attempts at a popular suicide spot. He lived nearby and would just go up to people and ask, “Is there anything I can do for you?”



2. “One of the largest donations ever made by a lottery winner came from a Canadian. Two years after his wife died of cancer, Tom Crist won the lottery and donated his winnings to an organization fighting the disease. Canada doesn't tax lottery winnings, so Crist ended up donating $40 million."





3. “In 1952, future American President Jimmy Carter led a team of nuclear scientists to dismantle a melted nuclear reactor in Canada. To do this, Carter, along with other American military personnel, personally went down into the reactor to clean it out manually.”



4. “Today I learned about the huts (or warehouses) for shipwrecked people that governments of different countries place on isolated uninhabited islands. They store supplies and tools that will help people in difficult situations survive. Most of them were built by New Zealand authorities in the 19th and 20th centuries.”



5. “Today I learned about Josephine Cochrane, who invented the dishwasher because she was tired of dishes breaking when washed by hand.”



6. “Representatives of the ancient Nazca culture extracted water in the middle of the desert through a water supply system they designed from 46 aqueducts running underground at a depth of 12 meters. They were built around 200-500 AD and 32 of them are still in use by local farmers.”



7. “The US state of North Dakota effectively ended corporate chain pharmacies by passing a law requiring pharmacies to be owned by a licensed pharmacist. This law requires licensed pharmacists to own a majority of the corporation that owns pharmacies.”



8. “Mature male elephants play a key role in elephant society. The absence of mature males leads to an increase in inappropriate behavior among young males, which will soon develop into must [a condition in elephants characterized by extremely aggressive behavior]. When adult males were introduced to areas with high concentrations of these offenders, they soon put an end to the behavior.”



9. “Today I learned about the Movile Cave, which was completely isolated from the outside world for 5.5 million years, during which time it evolved dozens of species of animals found nowhere else, supported only by toxic chemicals in the air and water, not photosynthesis."



10. “Roman concrete structures such as the Pantheon and aqueducts are very strong because of the lime fragments. While many modern concrete structures deteriorate after a few decades, Roman concrete has a self-healing feature due to lime debris, allowing their structures to survive for millennia.”



11. “In 1993, Mattel's Barbie doll division accidentally released a gay Ken. Although the doll was quickly recalled, it remains to this day the best-selling Ken doll of all time."



12. “In 2014, Diana Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. She swam 167 kilometers through waters infested with jellyfish and sharks, which took about 53 hours. The most amazing thing is that at that time she was 64 years old.”



13. “Today I learned about Dr. Jochem Heuer, a German transplant surgeon who advocated altruistic organ donation. After being criticized by a colleague for saying that he was “for” living donors simply because he would not have to be the donor, Hoyer donated a kidney to a stranger to put an end to the debate.”



14. “In 1974, Ace released their only hit, “How Long.” The song is not at all about a girl who cheats on her lover, but about the bassist of a group who secretly played with another group.”



15. “As part of an experiment, scientists in Siberia for 60 years selectively bred wild foxes that were friendly. 40 generations later, foxes are no less friendly than dogs.”



16. “Nikola Tesla once worked for Thomas Edison, but left due to disagreements over payment for his work improving Edison's DC systems. Tesla went on to develop alternating current systems, which became the basis for modern electrical grids."



17. “One repairman wanted to go home early from work and deliberately started a fire, ultimately causing $700,000,000 in damage to the submarine USS Miami.”



18. “70% of people in the world do not use toilet paper.”



19. “We begin to forget our memories from early childhood at about 7 years old.”



20. “Sperm whales use nannies. The calves can't dive as deep as their mothers, so when the mother needs to go deep for food, they leave the calves in the care of other adult whales."



21. “The Myers-Briggs typology has no scientific basis.”



22. “Japan was overrun by North American raccoons after the 1977 anime Rascal the Raccoon; Due to the popularity of anime, thousands of raccoons were imported into the country as pets, but new owners quickly released them into the wild.”



23. "Robin Williams' improvisation in Fern Valley was so good that the director tripled his character's screen time in the final version."



24. “The crews of Apollo 11, 12 and 14 had to spend 3 weeks in quarantine after returning to Earth to prevent the possible spread of infections from the Moon.”



25. “Darth Vader actor David Prowse was banned from attending official Star Wars events because he leaked too many plot details.”



26. “South Korea recruited a group of suicide bombers to kill North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung. The detachment rebelled, killed its commanders, stole a bus to Seoul and was blown up by its own military. Then the survivors were executed.”



27. “The Fahrenheit scale was standardized 18 years before the Celsius scale. The world switched to the Celsius scale because of the British Empire. The United States essentially uses a more traditional system."



28. “As a research student at Cambridge, Lawrence Bragg figured out how to use X-rays to study atomic structure. His discovery earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics at the age of 25.”



29. “The Japanese turned the third of their super battleships into the largest aircraft carrier of the time. After four years of construction and enormous costs, the ship left the shipyard and was immediately sunk by a submarine."



30. “King Alfonso XIII of Spain was known as the “playboy king” and was considered a pioneer of pornographic cinema in Spain. He commissioned pornographic films considered immoral and degenerate, including those featuring Catholic priests and his main passion - “women with huge breasts.”