Today I Learned 🎓

TIL A Maasai village gifted 14 cows to the United States after 9/11. [Source]

TIL 40,000 people showed up to a place in the middle of nowhere in Texas in 1896 to watch two trains intentionally run into each other. “The Crash at Crush,” brought in more people than inhabited Texas’s second largest city. Two people died , and at least six were seriously injured. [Source]

TIL in 2012, a Chinese restaurant in Williamsburg, Kentucky was ordered closed by the health department after an inspector discovered road kill inside the kitchen. The Restaurant owner's son admitted that he had picked up a dead deer on Interstate 75 and brought it to the restaurant for processing. [Source]

TIL Animal rennet, one of the main ingredients used in making cheese, is gathered from the gut of baby cows, sheep, or goats and is what separates the milk they drink into liquids and solids for digestion. When added to milk, rennet helps separate it into curds (solids) and whey (liquid). [Source]

TIL that Queen Elizabeth II wrote a letter to the citizens of Sydney that is sealed in a vault and forbidden to be opened until 2085. [Source]

TIL that in 1896, a Swedish explorer named Salomon August Andrée attempted to reach the North Pole by hydrogen balloon. The expedition disappeared into the Arctic and was only discovered 33 years later. [Source]

TIL Osama Bin Laden was banned from Arsenal’s Highbury Stadium in 2001 [Source]

TIL that the King of the Netherlands has been piloting KLM Royal Dutch Airways flights twice a month since the 1990's. [Source]

TIL both of Steve Irwin’s children have won the American version of Dancing with the stars. Bindi won in 2015, and Robert won the most recent season. [Source]

TIL an 800-year-old notebook was found remarkably well preserved inside a medieval latrine in Germany [Source]

TIl that in a 2014 poll, South Korean citizens voted the sinking of the MV Sewol as the second most important event in the country's history, beaten only by the Korean War. [Source]

TIL that New Jersey and Wisconsin are the only two states where first time drunk driving is classified as a traffic offense and not a crime [Source]

TIL that a 1596 English contract dispute over a £16 crop of wheat and rye lasted five years and was argued by Francis Bacon and Edward Coke before becoming a landmark in English contract law. [Source]

TIL The music recognition app Shazam dates back to 2002 and started out as a service that a user would call, and would receive a text shortly afterwards if there was a match. Users were charged per-call or could pay for unlimited service, except during the initial launch on AT&T in America. [Source]

TIL the smell of old books comes from the paper literally decomposing - releasing vanillin (the same molecule in vanilla), benzaldehyde (almond), and furfural (toasted bread/caramel) [Source]

TIL the Philadelphia Eagles’ unofficial motto “Bring it Home for Jerome” honored Jerome Brown after his passing in 1992. The Eagles finally won their first Super Bowl over two decades later on Jerome's birthday [Source]

TIL from 2011 - 2021 the South Korean Customs Service had seized 62,104 capsules made from the flesh of human beings. The pills were marketed to buyers as "Health Tonics" for stamina, vitality and to cure disease [Source]

TIL about Genesis P-Orridge, a British industrial music artist, who put lot of efforts into breaking all kinds of norms. In 1993 he and his girlfriend spent $200 000 to alternate their bodies to resemble one another, while adopting the third gender and combining their names into one Breyer P-Orridge [Source]

TIL the highest ticket gross for ANY movie is not Avatar or some superhero - it's Gone With The Wind with an inflation-adjusted total gross of $3.44 billion. [Source]

TIL that Costa Rica abolished its armed forces in 1949 due to the civil war there in 1948 and to prevent another military coup. It's even part of the country's constitution. [Source]