TIL on the set of Blade: Trinity, Jessica Biel was supposed to fire an arrow directly at the camera, so the camera was surrounded by Plexiglass except for a 2" x 2" square in front of the camera lens. Biel managed to shoot the arrow through the hole and destroy the $300,000 camera.

TIL In high school, Donald Glover was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons." In 2006, Glover sent writing samples to David Miner, which included a spec script he had written for The Simpsons. Miner and Tina Fey were impressed by Glover's work and hired him to become a writer for 30 Rock.

TIL A Scottish woman was sentenced to death by hanging around 1721. Maggie Dickson was hung, declared dead, put in a wooden coffin and carted off. She woke up en route to the churchyard, the law said her sentence had been carried out and she lived another 40 years known as 'Half-hangit Maggie'.

TIL Nicaraguan Sign Language is a sign language that spontaneously developed among deaf children in Nicaragua in the 1980s. It is of particular interest to linguists because it is believed to be to be an example of the birth of a new language, unrelated to any other.

TIL that during World War II, M&Ms were exclusively sold to the U.S. military. The candies were heat-resistant and easy-to-transport, perfect for American soldiers’ rations.

TIL GoldeneEye 007’s multiplayer mode was so last-minute that neither Rare nor Nintendo management knew about it. The first time executives saw anything was when programmers were playing it.

TIL a professional security tester named Jayson E. Street, was once hired to attempt to compromise the computers and networks of a bank in Beirut. He succeeded in the compromise and found several exploits, but was soon shocked to discover he had just robbed/hacked the wrong bank.

TIL Joseph Bazalgette, the man who designed London's sewers in the 1860's, said 'Well, we're only going to do this once and there's always the unforeseen' and doubled the pipe diameter. If he had not done this, it would have overflowed in the 1960's (its still in use today).

TIL that it used to be illegal in the United States for actors to wear military uniforms in a production that portrayed the military negatively, until the Supreme Court ruled in 1970 that this was a violation of the First Amendment.

TIL Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini were friends at one point, however Doyle refused to accept Houdini performed using trickery and believed he had supernatural powers. Their friendship ended after Houdini exposed séance mediums who claimed to have powers to talk to the dead.

TIL Tomohiro Nishikado, creator of Space Invaders, made the entire game himself. Not only was he its designer, programmer, artist, and sound mixer, but he also engineered the game’s microcomputer from scratch.

TIL in 1865, Charles Dickens was traveling home from France when his train derailed while crossing a bridge, and his car was left dangling from the tracks. He helped save stranded passengers and then climbed back into the dangling car to find a manuscript he was supposed to send to his publishers.

TIL Lithuania withdrew from the 1992 Olympics due to the lack of money after the fall of the USSR. The Grateful Dead agreed to fund transportation costs for the basketball team along with Grateful Dead designs for the team's jerseys and shorts. They went on to win the Bronze.

TIL that at a 1976 Amsterdam chess tournament, Soviet grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi politely asked an English competitor how to spell the words "political asylum." He then went straight to a police station and announced that he wished to defect.

TIL Andrew Thielen's info was fraudulently sold to debt collectors. Their conduct enraged him to the point of spending a years-long crusade to find the source that committed this fraud. Using the same intimidating tactics collectors tried to use on him, he worked his way to the man responsible.

TIL That when people first started using the telephone they would often yell into the wrong part, and when they did get on the phone, they had to figure out what to say to start a conversation: “Ahoy” was Alexander Graham Bell’s preferred option.

TIL Lighthouses had different techniques for rotating the light, most being too slow, making the light less visible. Augustin Fresnel proposed a mercury flotation system in 1825. Despite some lenses weighing over 6,000 lbs. the design reduced friction, increased rotation, and ultimately saved lives.

TIL that Doctor Who briefly featured Kamelion, an android who was "played" by an actual robot. Unfortunately, the writers had to kill the character off when the robot's inventor, who was the only one who knew how to control it, died in a boating accident.

TIL Kevin Smith’s Dogma is unavailable to stream or purchase digitally and is out of print on home media.

TIL about a psychological phenomenon known as psychic numbing, the idea that “the more people die, the less we care”. We not only become numb to the significance of increasing numbers, but our compassion can actually fade as numbers increase.

TIL about the Danish Protest Pig. In the early 20th century, Danes living under Prussian rule were banned from displaying the Danish flag. To protest this, they bred pigs with a red and white color pattern similar to their flag. The breed is now called "Danish Protest Pig".

TIL: Firefighters use wetting agents to make water wetter. The chemicals reduce the surface tension of plain water so it’s easier to spread and soak into objects, which is why it’s known as “wet water.”

TIL of a brawl involving 50 congressmen on the US House floor in 1858. It ended when someone knocked off a man's wig and the man accidentally put it back on backwards, causing both sides to laugh and stop fighting.

TIL that the oldest known domesticated dog remains are over 14,000 years old. The dog died young and is unlikely to have been much use to humans. Nevertheless, it was buried in an elaborate grave alongside two humans.

TIL children have more energy than endurance athletes. They have fatigue-resistant muscles and they recover faster than adults. Much of this stems from their ability to uptake and distribute oxygen, as well as synergize energy faster.

TIL Spaghetti Westerns are named for being primarily produced by Italians. In Japan, they're called "Macaroni Westerns."

TIL that Majel Barrett, the voice of the Starfleet computer on Star Trek, recorded an entire library of phonetic sounds before she died which allowed her voice to be used as the computer for future generations.

TIL That excessive caffeine ingestion leads to symptoms that overlap with those of many psychiatric disorders. In psychiatric in-patients, caffeine has been found to increase anxiety, hostility and psychotic symptoms.

TIL The last US Civil War Widow died in 2020. The practice of a young woman marrying an older man for his Civil War pension as a dependent was common practice in the early 20th century.

TIL when NASA used electronic computers for the first time - to calculate John Glenn's orbit around Earth - officials called on Katherine Johnson to verify the computer's numbers; Glenn had asked for her specifically and had refused to fly unless Johnson verified the calculations.

TIL that Stephen Cobert donated his portrait to the Smithsonian Institution, which accepted it initially on loan, and displayed it between two bathrooms and above a water fountain at the National Portrait Gallery.

TIL Noninvasive spinal stimulation enables paralyzed people to regain use of hands. A team of scientists reports that six people with severe spinal cord injuries — three of them completely paralyzed — have regained use of their hands and fingers.

TIL: Sweden has a hotel for sourdough starters that cares for travelers’ bread dough while they go traveling.

TIL that sleight of hand artist Apollo Robbins was so proficient that he once managed to pick the pockets of 2 secret service agents assigned to former president Jimmy Carter. He managed to steal the forner president's itinerary, the keys to his motorcade and the badges of the agents.

TIL That a man in horse-drawn carriage was kicked out of KFC drive-through. He then went to a McDonalds and was served a Big Mac without anyone questioning his method of transport.

TIL During World War I, the German government carried out a census of Jews to prove that german Jews weren't pulling their weight in the war effort. What they found out instead was that Jews were overrepresented on the front lines.

TIL children's author Shel Silverstein has won 2 Grammy Awards. One for the audio recording of Where the Sidewalk Ends, and the other for writing Johnny Cash's famous song, A Boy Named Sue.

TIL That despite the success of Power Rangers, the original actors were only paid $600/wk and did stunt work(pink ranger was almost electrocuted/set on fire)

TIL that Joseph Strauss, the chief engineer for the 1933-1937 construction of the Golden Gate bridge made safety a high priority on the project. It was the first construction site in America to require workers to wear hard hats.

TIL that playing action video games can train the mind to make the right decisions faster. Video game players can develop a heightened sensitivity to what is going on around them, such as everyday activities like driving, reading small print, or navigating around town.