TIL the term "port" to refer to a ship's lefthand side was for centuries much less common than the term "larboard", which only fell out of favor in the mid-1800s once the British Navy ordered its usage abandoned due to sounding too similar to "starboard".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_and_starboard#Etymology
TIL A Snail Wakes Up After 5 Years of Being Glued to a Museum Card. In 1846, authorities at the British Museum glued what they thought was a deceased snail to a piece of cardboard for display. After it seemingly became unglued 5 years later, they discovered it had been alive the whole time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eremina_desertorum
Today I learned Flea the bass player from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was cast in the 80's movie "The Outsiders".
https://www.rhino.com/article/5-things-you-may-not-have-known-about-flea
TIL windsocks are used to tell the wind speed and not just direction
https://youtu.be/Dqk-cTdab0c?si=mPXdyewxitqtSIWa
TIL A lot of early North American's used dried out corn cobs to clean themselves up before toilet paper was invented.
TIL that when Edwin Hunter McFarland could not fit all letters into the first Thai typewriter, he left out two consonants, which eventually led to their becoming obsolete.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_typewriter
TIL in 2007, a Sunni cleric in Egypt issued a fatwa encouraging women to breastfeed their male business colleagues so that the man would eventually become symbolically related to the woman, thereby precluding any sexual relations and the need for both sexes to observe modesty
TIL Adélie penguins use stones for building their nests. Based on a 1998 study, media reports stated that a shortage of stones led female Adélie penguins to trade sex for stones. Some pair-bonded female penguins copulate with males who are not their mates and then take pebbles for their own nests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals
TIL that marble countertops are radioactive and can emit radon gas
TIL That chickens have intercourse like humans and the male doesn’t just sit on the egg to fertilize it
https://animals.mom.com/chickens-copulate-egg-hatch-1839.html
TIL that the colored section of a toothbrush is termed "indicator bristles." They signal when it's time to replace your toothbrush as the color diminishes.
TIL Bob Barker (RIP!) and Adam Sandler did a sequel skit to Happy Gilmore in 2015 for the Night of Too Many Stars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI7NXpw8jFY
TIL that Finland, the country of thousands of lakes, does not have that much water. The average depth of its lakes is only 7 meters, meaning that all the lake water in Finland combined is less than a fourth of the contents of Ladoga. However, to be fair, Ladoga is the largest lake in Europe.
https://www.vesi.fi/en/water-topics/how-much-water-do-the-finnish-lakes-hold/
TIL unassisted marathon swims can be relays with varied numbers of participants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_successful_English_Channel_swimmers#Relay
TIL: Charlie Chapin’s body was dug up by grave robbers and held for ransom two months after his death.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/grave-robbers-steal-charlie-chaplins-body
TIL That avant-garde British pop band "Art of Noise" takes it's name from a 1913 Futurist manifesto, called "The Art of Noise" - Which argues that the modern human ear has grown accustom to industrial noise, and now will seek more exciting sounds in music to combat this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Noises
TIL that from 2018-2020, the popular online video game “Among Us” was in violation of the Geneva Conventions Act for using a red cross symbol in the MedBay.
https://gamerant.com/among-us-red-cross-medbay-geneva-conventions-act/
TIL Elizabeth Taylor outlived the NY Times writer who penned her obituary by five years
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/elizabeth-taylor-outlives-ny-times-writer-who-wrote-her-obit/
TIL about the Flag of Cusco. Popular in Peru for decades, it was changed in 2021 due to its resemblance to a more recognizable flag.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Cusco
