Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
“TIL when Dr. Joyce Brothers was a contestant on The $64,000 Question the show’s sponsor Revlon tried to get rid of her because she didn’t wear makeup on air. She was asked increasingly obscure questions but was able to answer them all correctly and became the show’s first woman to win the top prize.”
“TIL that in the Netherlands on May 4th 8 pm, no matter where you are, there is a 2-minute silence for the soldiers that died in WWII”
“TIL about the Edict of Salerno. In 1231 after noticing the rapidly rising cost of medicine, Emperor Friedrich II made it forbidden for doctors to double as pharmacists and the prices of various medicines were fixed so they could not rise further.”
“TIL at David Niven’s funeral, the largest wreath was from the porters at Heathrow Airport with a card reading “To the finest gentleman who ever walked through these halls. He made a porter feel like a king.””
“TIL that in 1867, an American businessman attended a reading of A Christmas Carol and was so moved by it, that he closed his factory on Christmas Day and sent every employee a turkey.”
“TIL Viking women’s faces were more masculine than today’s women, while Viking men’s faces looked more feminine than today’s men, with a less prominent jaw and brow ridges. The ambiguous facial features mean that it is difficult to decide upon a Viking skeleton’s sex based on the skull alone”
“TIL that in 1992, six visitors to a dinosaur exhibition in the Memphis Zoo demanded a refund after discovering it did not contain living dinosaurs”
“TIL Queen Victoria personally admired Harriet Tubman and gifted her a silk lace & linen shawl in 1897. It is now on display at the national museum of African-American history & Culture”
“TIL according to the head of MI6, if James Bond was real, he would be unable to work for British intelligence because he lacks the required emotional intelligence, respect for the law and teamwork abilities.”
“TIL that the reason many Hanna Barbera characters had collars and ties was to save money on animation. Separating the head and body allows the body to remain static while the head is animated. This made it so a seven-minute cartoon only required around 2,000 drawings, as opposed to the usual 14,000”
“TIL that the sirens from Greek mythology were never said to be beautiful, or even mermaids. Instead, they were strange human-faced bird creatures who lured men to their deaths by promising them wisdom and knowledge of the future.”
“TIL that silica gel packets aren’t poisonous. They are labeled “do not eat” because they are a choking hazard.”
“TIL about Buy Nothing Day, established to counteract the consumeristic Black Friday”
“TIL Vikings believed that there was a goat in Valhalla that supplied an endless supply of beer from it’s udders”
“TIL of Conrad Veidt, a top 1920s German actor whose wife was Jewish. He refused to renounce her and even claimed to be Jewish in solidarity. In Hollywood, his acting contract said if he played a Nazi, he must be a villain (like he was in Casablanca). He also gave his life savings to the war effort.”
“TIL that many birds do not breed very well in small flocks and that Zoos use mirrors to help increase reproduction”
“TIL of Arthur Stillwell, a young Kansas City entrepreneur who built over 3000 miles of railroad, and founded over 40 towns, and developed a way to to ship live oysters by train, all because the voices in his head told him to.”
“TIL astronaut Bruce McCandless floated in space completely unattached to anything, 320 feet away from the space shuttle with only a nitrogen jetpack back in 1984.”
“TIL in 1999, Microsoft wanted the domain www.Windows2000.com but it happened to be owned by a guy called Bob. Luckily, Microsoft happened to own the domain www.Bob.com. They made a swap, with Bob receiving some “other considerations” as well!”
“TIL that one town in Scotland celebrates Halloween on the last Friday of October instead of the 31st since there’s no school or work (for most) the next day.”
“TIL in the 1950s, a researcher was designing army airplane seats for an ‘average’ pilot based on measurements from 1000s of airmen, only to discover this theoretical ‘average’ he’d derived wouldn’t fit any of them. This realization led to adjustable seats, foot pedals, helmet straps, and flight suits”
“TIL that corned beef is named for the large grains of rock salt (also called “corns” of salt) that are used to treat the meat.”
“TIL Danish has about 40 different vowel sounds and is so hard to learn that Danish children on average know 30% fewer words at 15 months than Norwegian children and take two years longer to learn the past tense”
“TIL that an underachieving Princeton student wrote a term paper describing how to make a nuclear bomb. He got an A but his paper was taken away by the FBI.”
“TIL – The oldest wheel was discovered in Slovenia and is over 5,000 years old”
“TIL that Brussels Sprouts have been selectively bred over the last few decades to taste less bitter, indirectly lessening their anti-cancer properties.”
“TIL that in 1859 a 2 hour telegraph conversation between Portland and Boston was able to be had without the use of any battery power. This was due to an aurora borealis generating enough electric current in the telegraph wires.”
“TIL in the midst of Greenland’s pristine landscape lies a U.S. Air Force base which was abandoned in 1947 and everything was left behind; dilapidated vehicles, asbestos-laden structures, and 10,000 leaking fuel barrels. The Inuits who live in the region call the rusted remains “American Flowers”.”
“TIL there are 17 monarchies in the world ruled by a Queen, 16 of those are Queen Elizabeth II”
“TIL that Cinderella isn’t a real name but was just a nickname for Ella who would be covered in cinders due to having to sleep by the fireplace to keep warm or clean ashes. Most other versions have different variations on a name relating to ashes.”
“TIL jazz guitarist Pat Martino suffered a near-fatal seizure in 1980 which left him with amnesia and no recollection or knowledge of how to play the guitar. He re-learned how to play the instrument, and resumed his performing and recording career in 1987 until his death in 2021.”
“TIL until 1971, the Government of Canada assigned all Inuit people a number in lieu of a surname and issued each a leather disc with the number that had to be carried at all times or sewn into clothing”
“TIL: when St. Jerome translated the Bible to common Latin, he made the forbidden fruit an apple as a pun.”
“TIL that when Leslie Nielsen died, ESPN published an obituary for Enrico Pallazzo, the umpire he played in The Naked Gun”
“TIL that during World War 1, the American Expeditionary Forces tried to make the French treat Black soldiers in accordance with Jim Crow laws ”due to concerns that black soldiers and officers working with the French were being treated with too much “familiarity and indulgence.””
“TIL that “No Country For Old Men” had to suspend production because the crew for “There Will Be Blood” was testing pyrotechnics in the same area and created too much smoke.”
“TIL in 1972, The Los Alamos National Laboratories patented a nuclear tunnel boring machine, claiming it could reach depths of 18+ miles. It uses molten lithium to melt through rock, leaving behind a tunnel with a glass-like finish.”
“TIL that in No Time to Die, the cobbled streets of Matera, Italy did not have sufficient grip for the film’s opening car chase. The crew got around this by pouring Coca-Cola all over the road, making it sticky, and allowing the drivers to perform the stunts.”
“TIL that in 1952, Stalin proposed German reunification under a “neutral and democratic” government, but was turned down by the West. It is still debated whether the offer was a bluff, a trick, or a genuine missed opportunity for reunification.”
“TIL that when Niccolo Tartaglia found a formula to solve certain types of cubic equations, he did not publish his findings. However, Tartaglia wrote a 25 line poem explaining the formula and shared it with another mathematician, Girolama Cardano, who went ahead and published it himself.”