› added 1 year ago

38

TIL the 20th century saw a dramatic global literacy surge, largely due to a focus on basic education.

Read more smartick.com

via reddit.com

newRG TIL of Randy Gardner, a 17 year-old high school student from San Diego who set the record for the longest time a human has gone without sleep (11 days, 25 min). Gardner's experimental analysis found paranoia, hallucinations, loss of concentration, and being unable to count backwards from 100.
LQgxv TIL The oldest building in the United States is a Spanish monastery from the 13th century looted in the 19th century.
GYek1 TIL that "555-nanometer wavelength green" (which is similar to the shade of green used in "green screens") is the most visible color because it stimulates the most cones in the eye.
ABPx TIL that one of the first films ever recorded on Thomas Edison’s Kinetograph was a shot of two cats wearing boxing gloves and fighting each other in a boxing ring. It is titled “Prof. Welton’s Boxing Cats.” Very likely the first cat video ever recorded.
1am44 TIL that Pygmies raised in a thick forest were unable to interpret distant objects. One thought that buffalo grazing in the distance were insects.