TIL Raven the chimpanzee appeared in the 2009 Guinness World Records book as the most successful chimpanzee on Wall Street after choosing her stocks by throwing darts at a list of 133 internet companies. She became the 22nd most successful money manager in the USA. from r/todayilearned
Raven was only a six-year-old chimpanzee when she scored a 213% gain and surpassed more than 6,000 brokers on Wall Street!
TIL that Samuel L. Jackson heard someone repeating his Ezekiel 25:17 speech to him, he turned to discover it was Marlon Brando who gave him his number. When Jackson called, it was a Chinese restaurant. But when he asked for Brando, he picked up. It was Brando’s way of screening calls. from r/todayilearned
TIL In 1975 a fella named Gary Dahl listened to his friends loudly complain about their pets. That have him an inspiration to offer an alternative pet. Rocks. Loyal companions without any of the drawbacks animals have. Ridiculous in everyway so naturally pet rocks made him a millionaire overnight. from r/todayilearned
TIL the Pan-American Coffee Bureau coined the phrase ‘coffee break’ in 1952, and ran a $2 million advertising campaign with the message that a ‘coffee break’ would give workers ‘a needed moment of relaxation along with a caffeine jolt’ from r/todayilearned
If you casually say “coffee break” every now and then, today you learned where this phrase came from.
TIL we don’t see fully authentic film portrayals of Martin Luther King Jr. because in 2009 Steven Spielberg was granted the exclusive film and life rights to the works of MLK (and for a biopic never made). Now, dialogue/speeches are manufactured to prevent copyright issues – including 2014’s Selma. from r/todayilearned
TIL Jim Henson originally wanted the Muppets to be for adults and didn’t see his characters as a vehicle for children’s education and family entertainment. Indeed, he first envisioned something closer to South Park rather than Sesame Street and in the 1950s they did dark comedy in commercials. from r/todayilearned
Our childhoods would be so different if the Muppets went south. Imagine Kermit the Frog with an Eric Cartman persona!
TIL that Meerkats are the most murderous animals on earth. 20% of all meerkats die at the hands of another meerkat. from r/todayilearned
Meerkats are, let’s say, unique little creatures. They also have mob leaders and vicious sibling rivalries!
TIL that when the replacement crew for Skylab entered the empty space station, they found that it wasn’t empty at all: 3 figures were inside. Upon further inspection, the replacement crew found out that these were dummies placed in flight suits by the previous Skylab crew before they left. from r/todayilearned
TIL In 2014 a three-year-old was rescued after 11 days in the Siberian wilderness thanks to her puppy, which she held onto for warmth. She was found less than 100 feet from her search party. from r/todayilearned
She lived off wild berries and river water, until her puppy drew the rescue team’s attention to an unsearched spot.
TIL that a woman who successfully underwent a lung transplant went into anaphylactic shock after eating peanut butter. Prior to her transplant she never had problems eating peanuts. She learned the 12 yr.old who had donated the lungs had had a peanut allergy, and had died from an anaphylactic shock. from r/todayilearned
TIL that for centuries the city of Troy was considered a myth until it was re-discovered in 1871 in present day Turkey. The area had been excavated before but the ruins of Troy were beneath newer excavations and had gone untouched for millennia even though the site had people living on top of it. from r/todayilearned
The city of Troy is real?! We wonder which other lost city will be discovered in the years to come.