TIL Upon losing his hearing, Beethoven devised a brilliant solution. By attaching a metal rod to his piano and clenching it between his teeth, he harnessed the vibrations in his jawbone, thus experiencing sound in a novel manner. This ingenious method is now recognized as bone conduction.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/29/tech/innovation/bone-conduction-get-used/index.html
TIL that the Ampersand used to be the 27th letter of the alphabet
https://factschology.com/factschology-articles-podcast/27th-letter-alphabet-ampersand
TIL that in the common law of crime in England, a Common Scold was a troublesome and angry person who broke the public peace by habitually chastising, arguing and quarreling with their neighbors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_scold
TIL about the Basus war, a tribal war that spanned 40 years over the murder of a camel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basus_War
TIL that some common oral contraceptives (birth-control pills) can be rendered ineffective if stored for an extended period of time above 30 degC (86 degF) - such as inside a hot car. They can also be degraded by storage in a cold place such as a home refrigerator or freezer.
https://naomedical.com/info/how-long-can-birth-control-be-in-the-heat.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15ins47/til_that_some_common_oral_contraceptives/
TIL the first picture of a human being taken was of a man in Paris in 1838 who had stopped to have his shoes shined and didn't move long enough to be captured in the 10 minute photo exposure time.
https://www.unjourdeplusaparis.com/en/paris-insolite/premiere-photo-etre-humain-paris-en-1838/amp
TIL Whacking Day, a yearly event depicted in The Simpsons where the townspeople kill snakes, was a real event in Eastchester, New York from 1665 onwards. Records stated: "That one day every spring be chosen for the destroying of rattle snakes."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whacking_Day#Reception
TIL Hawaii’s ecosystem has no seagulls
https://travelopea.com/no-seagulls-in-hawaii/
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15illbm/til_hawaiis_ecosystem_has_no_seagulls/
TIL how one Japanese artist spent six months trekking 3000 miles through Japan with a GPS tracker to spell out ‘Marry Me’ across islands
https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/now/wedding-proposal-set-world-record-174851511.html
TIL about Sacoglossans, otherwise known as 'solar-powered sea slugs', that are incorporating living chloroplasts from their food source into their tissues to camouflage, otherwise called 'kleptoplasty'. And also that they're unique species apart of protists to do so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacoglossa?wprov=sfla1
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15ik2v5/til_about_sacoglossans_otherwise_known_as/
TIL two aviation incidents happened where superstitious, inexperienced passengers tried to throw coins into the plane's engines for good luck before the flight.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15ijirc/til_two_aviation_incidents_happened_where/
TIL a Goldman Sachs report believes close to 300 million jobs will be lost to AI. It could replace a quarter of the workforce in US and Europe.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65102150.amp
TIL that "meh" has Yiddish origins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meh
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15ij54w/til_that_meh_has_yiddish_origins/
TIL that one of the earliest examples of ASCII art appears in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll (1865): Chapter III includes "A Long Tale" in the shape of a mouse's tail.
https://github.com/khrome/ascii-art-docs/blob/master/History.md
TIL about William Dampier, a naturalist who used piracy as a means to explore the world. He was the first Englishman to explore parts of Australia, one of Charles Darwin's inspirations and introduced the words "barbecue", "avocado", "chopsticks", and "subspecies" into the English language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dampier?repost
TIL of the Outcomes Paradox in schizophrenia — Patients treated for schizophrenia in some developing countries have better outcomes than patients treated for schizophrenia in developed nations.
https://www.nature.com/articles/508S14a
TIL there was an attempted kidnapping of Princess Margaret in 1974 which was ultimately stopped by a passerby, Ronald Russell, who also happened to be a professional boxer. He punched the assailant and ended the attack.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/bloody-attempt-kidnap-british-princess-180950202/
TIL Grover Cleveland is the only US president to have actually hung a man. Serving as Sheriff of Erie county, he hanged at least two convicted murderers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover_Cleveland
TIL that brown rats were domesticated twice. First in Japan starting around 1654 and then a second time completely independently in Europe in the early 1800s.
https://academic.oup.com/af/article/11/3/78/6306454
