TIL before Richard Horvitz landed the role of Zim in Invader Zim, both Mark Hamill and Billy West were hired for the role first, and both even recorded a version of the pilot [Source]

TIL Korean Air was known as "an industry pariah, notorious for fatal crashes" in the airline industry prior to 1999, resulting in hundreds of fatalities. South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung would call the airline's safety record "an embarrassment to the nation" & would fly rival airliner Asiana. [Source]

TIL of the Jim Twins. They were separated at birth and reunited at age 39, at which time they realized that they were both married to a woman named Linda, divorced, then married a woman named Betty, and each named their son's James Allan. They also both owned dogs named Toy and worked as Sherrifs [Source]

TIL It is assumed that the word “bear” is a euphemism and derives from the Proto-Germanic word for “the brown one.” The actual name of the animal was probably “arctos.” [Source]

TIL: being physically fit reduces anger [Source]

TIL the cast of Das Boot (1981) were deprived of sunlight during the entire year of filming to realistically portray the unhealthy, pale skin of real sailors. I also learned 30000 of 40000 sailors never made it home. [Source]

TIL about the 1972 Iran Blizzard, the deadliest blizzard in history. Over the course of 9 days Iran received almost 26 feet of snow, and roughly 200 villages were erased from the map. [Source]

TIL that during the English Siege of Rouen (1418-19), the city expelled around 12,000 impoverished citizens to conserve food. Once outside of the city, however, Henry V did not permit them to pass through the English lines. They were trapped between city walls and the English and eventually starved. [Source]

TIL there’s an Android game called “Send Me to Heaven” where the objective is to throw your phone as high as possible and catch it, with the app measuring height using the device’s accelerometer. Apple banned it from the App Store for encouraging users to damage their phones. [Source]

TIL nearly 60% of Google searches end without the user clicking a link [Source]

TIL that the Antikythera Mechanism, a 2,000-year-old Greek device recovered from a shipwreck, was so mechanically sophisticated that nothing comparable appeared again in human history for roughly 1,400 years. It predicted eclipses and tracked the movements of the planets using a system of over 30 in [Source]

TIL there will be three Friday the 13th in 2026 (February, March and November). This is the most you can have in a year and the rarest combination last occurring in 2015. [Source]

TIL that bees can recognize human faces using the same "configural processing" technique humans use — assembling parts into a whole. They were taught this in lab experiments despite having brains smaller than a sesame seed. [Source]

TIL a Japanese company gave non-smokers 6 extra vacation days per year to compensate for time smokers spent during smoke breaks [Source]

TIL about Turnspit dog, an extinct breed (now) which was used in the kitchen to help chefs and cooks. [Source]

TIL Black Sabbath bassist Greezer Butler has been a vegetarian since he was a child. His childhood dog ‘Scamp’ had acid thrown on him and Geezer has been dedicated to helping animals ever since. [Source]

TIL Sting got his name from wearing a yellow and black jumper while playing jazz with the Phoenix Jazzmen in the evenings after his teaching job in the early 70s. [Source]

TIL that humans tend to remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones, a phenomenon known as the Zeigarnik effect. [Source]

TIL the Han dynasty carried out a major southward expansion into the lands of the Baiyue, conquering states like Minyue, Nanyue, and Dian, where military campaigns led to the subjugation, displacement, and gradual assimilation of many indigenous peoples. [Source]

TIL Only 15 countries operate aircraft carriers (and 7 of those are for helicopters only). [Source]

TIL scientists discovered that the bacteria living on the International Space Station have mutated into a species that doesn't exist on Earth. [Source]