TIL that "fair play" in detective fiction means authors must give readers a fair chance to solve the mystery. Central to 1920s "clue-puzzles" by writers like Agatha Christie, the rule dictates that all vital clues must be visible, decodable, and never withheld until the final reveal. [Source]
Wikipedia
Clues in detective fiction
literary device
TIL: Metallica runs its own charity, All Within My Hands. It funds trade-school scholarships, food banks, and disaster relief. 100% of public donations go to charity. [Source]
All Within My Hands
Metallica's Foundation - All Within My Hands
Dedicated to creating sustainable communities by supporting workforce education, the fight against hunger, and other critical local services.
TIL that on D-Day at Omaha Beach, 27 of the 29 Sherman DDs Amphibious tanks deployed of the 741st Tank Battalion, sank. The canvas skirt to allow the tank to float were designed to operate in 1ft waves. However, on D-Day, the waves were up to 6ft high. [Source]
Wikipedia
DD tank
British WWII amphibious swimming tank
TIL about the 21 foot rule, named after the distance an attacker can close in the 1.5 seconds it would take to shoot them. Within this distance, it would be reasonable to bring a knife to a gunfight. [Source]
USCCA
21-Foot Rule Explained: The Tueller Drill and Self-Defense | USCCA
The 21-foot rule, also known as the Tueller drill, shows how fast an attacker can close distance. Learn what it really means for self-defense and deadly force decisions.
TIL Tim Curry, who famously played "Pennywise" in "It" (1990), was afraid of clowns [Source]
Yahoo Entertainment
It Actor Tim Curry on Loathing Clowns & Not Reveling Pennywise Role
Tim Curry has released a memoir called Vagabond, which mentions how his most famous role as Pennywise did not feel fun. The actor-singer reflects on his role in the 1990 miniseries It. He explains tha...
TIL that in the 1990s, Dolly Parton made $10 million in royalties from Whitney Houston’s cover of her song “I Will Always Love You.” She then invested the money into an office complex in a majority-Black neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee. She later described it as “the house that Whitney built.” [Source]
NPR
Dolly Invested Royalties From Whitney's 'I Will Always Love You' In A Black Community
"It was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there," Dolly Parton said. "And I thought, 'This is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney.' "
TIL that the actor who played “Sloth” in “The Goonies” (John Matuszak) was an NFL player with two Superbowl rings. [Source]
Wikipedia
John Matuszak
John Daniel Matuszak (October 25, 1950 – June 17, 1989), nicknamed "Tooz", was an American professional football defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) who later became an actor.
TIL that a collection of letters written in ancient Egypt was found sealed inside a tomb nearly 4,000 years after the letters were written, providing a rare glimpse into the daily life of an ancient Egyptian household. [Source]
TIL the biggest movie franchise in history (by quantity) is the mostly forgotten 'Durango Kid' western films starring Charles Starrett , who made 131 films playing this character from 1940 to 1952. [Source]
Wikipedia
Charles Starrett
American actor (1903–1986)
TIL that Cardinal Richelieu, played by Tim Curry in the 1993 movie The Three Musketeers, was so hated that bonfires were lit to celebrate his death. More than 150 years later, during the French Revolution, his tomb was opened and his corpse was beheaded. [Source]
Wikipedia
Cardinal Richelieu
French clergyman, cardinal, noble and statesman (1585-1642)
TIL that ancient Greek and Roman laws assumed that to please their masters, slaves always lied, it was therefore mandatory to torture them before they were allowed to testify in court. [Source]
Tio Gabunia
For Whom?
While reading secondary texts about Sophocles’ Theban Plays, I found an interesting note about lines 1153-4 of Oedipus Rex. The note is relevant not just for analyzing the play itself bu…
TIL Bats have a built-in neural mechanism to keep themselves from going deaf while echolocating. A tiny muscle in their ear contracts the exact millisecond they emit their high-pitched shriek, and relaxes just in time to catch the returning echo [Source]
The Company of Biologists
Peripheral control of acoustic signals in the auditory system of echolocating bats
ABSTRACT. Many species of echolocating bats emit intense orientation sounds. If such intense sounds directly stimulated their ears, detection of faint echoes would be impaired. Therefore, possible mechanisms for the attenuation of self-stimulation were studied…
TIL that a couple learned that their children had been diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder that meant they would slowly go blind. The couple chose to spend their money travelling around the world with their children to create as many "visual memories" with them before this happened. [Source]
CNN
Canadian family taking world tour before children lose their vision | CNN
Three out of Edith Lemay and Sebastien Pelletier’s four chiildren have a rare genetic condition that causes a loss or decline in vision over time. So the Canadian family are traveling the world now to store up “visual memories” for later.
TIL that during Apollo 12, astronaut Alan Bean accidentally pointed the mission’s color television camera directly at the Sun while setting it up on the Moon, permanently damaging the camera’s imaging tube and ending live television coverage from the lunar surface for the rest of the mission. [Source]
NASA
Apollo 12: The Pinpoint Mission - NASA
The primary mission objectives of the second crewed lunar landing included an extensive series of lunar exploration tasks by the lunar module, or LM, crew, as
TIL that Otto Heinrich Warburg, a Jewish and openly homosexual cancer researcher, was allowed to stay in Berlin despite Nazi persecution, partly because Hitler—who had lost his mother to cancer—was obsessed with finding a cure for the disease. [Source]
Wikipedia
Otto Heinrich Warburg
German physiologist, medical doctor and Nobel laureate (1883–1970)
TIL the UK is entirely rabies-free since 1922 [Source]
GOV.UK
Rabies: how to spot and report the disease in animals
How to spot rabies, what to do if you suspect it and measures to prevent its spread.
TIL: The Simpsons is 2 years shy of having aired for half of the lifespan of US Broadcast TV which is considered to have started in 1947 with the first epidsode of Kraft Television Theatre. Having premiered in 1989 The Simpsons has been airing for 37 of those 79 years [Source]
Wikipedia
Golden Age of Television
era of live television production in the United States, roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s
TIL actor Burt Young, who plays 'Paulie' in the Rocky movies, was a proffessional boxer with a 32-2 record in the U.S. Marine Corps. [Source]
Wikipedia
Burt Young
American actor (1940–2023)
TIL Comair Flight 5191 crashed after the pilot accidentally taxied onto the wrong runway and tried to takeoff on a runway that was too short. 49 out of 50 people were killed with the only survivor being the co-pilot. [Source]
Wikipedia
Comair Flight 5191
Comair Flight 5191 was a scheduled United States domestic passenger flight from Lexington, Kentucky, to Atlanta, Georgia. On the morning of August 27, 2006, at around 06:07 EDT (10:07 UTC),[2]: 1  the Bombardier CRJ100 crashed while attempting to take off…
TIL that Mr Brightside by The Killers has spent nearly 10 years in the UK singles chart but has never reached number 1. [Source]
Official Charts
MR BRIGHTSIDE
Little did The Killers know when they were writing Mr Brightside in the pre-digital music era that the song would transcend decades, formats and playlists to become the stuff of legend on the UK Official Chart.