Y74Xv TIL that Over 50% of languages use some form of “ma/na” for mother and “ba/pa/ta” for father because it's easy for babies to produce these sounds.
BglNK TIL that a video game was written in one month. Andrew and Philip Oliver promised 'Super Robin Hood' for Christmas 1986. To meet the deadline, the twin brothers used their only computer 23 hours a day, each working 18 hours in overlapping shifts. The game was successful and began their careers.
rNoYy TIL when Napoleon's son, Napoleon Franz died at the age 21, his last words were "My story is my birth and death. Between my cradle and my grave, there is a big zero". He was initially buried in Vienna but in 1940, Hitler ordered his remains to be moved to Paris near his father's tomb
NXoeQ TIL of prostitution among animals. There’s documented cases of transactional sex between penguins, chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys
l7k85 TIL that after he shot Martin Luther King Jr., James Earl Ray planned to flee to an African country without an extradition deal with the US and only failed because one of his 2 falsified passports had a typo which was noticed when he made the mistake of keeping both in the same wallet.
8eWRX TIL that before the Lindbergh Kidnapping in 1931, kidnapping was not a federal crime.
P1GaO TIL there are giant pouched rats used for sniffing out landmines, tuberculosis, search and rescue, and anti illegal wildlife trade.
ep8n4 TIL despite its strong following thanks to the popularity of Back to the Future, the DMC DeLorean has a reputation for poor build quality and an unsatisfactory driving experience. In 2017, Time magazine included the DeLorean in its list of the 50 worst cars of all time.
VByXp TIL that the crew of Apollo 14 was the least experienced crew to fly to the Moon, having a combined total of 15 minutes of spaceflight time between them. Two had never flown to space before, and the third, Alan Shepard, flew a short suborbital mission before being medically grounded for 7 years.
X0xer TIL the reason "0" is not placed before "1" on phone keypads stems from rotary phones, which encoded digits by generating electrical pulses as the wheel spun back. "1" created one pulse and "0" ten pulses. Zero was placed at the end to allow the wheel its longest return rotation.
OG1Bg TIL the bald eagle was long considered the national bird of the USA, but it was officially designated as the national bird only in 2024.
69nXW TIL that Creedence Clearwater Revival were from the SF Bay Area, despite being recognized as pioneers of swamp rock (a genre originated in Louisiana), as they utilized lyrics about Southern US iconography (bayous, catfish, etc.) while singing with a Louisiana twang.