Category Archives: Featured Facts

Merry Christmas! We Got You Some Knowledge to Share

Merry Christmas from everyone here at Today I Found Out!  While you’re sipping eggnog and trying your best to continue smiling and nodding while your cousin and cousin-in-law once again tell you how their little Stacey has a photographic memory and already sings and plays the piano as well as Norah Jones, despite being just 4 years old and publicly […]

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December 24, 1914: The Christmas Truce

On the whole, people don’t generally like to kill one another.  Most wars throughout history are often more about the agendas of the state’s leaders than the soldiers on the field actually inherently feeling any real malice towards those they are asked to try to kill or otherwise defeat.  Few events in history illustrate this as well as a remarkable […]

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The Olympic Swimmer Who Had Never Been in a Pool Until a Few Months Before Competing in the Olympics

The man was Eric Moussambani Malonga, later nicknamed “Eric the Eel”.  Moussambani is from Equatorial Guinea in Africa and only managed to get into the Olympics at all because of a wildcard drawing system put in place by the International Olympic Committee, designed to try to encourage developing countries to participate in various Olympic events. Thanks to this drawing, Equatorial Guinea […]

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The Guy Who Did the Voice for Tony the Tiger also Sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”

Today I found out the guy who did the voice for Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger also sang the iconic “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” song in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The man was Thurl Ravenscroft.  Ravenscroft originally went unintentionally uncredited in the film.  Because of this, a common misconception rose up that it was Boris Karloff, […]

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The Song “Silver Bells” was Originally Called “Tinkle Bell”

Today I found out the Christmas song Silver Bells was originally called Tinkle Bells. To make matters slightly more humorous, Silver Bells originally appeared in the The Lemon Drop Kid, a 1951 film starring Bob Hope.  Needless to say, these two things would have surely resulted in the song getting a few chuckles, had composer Jay Livingston’s wife, Lynne Gordon, […]

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10 Common Items That Were Invented by Accident

This is a guest post contributed by List25.com 1) Teflon: Roy Plunkett, a chemist who worked for DuPont in the early 20th century, accidentally stumbled across the non-reactive, no stick chemical while experimenting with refrigerants, specifically looking for a non-toxic chemical to use for a refrigerant. After storing tetrafluorethylene (TFE) in gas form in small cylinders and having it frozen, […]

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What Does Gangnam Style Mean?

L. Stevens asks: What does “Gangnam Style” actually mean? “Gangnam” is an area in South Korea, specifically a small area in Seoul, South Korea, home to about 1% of the population of Seoul and is about the size of Manhattan.  It is known for its wealthy, “new money”, inhabitants.  (The region has only very recently become extremely upscale, with a […]

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Brenda Lee was Just 13 Years Old When She Recorded the Christmas Staple “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”

Brenda Mae Tarpley (a.k.a. Brenda Lee and “Little Miss Dynamite”) was born to an extremely poor family in December of 1944.  Things took a turn for the worse when her father, a onetime semi-pro baseball player and carpenter, died in a construction accident in May of 1953 when she was 8 years old. Within two years of this happening, the […]

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On Average, People Who Earn Less Than $13,000 a Year in the U.S. Spend 5% of Their Gross Earnings on Lottery Tickets

It’s been called a voluntary tax on the poor and under educated, with people spending a whopping $60 billion a year in the United States alone on lottery tickets, most of which are purchased by low income individuals. (All total, about 20% of Americans play the lotto). Despite the high number of lotto tickets purchased annually, when playing the lottery […]

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The Only Mother and Son to Each Have #1 Records

In November of 1966, The Monkees‘ first single, “Last Train to Clarksville”, went to number one on the charts two months (to the day) after The Monkees TV series premiered.  The Partridge Family (a series about a fictional singing family/rock group) actually beat that mark.  The Partridge Family premiered on ABC on September 25, 1970.  The Partridge Family single, “I Think I Love […]

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