50 Of The Most Interesting Facts Ever Posted On “Today I Learned”

TIL Japanese doctor Tetsu Nakamura devoted his life revitalising deserts in Afghanistan, making forests and wheat farmland and contributing to peace. Nakamura was decorated with the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun and Afghan National Medal.

TIL In 1802, Napoleon added a Polish legion to fight off the slave rebellion in Haiti. However, the Polish army joined the Haitian slaves in the fight for independence. Haiti's first head of state called Polish people "the White Negroes of Europe", which was then regarded as a great honour.

TIL juice company dumped 12,000 tonnes of orange peels on virtually lifeless soil, 16 years later, it turned into a lush forest.

TIL alpacas are being used as bodyguards in some turkey farms, since they instinctively accept the birds into their herd and scare off foxes.

Nas listed his then 7-year-old daughter, Destiny Jones, as an executive producer on his fifth studio album Stillmatic to ensure she would always receive royalty checks from the album.

TIL that in 2009 Icelandic engineers accidentally drilled into a magma chamber with temperatures up to 1000C (1832F). Instead of abandoning the well like a previous project in Hawaii, they decided to pump water down and became the most powerful geothermal well ever created.

TIL in the anatomy building at Dalian Medical University, where medical student can practice on cadavers, there's a sign with a quote from a donor that reads "I’d rather let students try something 20 times on me than see them make one mistake on a future patient.”

TIL the King's doctor Johann Struensee seized power for over a year in 18th century Denmark. He managed to abolish slavery, abolish censorship of the press, and have an affair with the Queen before being ousted and executed in 1772.

TIL the self-absorption paradox asserts that the more self-aware we are, the less likely we are to make social mistakes, but the more likely we are to torture ourselves over past mistakes. High self-awareness leads to more psychological distress.

TIL the chemical reaction in glow sticks was discovered by Dr. Edwin Chandross in 1962, but he had no idea the "chemiluminescent" objects were popular at music shows until a Vice interview in 2013. "Is that so?" he said. "Maybe my granddaughter will think I'm cool now."

TIL British Parliament had an official discussion where they condemned the historical inaccuracies of the film U-571 and the rewriting of history to paint the Americans as heroes in an event they never even took part in. They felt it was unfair on the British sailors that lost their lives.

TIL that even though Henry Heimlich demonstrated his signature maneuver thousands of times throughout his life he never got the chance to use it in an actual emergency until he was 96 when he saved a woman in his nursing home from choking on a burger.

TIL of Eric Moussambani, who had never seen an olympic sized swimming pool before the 2000 olympics. He recorded the slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72, however won his heat as all other competitors false started. He is now a national hero the head swimming coach of Equatorial Guinea.

TIL, The Netherlands gives Canada 20,000 tulips every year as a thank you for protecting the Dutch royal family in WW2.

TIL about the Great Green Wall, an effort to plant trees to stop desertification in the Sahara that began in 2007. Ethiopia has planted over 5.5 billion seedling since.

TIL that in India, there is a species of giant squirrel that have multicoloured fur, with with varying shades of orange, maroon and purple. Their bodies measure 36in from head to tail – double the size of their grey relatives – and they can leap 20ft between trees.

TIL A director made a ten hour movie that's just about paint on a wall drying, lasting for ten hours and seven minutes. The film was created by Charlie Lyne in order to troll the British Board of Film Classification (B.B.F.C.) who were forced to sit through the whole thing.

TIL that anatomically dogs have two arms and two legs - not four legs; the front legs (arms) have wrist joints and are connected to the skeleton by muscle and the back legs have hip joints and knee caps.

TIL In 1911 The Rigby family included their cat Tom in their census form. 'Tom Cat' was listed as being an 8-year old, married Mouse-Catcher, Soloist and Thief with 16 children. His birthplace was listed as Cheshire and he was described as being 'speechless' in the infirmity section of the form.

TIL the medals in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games were made from metals recovered from recycled cell phones collected since 2017.