30 interesting facts for your knowledge bank (31 photos)

Once upon a time, you had to read giant encyclopedias to gain new knowledge. Fortunately, now everything is simpler - and you can learn something new every day thanks to the vastness of the Internet. Users of the Reddit forum recently shared fresh facts from the category “Today I learned that...”. Let's look at the most interesting ones.





1. During the Apache Wars in the American Southwest, Apaches cut telegraph lines and tied the ends together with a strip of leather so that the break was almost undetectable.



2. After Salvador Dali supported the regime of the Spanish dictator Franco, Pablo Picasso for the rest of his life refused to mention Dali’s name or recognize him





3. Children in ancient China learned to write from the Thousand Words, a 1,000-word text in which not a single character is repeated and which covers a variety of topics from philology to astrology.



4. Laurence Fishburne was 14 years old when he starred in Apocalypse Now. He lied about his age to get the role. Filming dragged on, and by the time the film was released he was already 18 years old.



5. In 2021, scientists discovered a fish with the smallest brain of any known vertebrate species. For its size (12 mm) it produces very loud sounds (more than 140 decibels)



6. Research has shown that working irregular shifts for 10 years ages the brain by 6.5 years.



7. There are 17.3 million “digital nomads” in the United States - people who travel freely while working remotely



8. The English Christian sect "Shakers" considered sexuality to be the root of all evil. Members of the sect did not even shake hands with members of the opposite sex



The sect's numbers have dropped from 5,000 people in 1840 to 3 people in 2019 due to lack of birth rates.

9. The book "The Chronicles of Dune" by Frank Herbert (based on which the "Dune" films were based) was rejected by at least 20 publishers. Only the Chilton company agreed to publish it. They didn't know how lucky they were



10. Japanese Iwao Hakamada spent 46 years in prison, 34 of them in solitary confinement on death row, awaiting execution. In 2014 he was found not guilty and released



11. The most expensive medicine in the world is Hemgenix. The cost of one course of treatment is $3,500,000. It is used to treat hemophilia B, a blood clotting disorder



12. Phil Collins' famous song "In the Air Tonight" was the result of complete improvisation - he came up with the lyrics on the fly, writing them down on a piece of paper



13. After Hurricane Katrina, the world suddenly stopped calling children by this name. After 10 years, the name Katrina became 83% less common



14. 2022's Batgirl became the most expensive abandoned film in history. Warner Bros. has already spent more than 90 million dollars on its development, but they decided not to release it



15. A 2,000-year-old sapphire ring believed to have belonged to Roman Emperor Caligula sold for £500,000.



The ring is engraved with what is believed to be Caligula's fourth and final wife, Caesonia.

16. Starf fighteryter" had such a poor safety record that in Germany it was called the "Widowmaker"



292 of 916 fighters were lost in accidents.

17. The ashes of actress Carrie Fisher (Leia from Star Wars) were buried in an urn shaped like a Prozac pill.



The brother of the late actress then explained that the antidepressant Prozac was one of Carrie’s especially “valuable things.”

18. The Aztecs had a festival called Toxtátl, during which they sacrificed a young man who took on the role of the god Tezcatlipoca



After the sacrifice, a new person was chosen to take over the role the following year.

19. The oldest cat to give birth to kittens was a 30-year-old cat named Kitty. She died before she was 32 years old and gave birth to a total of 218 kittens.



20. HBO canceled the Game of Thrones prequel, Bloodmoon, in 2019 after spending $30 million on the pilot.



HBO's head of content explained that it was a difficult project because in the book, George R.R. Martin very briefly described the era in which the story was set.

21. Star jelly is a jelly-like substance that is sometimes found on grass and tree branches. Scientists have no idea what it is



According to folklore, this substance is deposited on Earth during meteor showers.

22. Sleeping on your side increases the number of fine lines and wrinkles.



23. Japanese Yasuo Takamatsu lost his wife during the 2011 earthquake, and for more than 10 years he has not stopped searching for her body. He dived into the ocean more than 800 times to find her.



24. Danny DeVito's short stature is due to multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, a rare genetic disorder that affects bone growth.



25. The “fifty-two hertz whale” is the loneliest whale in the world. This whale of an unknown species makes sounds at a frequency unique to whales at 52 Hz



This is an unknown species of whale that has been regularly spotted in various ocean locations since the 1980s.

26. The oldest known writing in the world, Sumerian cuneiform, is over 5,000 years old. However, only 5-10% of the found materials with this script have been translated



27. Titanic victim John Jacob Astor IV published a science fiction novel in 1894 about life in 2000



In his novel, he described the worldwide telephone network, solar energy, air travel and space travel to Saturn and Jupiter.

28. One year on Pluto is equal to 248 Earth years, and a day on Pluto lasts slightly less than an Earth week



29. Greek Buddhist monks existed long before there were Thai, Tibetan, Chinese or Japanese Buddhist monks



30. One of the earliest known cases of "piracy" occurred when 14-year-old Mozart listened to Gregorio Allegri's Miserere in concert and later copied it from memory.