TIL that only two women have attempted to assassinate a US President - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the Manson family, and Sara Jane Moore, an FBI informant. Both attempts were against Gerald Ford in California within three weeks of each other. [Source]
TIL cleaner wrasse fish willingly enter and clean the mouths of larger, often predatory fish. Larger fish gather at cleaner wrasse "stations" and open their mouths. Cleaner fish enter their mouths and eat parasites; they get a meal, and the larger fish get cleaned of parasites. [Source]
TIL an embryo frozen in 1994 was successfully implanted 30 years later, resulting in a live birth in 2025 — the longest frozen embryo ever to result in a live birth, certified by Guinness World Records. [Source]
MIT Technology Review
Exclusive: A record-breaking baby has been born from an embryo that’s over 30 years old
The embryos were created in 1994, while the expectant father was still a toddler, and donated via a Christian “embryo adoption” agency.
TIL that Mark Hamill stated that he would never voice the Joker again because "Without Kevin (Conroy) [the voice actor for the animated version of Batman when Hamill voiced the animated version of the Joker] there, there doesn't seem to be a Batman for me." [Source]
Nerdist
Mark Hamill Reveals Why He Won’t Voice the Joker Again
Mark Hamill was the Joker for an entire generation of fans. But now he's revealing why he won't play the character going forward.
TIL an elderly woman in China unknowingly used an old hand grenade, that never exploded, as a hammer for 20 years. She had risked her life every time she used it. Its metallic head was full of dents and it had become so damaged that part of its fuse was exposed, however somehow it withstood it all. [Source]
Oddity Central
Woman Uses Hand Grenade as a Hammer for 20 Years, Lives to Tell the Tale
A 90-year-old Chinese woman unknowingly used an old hand grenade to crack nuts and hammer nails for two decades.
TIL about the Detroux Affair in Belgium. Marc Dutroux sold children to prominent figures for abuse, and the botched investigation made people ask whether there was a cover up. Belgian people marched on the streets, and those in power feared a full rebellion. [Source]
TIL that people can often recognize a familiar song in as little as a few hundred milliseconds after it starts playing [Source]
UCL News
Name that tune: Brain takes just 100 to 300 milliseconds to recognise familiar music
The human brain can recognise a familiar song within 100 to 300 milliseconds, highlighting the deep hold favourite tunes have on our memory, a UCL study finds.
TIL about Rahma Haruna, a girl whose body stopped growing at 6 months old. Her family carried her in a plastic bucket. The specific illness that caused her condition was never diagnosed. She died at age 19. [Source]
Today I learned that basketballs used to always be brown, but in the 1950s an orange basketball was invented so it would be easier to see against the floor of the court. This is now the standard colour for basketballs. [Source]
Basketball Innovatio
The Orange Basketball ball
The initial basketball games used soccer balls, but they were not suitable for handling. In 1894, Naismith, who created the basketball game, contacted A.G. Spalding and Bros. to make a ball for basketball. The company produced a leather ball held together…
TIL about Georg Gaertner, a POW who escaped a camp in New Mexico in 1945, lived as a fugitive for 40 years and eventually got citizenship. Because he had been brought to the US involuntarily and escaped the camp after the war, he was not charged with a crime and lived in the US until he died. [Source]
TIL "The Ashes",an England–Australia cricket series since 1883,got its name from a satirical obituary written after England lost to Australia in 1882: "English cricket is dead.The body will be cremated & the ashes taken to Australia".The name stuck when England’s captain vowed to“regain those Ashes" [Source]
TIL the first case of nonischemic priapism (an unwanted persistent erection) following penile tattooing was reported in 2012. A man got a tattoo on his penis which caused a permanent semi-erection. After an unsuccessful surgery to fix it, he decided to live with it since it was painless & functional [Source]
TIL that a Los Angeles woman was once involuntarily committed after she insisted that the boy that she was reunited with was not her missing child. The story later inspired the 2008 movie “Changeling”. [Source]
NPR
Behind 'Changeling,' A Tale Too Strange For Fiction
In 1928, a 9-year-old boy disappeared — and when the police "discovered" him, his mother said they had the wrong boy. Screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski fills in NPR's Elizabeth Blair on the sad and sordid story that inspired his new film.
TIL that in the late 1800s clam chowder was introduced in New Zealand as an "American" dish and has become integral to New Zealand cuisine [Source]
TIL that John Lennon came back from a 5 year recording hiatus in 1980 after hearing the B-52’s Rock Lobster. In his words, "[Rock Lobster] sounds just like Ono's music, so I said to meself, 'it's time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up!'" [Source]
TIL In medieval times the Byzantines used a giant chain to prevent enemy ships from crossing the Golden Horn, the natural estuary leading into Constantinople's harbor. Failing to break it, some invaders, including the ottomans in 1453, decided to carry their ships on land and circumvent it [Source]
TIL about Michel Siffre, who spend over two months in a cave (on more than one occasion) with no timekeeping devices of any kind in order to study how the human brain perceives time. [Source]
TIL that about 30% of people with depression have treatment resistant depression (TRD), which means they have failed at least 2 different types of treatment modalities. [Source]
PubMed Central (PMC)
Treatment‐resistant depression: definition, prevalence, detection, management, and investigational interventions
Treatment‐resistant depression (TRD) is common and associated with multiple serious public health implications. A consensus definition of TRD with demonstrated predictive utility in terms of clinical decision‐making and health outcomes does not ...
TIL that philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe believed that human consciousness is an evolutionary overextension, unnecessary for survival. He believed that humans developed four common coping mechanisms to dull our self-reflection and soothe our anxiety regarding our mortality. [Source]