30 various 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. “In 1947, in the Canadian city of Snug in the Yukon, the temperature reached -64 ° C. It was so cold that you could hear people talking 6 kilometers away. There were other phenomena: when exhaled, the air turned into powder and fell to the ground , and the river ice exploded with a roar similar to shots from a gun."



2. "Robert De Niro paid a dentist $5,000 to give his teeth a more sinister look for his role in Cape Fear. After filming ended, he paid another $20,000 to have his teeth restored."





3. “A woman on a flight from Manchester to Florida suffered a heart attack during the flight, and when the flight attendant asked passengers for help, 15 cardiologists rushed to save the woman. They were flying to a cardiology conference.”



4. "Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks containing this photo of Yoda next to King Faisal as he signed the 1945 UN Charter."



5. “The Cherokee writing system was developed by one man, Sequoyah. This is one of the few times in history that a member of an illiterate group invented a formal writing system from scratch. Within 25 years, almost 100% of the Cherokees were literate, and it inspired dozens of indigenous peoples around the world create your own writing."



6. "In Japan, officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato, the oldest man in Tokyo, on his 111th birthday. When they arrived at his home, they found a mummified body in his bed, wearing underwear and pajamas. He had been dead for 30 years." but his family kept the secret so they could continue to receive his pension."



7. “The heart rate of freedivers can drop as low as 11 beats per minute (like that of seals, whales and dolphins) to maintain oxygen levels in the blood.”



8. “According to Gallup, more than 300 million people in the world do not have a single friend.”



9. “The first known resume in history was written by Leonardo da Vinci when he applied for the position of military engineer for the Duke of Milan. It consisted mainly of a list of his developments of siege weapons (including trebuchets). He briefly mentioned his creative abilities: “In painting I I can do everything possible.” He got the job.”



10. "Three students were trying to find a creative approach to teaching history and developed the game Oregon Trail. The first version was written in just 10 days in 1971, and school students played it for 5 days. The code was given to an educational non-profit organization in 1974 year, and the creators never made a profit from the game."



11. “Cats are more talkative with people than with other cats.”



12. "A social worker at the school noticed a young Jimi Hendrix's habit of imitating the guitar with a broom and tried to get the school to fund him to buy him a guitar. Her request was denied."



13. "Ahead of the storm [in Colorado], one owner abandoned his injured 45-pound dog, Missy, on Bierstad Mountain, where hikers found her a few days later. They treated her but were unable to rescue her. So they placed a tag with her location on a climbing forum, and so began an epic adventure to rescue a dog from a mountain [the story has a happy ending!]."



14. “Today I learned how poisonous polar bear liver really is. It contains enough vitamin A in its entirety to kill as many as 52 adult humans. If you spread it out and eat just enough for your daily vitamin A requirement, it would be enough to 143 years old!"



15. "In 1998, part of the Titanic's hull was lifted from the bottom and exhibited in a casino. Visitors receive a "boarding pass" with the name of a real passenger and learn his fate at the end of the exhibition."



16. “During the Vietnam War, the United States conducted a psychological operation in which eerie sounds and voices were played through loudspeakers, imitating the spirits of dead North Vietnamese soldiers, in order to undermine the morale of the enemy. The operation was called “Wandering Souls.”



17. “The United States was supposed to adopt the metric system, but a ship carrying the standardized meter and kilogram was captured by pirates in 1793, and the system never reached the States.”



18. “Fender Guitars conducted a study and found that 90% of new guitarists quit playing within 1 year. The remaining 10% spend an average of $10,000 on equipment over their lifetime, buying 5-7 guitars and several amps.”



19. "Frank Losser wrote the song Baby, It's Cold Outside to perform with his wife Lynn Garland at parties to cue guests that it was time to leave."



20. "The number of abs is a genetic factor and varies from person to person. It depends on the number of rings of abdominal tissue at birth, and some people may even have 10 abs."



21. "An antidote to Black Widow venom is made by injecting horses with the venom over a period of time. The horse produces antibodies, after which its blood is drawn and the antibodies are purified for later use."



22. “According to a Norwegian study with more than 11 thousand participants, bosses spend significantly more time on personal social networks during work hours than their subordinates.”



23. “When bears hibernate, they refrain from defecating for almost six months. This is due to the formation of a fecal impaction in the lower intestines, which prevents them from defecating during hibernation.”



24. "Sound quality in movie theaters has improved dramatically with Star Wars. Sound in movie theaters tended to be inconsistent or poor quality. So George Lucas and his colleagues created THX to fully capture the sound in Return of the Jedi."



25. “In 2004, a 25-year-old girl from Japan underwent surgery to remove a mature fetiform teratoma (a tumor that formed a doll-like structure) that contained the brain, eye, spinal nerve, ear, teeth, thyroid gland, bone, bone marrow, tissues of the intestines, trachea and blood vessels... and much more."



26. “130 million American adults have low literacy levels, with 54% of people aged 16 to 74 having literacy levels below that of a sixth grader.”



27. “Women are 17% more likely to die in car crashes than men. They are also 73% more likely to be injured in a head-on car crash in which both sexes are wearing a seatbelt.”



28. "NASA plans to decommission the International Space Station by 2031 by dumping it into the Pacific Ocean."



29. “38% of unprovoked shark attacks worldwide occur in Florida.”



30. "Thomas Edison electrocuted several dogs, cats, cows, horses and an elephant in an attempt to discredit Nikola Tesla's work on alternating current electricity."