TIL Cleopatra caught Mark Antony secretly having divers attach fish to his hook to impress her. She pretended not to notice, invited a crowd back the next day, then had her own diver attach a salted f
TIL the Hulk’s most famous origin story (accidentally exposing himself to radiation in a lab self-experiment) comes from the 1970s TV show and not the comics—where he originally became the Hulk by bei
TIL Harlen Ellison was fired on his first day on set before lunch while working on Disneys "The Black Hole" (a star wars like movie). He had suggested the movie be a porno of iconic Disney characters.
TIL about Willie Francis an American teenager known for surviving a failed execution by electrocution. Sentenced to death at age 16, he was 17 when he survived the first attempt to execute him, as the
TIL Sun Yaoting, the last Chinese eunuch, was castrated at age 8 without anaesthesia. While he was recovering, China became a republic. He died in 1996, and was supposed to be buried with his preserve
TIL that there is a Dark Star Road in the city of Benson, Arizona. "Benson, Arizona" is the theme song to the 1974 film Dark Star by John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing). The road is named in honour
TIL that up to half of the water on Earth is actually older than the Sun itself. It formed in interstellar space and survived the creation of our solar system.
TIL Charles Darwin once caught two rare beetles, one in each hand. When he spotted an even rarer third beetle, he refused to let any of them go, so he put one of the first two in his mouth. It sprayed
TIL that the canal system was largely forgotten about in the UK, until the publication of the book Narrow Boat in 1944. The book which details a canal journey on the eve of WW2, stirred an enthusiam t
TIL Tommy Prince was an Indigenous Canadian WW2 hero who was so quiet, he could sneak behind enemy lines, enter Nazi barracks, slit their throats, then steal their shoes before returning back to camp.
TIL in 2013 the 91-year-old Guardian crossword setter Araucaria told his readers he was dying through one of his own puzzles. The note above it read "Araucaria has 18 down of the 19, which is being tr
TIL a man with no heirs left more than €10 million to a Normandy village of 1,800 people that he's not thought to have ever visited. The only connection anyone could find was that it shared his surnam
TIL that in 1967, a 14-year-old Chinese girl was hit by a stray bullet, she mistook it for a pebble. For 48 years, she survived with the 2.5 cm bullet lodged in her nose until chronic headaches led to
TIL Frank Zappa's father worked at a chemical warfare facility that stored mustard gas. Because of its proximity to their home, the family kept gas masks in case of an accident. This profoundly influe
TIL that early anaerobic life accidentally caused Earth's first mass extinction. By evolving to use photosynthesis, they produced oxygen as a byproduct, which was toxic to the anaerobic organisms and
TIL that Cheryl Wheeler-Dixon, the stuntwoman who was severely injured during the filming of Back to the Future Part 2, was killed in a shootout alongside her husband when she and her husband went to
