Today I learned: 30 interesting facts for the most curious

Unfortunately, we will never be able to learn everything in the world — but it also means that we do not stop learning and learn something new every day. The best proof of this is the community "Today I learned", where almost 26 million users regularly share interesting and informative facts that they have just read about themselves.

A fisherman from Costa Rica came out of a crocodile that was shot in the head, and released it into the wild. The next day, the man discovered that the crocodile "Pocho" had returned to his house and lay down to sleep on the porch. For the next 20 years, Pocho became a member of his family.

In Norway, shepherds from Nepal are hired to lay trails in the mountains. They have completed more than 300 jobs, and in one summer they earn as much as they would have earned in 30 years of work in Nepal.

The mayor of Medellin, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, appealed to the architect Alejandro Echeverri with a request to revive the city. First of all, he took care of the poorest areas in order to attract people and infrastructure there. Crime in the city has significantly decreased.

Titanic passenger Richard Norris Williams spent more than 6 hours waist-deep in icy water. Doctors wanted to amputate both of his legs, but he refused and in 1920 won the Wimbledon tournament in men's doubles.

Chemists have developed two types of plant-based plastics as an alternative to current plastics derived from fossil fuels. Using chemical processing instead of mechanical processing, it is possible to restore 96% of the original material.

The oldest living elephant is the elephant Vatsala, who lives in the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh. Now she is 105 years old – this is more than twice the average life expectancy of an Asian elephant.

River Phoenix died shortly before he was supposed to start acting in the movie "Interview with a Vampire". The role of the interviewer passed to Christian Slater, who donated his fee to two favorite Phoenix charities: Earth Save and Earth Trust.

Only 9.7% of Americans do not use seat belts, while 47% of those who died in car accidents were not wearing seat belts.

40 years ago, oil was discovered in Norway. Knowing that it will eventually end, the authorities decided to invest it in the sovereign wealth fund. The Norwegian Fund is one of the most profitable in the world: its value exceeds $ 1.3 trillion. This is enough for the country to be fully self-sufficient for many more years.

The French aristocrat Thomas de Mai, Marquis de Favre, is best known for his last words. "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes," he said after reading his death sentence.

In the original ending of the cartoon "The Adventures of the Emperor", inspired by the Inca culture, the main character destroys a tropical forest to build an amusement park in its place. Sting, who has defended the rights of indigenous peoples for 20 years, threatened to leave the project if the ending was not rewritten.

The smart watch recognized tachycardia in the 59-year-old owner and indicated the need to see a doctor. The woman was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and prescribed treatment, which reduced her chances of suffering a severe stroke. In 2017, the FDA approved the use of the technology for medical purposes.

During the Second World War, Major Digby Tatham-Worter conducted a bayonet attack in a bowler hat and with an umbrella in his hand. With this umbrella, he later disabled a German armored car. Saving the chaplain from enemy fire, he said: "Don't be afraid of bullets, I have an umbrella."

In the United States, the Satanic Temple religious organization offers scholarships to students of different ages: from elementary school to college.

The Florida authorities brought two representatives of the Irula tribe from India to catch aggressive Burmese pythons. While 1000 hunters were able to catch only 106 snakes, these two caught 27 snakes in just 4 weeks, including a female 5 meters long.

The Smithsonian Museum has more than 3 million 2D and 3D images that anyone can use for any commercial purposes for free.

6 months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a calendar was found in a sealed cabin on the sunken battleship USS West Virginia, in which three trapped sailors noted how many days they spent locked up. According to the calendar, they died 16 days later.

The city of Carmel, Indiana, has the most roundabouts in the United States – a total of 138.Since the usual intersections were replaced with roundabouts, the number of accidents in the city has decreased by 40%.

Kurt Russell was paid twice his usual rate for the film "Stargate", as a global survey showed that at that time he was the only actor with "zero level of public dislike".

In 1930, an Indian student, Chandrasekhar, mathematically proved that massive stars explode with a supernova, and then collapse into neutron stars or black holes. Before that, scientists assumed that all stars collapse into white dwarfs. Chandrasekhar's theory was ridiculed as "absurd"

In 1996, the Hong Kong gangster "Big Spender" kidnapped the son of the richest man in Asia and demanded a ransom of $ 160 million for his return. After receiving the money, the gangster later called and asked for advice on how to invest it.

Thomas Linley was called "the English Mozart". Mozart himself considered him a "real genius" and said that "he would have become one of the greats." However, Linley drowned in the lake at the age of 22, and most of his compositions were lost or burned.

In East Africa, films are often watched with a "VJ" or "video jester" who comments on the film during the viewing: for translation, explanation of the context, or simply for comedic purposes.

In Japan, there is a railway station "Seiryu Miharashi", which can only be reached by train, since there are no roads or trails leading to it – it is just a platform designed for passengers to get out and admire the beautiful view.

Masks in airplanes emit oxygen as a result of a chemical reaction. In the case of cabin depressurization, the masks fall, and as a result of tension, a mechanism is triggered that triggers a combustion reaction in an "oxygen candle" with sodium chlorate and potassium perchlorate, which leads to the formation of oxygen gas.Gorenje

Only 66 years have passed between the first flight in history and the landing on the moon. The Wright brothers first piloted an airplane in 1903; in 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.

Arthur Tudor, the elder brother of Henry VIII, exchanged letters with his fiancee Catherine of Aragon in Latin. However, when they met in person, it turned out that they could not communicate, since they had different pronunciation of the language.

On August 18, 1913, in Monte Carlo, during a roulette game, the ball fell on black 26 times in a row. Players lost millions, expecting that at some point it will still be on the red, as a result of which the term "false Monte Carlo conclusion", better known as "player error", appeared.

In 2018, in a Swiss cafe, a woman accidentally paid $ 7709 for coffee, because she accidentally entered her PIN code instead of the required amount. She was unable to return the money, because the owner almost immediately closed the cafe and declared bankruptcy.

The Tour de France race has special employees who travel along the route every day and correct the genitals painted on the road for owls and butterflies.