30 Facts That Made Someone Stop And Say, ‘I Can’t Believe I Didn’t Know That’ (New Facts)

TIL Sequoyah, an illiterate warrior of the Cherokee Nation, observed the "talking leaves" (writing) of the white man in 1813. He thought it was military advantage and created a syllabary for Cherokee from scratch in 1821. It caught on quickly and Cherokee literacy surpassed 90% just 9 years later.

TIL Frederick Douglas did not know his actual birthday, so he chose Feb 14, because his mother referred to him as her little Valentine.

TIL in 2022 an 18-yr-old student, who did genealogical research as a hobby, cracked the unsolved 1964 m*rder of a 9-yr-old girl in Hazleton, PA. He researched for 18 months & created 50 complete family trees to find a connection to Hazleton which eventually led him to zero in on culprit James Forte.

TIL that despite being advised by his professor not to pursue physics because “almost everything is already discovered,” Max Planck went on to develop quantum theory and win the Nobel Prize.

TIL of Robert Grosseteste, a 13th century English bishop who correctly proved that rainbows are formed from refracted light. He then (very roughly) theorized an idea similar to the Big Bang theory. His sainthood was denied due to rumors that his ghost murdered the pope.

TIL that "Weird Al" Yankovic is one of only five artists to chart on the Billboard Top 100 each of the previous four decades. The other four are U2, Madonna, Michael Jackson and Kenny G.

TIL a man who received a bone marrow transplant was found that the DNA in his blood and semen had been completely replaced by that of his donor.

TIL after doctors removed a mass from a 47-yr-old man's lung that they believed was a malignant tumor, they discovered it was a Playmobil toy traffic cone that he had swallowed on his 7th birthday in 1974. His airway was able to adapt, which is most likely why he didn't show symptoms until he was 40.

TIL you can't legally buy Jack Daniel's whiskey in the town where the Jack Daniel's distillery is located, since it's a "dry county". It's legal to distill alcohol, just not legal to sell.

TIL Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, was so good at Tetris that Nintendo Power magazine eventually stopped publishing his high scores because he dominated the leaderboard.

TIL about Kalachi, Kazakhstan, a village plagued by a mysterious 'sleeping sickness' that caused residents to fall asleep for days at a time. Scientists eventually linked it to carbon monoxide poisoning from a nearby abandoned uranium mine.

TIL that in 1920, French President Paul Deschanel fell from a moving train at night while wearing pajamas. Disoriented, he approached a railway signalman, claiming to be the president. The signalman, doubting his sanity, reportedly replied, "And I'm Napoleon Bonaparte."

TIL 55% of the world's population aged 15 and older can't swim.

TIL “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion from the movie Titanic was playing in the dining hall when the Costa Concordia crashed in 2012.

TIL Kathleen Caronna was in a month-long coma after a Thanksgiving Day parade float knocked a lamppost onto her head in 1997. She bought a nice apartment with the settlement money and 9 years later, Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed his plane into her high rise and the engine landed in her bedroom.

TIL Thomas Jefferson once spent $1400 (in today's dollars) just to ship a stuffed moose to France to prove that America had large animals.

TIL In 2002 German actor Günther Kaufmann confessed that he had fallen on his accountant and accidentally suffocated the man to death with his 260-pound body. But in 2005 it was discovered that Kaufmann was innocent and had confessed to protect his dying wife who had m*rdered the man.

TIL about Timothy Clark Smith, who, due to taphophobia (fear of being buried alive) is famous for having a grave with a window and being buried with a bell on his hand.

TIL about skunk cabbage - a Canadian plant that is capable of creating temperatures tens of degrees above ambient in order to melt its way through frozen ground! Thanks to this truly Canadian feature, skunk cabbage blooms while there is still snow and ice on the ground.

TIL that after admitting responsibility for over 12,000 deaths in the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge, Kang Kek Iew aka Comrade Duch asked the war crimes tribunal to acquit and release him. They did not.