TIL of the Great Oxidation Event when bacteria evolved photosynthesis about 2.4 BYA, generating O2 as a waste product which changed the methane atmosphere, led to planetary cooling, triggered a series of ice ages, a mass extinction event, new minerals, and led to the evolution of multicellular life.
TIL "Dairy Of A Wimpy Kid" is the 6th bestselling series of books of all times, selling over 250 million copies
TIL that David Vogel, then-president of production at Disney, was fired from his position for buying the rights to the script for Sixth Sense for $3M, because he bought it without permission.
TIL In 1940, Churchill and De Gaulle briefly supported merging France and Britain into a single nation, with joint citizenship, a single currency, and a constitution.
TIL that according to cognitive dissonance theory, the "Ben Franklin effect" means that whether you choose to treat someone well or not, you will devise a reason for why they deserved it, either way.
Today I learned that after gaining independence from France, Haiti was later forced to pay reparations to former slave owners
TIL In 1940 9,169 British people were killed in road traffic accidents during the wartime blackout. One person died that year for every 200 vehicles on the road; today the figure is one for every 20,000.
TIL That in 945, Igor of Kiev, while attempting to collect tributes from the neighboring Drevlians, was murdered by being attached to two bent birch trees, which when released in opposite directions, tore his body in half.