Did you know that the “red” in “red velvet cake” may have come from the addition of beetroot during the great depression? Even if this fact is, by and large useless unless you make a living doing pub quizzes, there is something about little details like this that just feels nice to our brains.
So we’ve gathered some new and interesting facts to equip yourself with for your next trivia event. Prepare to take some notes as you scroll through, upvote the most interesting ones and share your own examples in the comments below.
#1
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.
Image credits: NateNate60
#2
TIL Frederick Douglas did not know his actual birthday, so he chose Feb 14, because his mother referred to him as her little Valentine.
Image credits: CobblestonesSkylines
#3
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.
Image credits: Smooth_Record_42
#4
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.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#5
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.
Image credits: Diligent_Mode7203
#6
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.
Image credits: smrad8
#7
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.
Image credits: LotusCobra
#8
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.
Image credits: xinxai_the_white_guy
#9
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.
Image credits: Double-decker_trams
#10
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.
Image credits: SkyofGeography
#11
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.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#12
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."
Image credits: CherryBlushFizz
#13
TIL 55% of the world's population aged 15 and older can't swim.
Image credits: Double-decker_trams
#14
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.
Image credits: ambunctiousrhino
#15
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.
Image credits: Ill_Definition8074
#16
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.
Image credits: charmer143
#17
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.
Image credits: BeefsteakChuckies
#18
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.
Image credits: JamesepicYT
#19
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.
#20
TIL that a BBC report found that 80% of personal loans taken out by UAE men were used for wedding expenses; as a result, many Emirati men opted to marry "less demanding" foreign women. In response, the government created a fund giving grooms money if the bride was Emirati.
Image credits: thisCantBeBad
#21
TIL Spain is in the "wrong" timezone because Franco aligned it with N*zi Germany in 1940, and it was never changed back.
Image credits: AlphatierchenX
#22
TIL Kayden Kross ,the p*rn actress, started her career because she wanted to save a pony from being slaughtered, she needed to get enough funds to buy the pony which made her start s***pping.
#23
TIL that 2 men tried to sue Universal Studios for $5m over false advertisement, after they paid $3.99 each to watch the film "Yesterday", only to discover that Ana De Armas, who appeared in the trailer, wasn't in the film.
Image credits: ModenaR
#24
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.
#25
TIL about a 747 hijacking where the jet had to land in Algeria to refuel. The lead flight attendant actually had to buy 6,000 gallons of jet fuel on her personal credit card because the Algerians insisted on payment first.
#26
TIL Britain was connected to continental Europe 9,000 years ago by strip known as Doggerland. Doggerland is now submerged.
#27
TIL Peter Sellers inhaled poppers before having sex with his wife one night to get "the ultimate orgasm" but instead suffered 8 heart attacks over 3 hours.
Image credits: Cranjis_McHockey
#28
TIL Coca-Cola sold for 5 cents for over 60 years.
Image credits: SpaciousTables
#29
TIL After Breaking Bad, many m*th manufacturers in real life dyed their product blue.
Image credits: SauloJr
#30
TIL There is a Disney super-fan that has ridden the Cars ride, Radiator Springs Racers, over 10,000 times. He will often ride it in excess of 20 times a day.
Image credits: ercohn
