TIL about C.V. Raman, Indian physicist who won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was so confident of winning that year that he booked steamboat tickets to Stockholm for himself and his wife in July 1930. He didn't want to wait for the official announcement later that year due to long travel time. [source, comments]

TIL that on January 6th, 1853, a tragic train derailment killed the 11 year old son of Franklin Pierce, who was President-Elect of the United States at the time. His wife believed that the accident was God punishing them because Pierce ran for President against her wishes. [source, comments]

TIL in 1930 more than 65% of the US population went to the movies weekly. That means that out of every 5 people someone knew, 3 of them went out to the movies every week. Since around 1964, the portion of the US population to go to the movies every week has consistently been under 10%. [source, comments]

TIL Bruce Willis was offered $3 million (for four days of work) to return in The Expendables 3 (2014), but turned it down because he wanted $4 million instead. Sylvester Stallone and "everybody else involved" rejected Willis' demand and moved on by replacing him with Harrison Ford within 72 hours. [source, comments]

TIL Phossy jaw was an occupational disease affecting those who worked with white phosphorus (also known as yellow phosphorus) without proper safeguards. [source, comments]

TIL the Six Flags theme park gets its name from the six nations that have governed Texas -- Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, United States of America, and Confederate States of America [source, comments]

TIL that in Canada before 1947, women lost their citizenship if they married foreign (non-British) men [source, comments]

TIL acetaminophen is a regional name used in America, Canada and Japan. Other countries call headache medicine Paracetamol. Instead of Tylenol, they have Panadol. [source, comments]

TIL When Alexander the Great conquered Jerusalem he made a generous deal with the local Jewish population to give them autonomy. Out of gratitude to Alexander, the Jews agreed to name every child born the next year “Alexander.”. It was eventually adapted to “Sender” and became a common Jewish name. [source, comments]

TIL of the Ig Nobel prize, a parody of the Nobel prize dedicated to ten achievements that “first make you laugh, then make you think”, such as the 1993 award for mathematics awarded to a man who calculated the exact odds of Mikhail Gorbachev being the Antichrist (710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1) [source, comments]

TIL Bill Wilson of AA fame asked for whiskey several times on his deathbed, but was refused. [source, comments]

TIL One of the first recorded juveniles to be executed in France was Claudine de Culan, 16, who was executed in 1601 for beastiality with a dog, almost getting the charges dropped until the dog jumped on her during an examination by midwifes, her and the dog were burnt alive 13 days later [source, comments]

TIL kitchen sponges are "microbial incubators" and cannot be effectively sterilized outside of laboratory conditions [source, comments]

TIL James Wilson—a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and one of the six original members of the U.S. Supreme Court—was the first and only Supreme Court justice to be jailed while on the Court. [source, comments]

TIL George Washington borrowed "The Law of Nations" from the New York Society Library & never returned it. In 2010, the head librarian joked that, though they weren't "pursuing the overdue fines," they'd appreciate having it back. A month later, the Mount Vernon estate returned it, 221 years overdue [source, comments]

TIL in 2016 a woman was cleaning up after working on a craft project with her daughter when a small speck of glitter got into her eye and cut her cornea, which created an infection and ultimately caused her to go completely blind in that eye. [source, comments]

TIL the US worked to develop "Bat Bomb" - bombs that were loaded with 1k chilled bats with time-release Napalm glued to their bodies. The project was canceled because the Atomic Bomb was finished first. [source, comments]

TIL the video game, Cyberpunk 2077, has been admitted into the New York Museum of Failures after its catastrophic, bug-filled, launch [source, comments]

TIL On a high-fiber diet, people absorb fewer calories overall [source, comments]

TIL Two versions of Chinese Actress Ruan Lingyu's suicide note were released after her death. The first version appears to be a forgery by Tang Jishan, Ruan's partner at the time of her death. The second and less well-known version is believed to be Ruan's actual suicide note. [source, comments]