Interesting Facts (19 pics)

1

"TIL Simpsons creator Matt Groening was born to Homer and Marge Groening (neé Wiggum) and two of his siblings are called Maggie and Lisa. His grandfather is Abram A. Groening."

2

"TIL a stray dog followed Dion Leonard, who was running in a week-long ultramarathon in the Gobi Desert, for 77 miles of the 155-mile race. At night the dog even started to join him in his tent. He named her Gobi, & after the race, he crowdfunded the £5K needed to bring her back to Scotland with him."

3

"TIL: Browser the librarian cat outlived the city councilor that tried to evict him from his position."

4

"TIL that Australia has forced gambling companies to display slogans in their ads like “You win some. You lose more” and “What's gambling really costing you?” instead of the standard “Gamble Responsibly”."

5

"TIL that in 2020, a teenage boy was playing video games with an online friend when he began having a seizure. Despite being over 5,000 miles away, his friend managed to alert the emergency services in his area, saving his life."

6

"TIL: Some farmers in Bangladesh have switched to raising ducks instead of chickens, because during catastrophic floods, ducks float."

7

"TIL Female frogs fake death to avoid mating with male frogs they don’t find attractive."

8

"TIL in 2013 McDonald's gave Charles Ramsey free food for a year after he helped rescue 3 women, who had been held hostage for years, while carrying a "half-eaten Big Mac." In addition, 14 local Ohio restaurants also gave Ramsey free burgers for life."

9

"TIL while suffering dementia near the end of her life, Harriet Beecher Stowe re-wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin nearly word-for-word believing it was a new book."

10

"TIL that Norway, after gaining independence from Sweden in 1905, offered the throne to Prince Carl of Denmark - but he refused to accept unless the people voted for a monarchy over a republic. 79% said yes, and he became King Haakon VII, the only known king ever to be elected by popular vote."

11

"TIL that Stephen King was so obsessed with Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5 that his wife threatened to divorce him over it."

12

"TIL Columbo's signature catchphrase "Just one more thing" originated because a scene was too short, and the writers didn't want to retype the script on a typewriter, so they just had him return and add the line at the end as if he'd forgotten something."

13

"TIL a man escaped from a federal prison in Illinois after jumping over two 15 foot fences only to turn himself in to the FBI 4 days later to show them his desalination invention."

14

"TIL the Calibri font caused the Pakistani Prime Minister to be disqualified from office in 2017. Forged documents about the PM's income that claimed to be from 2006 used the font, but the font was not publicly released until 2007."

15

"TIL that in the 1980s East Germany tried to resolve a major coffee shortage by building coffee-production infrastructure in Vietnam, its close ally. By the time any coffee was harvested, East Germany had ceased to exist. Meanwhile, today Vietnam is the second-largest coffee producer in the world."

16

"TIL that ravens in the wild play with wolf puppies. In the wholesome way, not the 'play with your food' way."

17

"TIL Boeing once filled an airplane with potatoes to test its in-flight Wi-Fi because potatoes mimic the way humans absorb and reflect wireless signals."

18

"TIL People with depression use language differently. They use significantly more first person singular pronouns – such as “me”, “myself” and “I”. Researchers have reported that pronouns are actually more reliable in identifying depression than negative emotion words."