TIL that the director of The Notebook wanted someone "not handsome" for the male lead in the movie, so he cast Ryan Gosling for the role.

TIL: In a village in India, an Indian robin had made a nest and laid her eggs on the village's switchboard. The village decided to go without street lights for over a month for the safety of the bird and to allow her eggs to hatch. After 45 days, the bird and its hatchlings safely flew away.

TIL: Microsoft tried a 4-day workweek in Japan as part of a “Work Life Choice Challenge” by shutting down offices every Friday. Productivity, measured by sales per employee, increased by almost 40% compared to the same period the previous year.

TIL of the Schiphol fly, which is a fly engraved on urinals at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The psychology is that men will want to "wash" the fly off the urinal so they focus more when urinating, apparently lowering cleaning bills in public bathrooms.

TIL fish eggs can survive and hatch after passing through a duck, providing one explanation of how seemingly pristine, isolated bodies of water can become stocked with fish

TIL: In order to get improvements in their job security amidst the emergence of a rival bus line, bus drivers in Okayama, Japan decided to go on strike in a unique way in 2018. While on strike, they supported the community by continuing to drive their routes, but simply not charging customers.

TIL a 75-year Harvard study found close relationships are the key to a person's success. Having someone to lean on keeps brain function high and reduces emotional, and physical, pain. People who feel lonely are more likely to experience health declines earlier in life.

TIL people who speak Icelandic can still understand the old Icelandic Sagas because of how little the language has changed over the past 1000 years.

TIL The lack of an Oxford comma in the wording of a state law laying out what activities qualify a worker for overtime pay, more than 120 drivers for the Oakhurst Dairy became eligible for a multi-million settlement for unpaid overtime.

TIL A Stolen teddy bear with dying mother's voice has been returned after actor Ryan Reynolds, celebrities offered a $15,000 reward

TIL during the Vietnam war, many American soldiers stationed in Japan went AWOL and fled to Sweden. Swedish PM Palme was vehemently against the war and promised that he would grant asylum to deserters.

TIL while making Moana, Disney producers visited the South Pacific and assembled an "Oceanic Story Trust" comprised of local cultural experts to advise on accuracy of details. Maui was originally bald but he was redrawn with a full head of hair as hair symbolized mana (power) in Polynesian culture.

TIL A casino's database was hacked through a smart fish tank thermometer

TIL Joseph Strauss, the engineer of the golden Gate Bridge, mandated that a net be installed under the bridge for safety while being built. This was revolutionary at the time. The net caught 19 men who fell, saving all of them from a certain death.

TIL in the 5th century BC, diabetes was first identified by a surgeon named Sushruta who pointed out that the urine of diabetics was sweet enough to attract ants and sticky to the touch. He noted that diabetes affected rich castes and was related to the excessive consumption of rice and sweets

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.

TIL in Cuba, picking up hitchhikers is mandatory for government vehicles, if passenger space is available.

TIL that Meerkats are the most murderous animals on earth. 20% of all meerkats die at the hands of another meerkat.

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.

TIL that Wayne Gretzky is the only Hockey player to have scored over 200 points in a season, and did so a total of four times. His stunning success as a Hockey player was immortalized in the fact that not only did is own team retire 99, Gretzky's Jersey number, but the league as whole did as well!

TIL since 8-track tapes have a loop-play function, where after the end the tape is played from the beginning once again, the 8-track version of the Pink Floyd album "Animals" was changed for playing on repeat - a guitar solo connecting the first and the last song on the album was added.

TIL Harriet Tubman suffered a violent head injury as a child causing her to frequently slip into into sleep like states. These would produce vivid dreamlike hallucinations that Tubman interpreted as messages from god, to devote her life to freeing southern slaves through the Underground Railroad.

TIL In the original stories, Sherlock Holmes was addicted to cocaine. When the author, Conan Doyle, learned more about the dangers of cocaine, he wrote that Sherlock Holmes had quit cocaine by being gradually weaned off it by Watson.

TIL that George Takei respectfully declined an offer to voice himself in the Simpsons episode Marge vs. the Monorail because he didn't want to ridicule public transportation.

TIL that the juggling done by David Bowie's character in Labyrinth was actually performed by juggler Michael Moschen, who had to do all the tricks blind while standing behind Bowie. He won a MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant" for his techniques a few years later in 1990.

TIL that a baby elephant struck by a motorbike while crossing a road in Thailand survived after an off-duty rescue worker performed CPR on it. The man had worked in rescue for 26 years and performed dozens of CPR attempts on humans, but the elephant was the first victim he had ever managed to revive

TIL that Ken Eto, the first American-Asian leader in the mafia, was shot 3 times in the head at close range. After the hitmen ran, he climbed out of the car, walked a few blocks over to the nearest pharmacy and politely asked for medical attention. He lived to 84.

TIL about Christopher Knight, a man that left his normal life at 20 years old to become a hermit. He lived in the wilderness, completely alone, for 27 years. He was apprehended only in 2013, after committing over a 1000 burglaries.

TIL country singer Loretta Lynn had more songs banned from radio than every other male country artist combined in the 20th century.

TIL about Bill Millin, a Scottish soldier who walked up and down the beaches of Normandy on D-Day playing the bagpipes. Two captured German snipers would reveal why the piper at the front hadn’t been shot at. They said it was because they thought he was ‘dummkopf’, a foolhardy idiot.

TIL, around 2.1 billion years ago, several multicellular organisms existed, that were likely one of the first forays into multicellularity, they coincided with a brief moment of increased oxygen levels and went extinct after the levels dropped, they do not have any modern-day descendants.

TIL that there's a 43,000-square-foot basement underneath the Lincoln Memorial that was forgotten about until 1974. It has its own plant life and ecosystem and graffiti from the original workers.

TIL that the famous Japanese painting of a giant wave is actually from a series of 36 paintings of Mt. Fuji from different views

TIL that in 1965 the Soviet Union detonated a nuclear device near the Chagan river to create an artificial lake with a volume of about 10 million cubic metres under it's Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. To date the lake is slightly radioactive and is nicknamed "the atomic lake".

TIL, when filming the music video for 'Beat It', Michael Jackson worked with the LAPD to recruit members of the Bloods and Crips for the video to help foster peace between the two gangs

TIL that on April 1st, 1996 Taco Bell made an announcement that they bought the Liberty Bell and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell causing outrage and a huge spike in Taco Bell sales

TIL that baby owls sleep down on their stomach because their heads are too heavy. They do that until they are large enough to sleep upright.

TIL about Jolt Cola, created in the 1980s as a stimulant for students and young professionals with the slogan "All the sugar, twice the caffeine!"

TIL evidence suggests that sloths grow algae in their fur and then eat it. This algae-farming is thought to be aided by moths that live in the fur, and whose growth the sloth actively promotes.

TIL that around 21 million people in Uganda, half of it's population, are under 15 years of age.