50 Curious Facts People Learned By Accident And Can’t Stop Thinking About (New Pics)

TIL that in 2024, bots made up a bigger proportion of global internet traffic than humans for the first time.

TIL A man named Cincinnatus was given absolute power to save Rome from an invasion; he did so in just 16 days, then immediately resigned and went back to his farm.

TIL in 2006 Alitalia Airlines accidentally listed the fare for a business-class ticket from Toronto to Cyprus for $39 instead of $3,900. Within hours, over 2,000 people bought tickets. Alitalia honored the fare, costing the airline $7.2M. One of many mistakes on its descent into eventual bankruptcy.

TIL legendary talk show host Merv Griffin's tombstone reads: "I will not be right back after this message."

TIL when Simone Biles executed the Yurchenko double pike on vault during the 2023 World Championships, she willingly took a half-point deduction for having her coach stand on the landing mat, ready to step in & redirect her into a safe position if it looked as if she was headed for a "scary landing."

TIL that Leonardo DiCaprio and the crew on his boat helped rescue a man who had been treading water for about 11 hours after falling overboard in the Caribbean Sea.

TIL that in rare instances, the sound of tinnitus is detectable by someone other than the patient by using a stethoscope, in which case it is known as "objective tinnitus."

TIL Mel Gibson was supposed to direct Good Will Hunting after making Braveheart. He developed the movie for months but wanted more time. Damon and Affleck got impatient and said they were aging out of the characters. So they convinced Mel to leave the project and let Gus Van Sant direct it.

TIL in 2024 a 2-year-old girl's blood test revealed that the toddler had a blood alcohol content of .12 after a California restaurant mistakenly served her cooking wine that had been mislabeled as apple juice. The parents took their daughter to the ER after they noticed she had signs of intoxication.

TIL that Levi's recommends that jeans be worn 10 times between washes.

TIL after smallpox was declared eradicated, the sole (official) remaining specimens of the virus were preserved in two designated laboratories globally, one at the CDC in Atlanta and the other at VECTOR in Koltsovo.

TIL that Madonna once leaked her own album on file sharing services but every track was a loop of her swearing at the downloaders. Hackers then took over her official site and posted the actual album.

TIL scientists renamed 27 human genes in 2020 because Microsoft Excel kept auto-converting their names into dates, causing widespread errors in published genetic research.

Gene symbols like SEPT1 and MARCH1 were automatically turned into dates (e.g., “Sep-01,” “Mar-01”) when opened in Excel. These mistakes showed up in supplementary data and even peer-reviewed papers. To stop the damage, the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee officially renamed the affected genes (e.g., SEPT1 to SEPTIN1, MARCH1 to MARCHF1).

A prior study found that around 20% of genomics papers with Excel files contained gene name errors, largely due to this issue.

TIL that Ice T is currently the longest-running male actor in US primetime TV history for his role as Odafin Tutuola on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, a role he has played since 2000.

TIL that scientists discovered a new carnivorous caterpillar in Hawaii that scavenges trapped insects in spider webs and wears their body parts as camouflage.

TIL that in 2017, a Chinese woman received a refund for her new iPhone X after it was discovered that her coworker was consistently able to unlock her phone using the Facial Recognition feature. A replacement iPhone X proved to have the same issue.

TIL Gig Young was originally the actor cast as the Waco Kid in the film “Blazing Saddles”, but Gig Young was an alcoholic and collapsed on set during the first day of filming due to alcohol withdrawal. Director Mel Brooks fired him and replaced him with Gene Wilder.

TIL of Titanic's "Missing Survivors": 30 passengers (2 from 1st Class, 3 from 2nd, 11 from 3rd, and 14 crew members) who survived the disaster but whose lives following the sinking have proved impossible for historians and genealogists to trace, with investigations into their lives still active.

TIL that in the 1960s, Dr Pepper launched a huge campaign to convince people to drink their soda boiling hot. To combat low sales during the winter, they marketed "Hot Dr Pepper" which was to be heated in a saucepan until steaming and poured over a fresh slice of lemon. It was popular until the 80s.

TIL that during the final 24 hours of George Washington's life, his physicians withdrew approximately 80 ounces (2.3 liters) of blood in an attempt to treat his throat infection. This amount represented about 40% of his total blood volume.