TIL that there’s a black market for sand worth 200 to 350 billion USD primarily due to its importance in construction [source, comments]

TIL that the Great Seattle Fire which destroyed Seattle’s central business district and caused an estimated 20 million (700 million adjusted) dollars worth of damage in 1889 was caused by an overheated glue pot in a carpentry shop. [source, comments]

TIL that President William Taft became a Supreme Court Justice in 1921, 8 years after leaving the presidency. [source, comments]

TIL fingers and toes wrinkle in water as an evolutionary adaptation to increase underwater gripping, not because of passive osmosis [source, comments]

TIL that, invisible from the ground, the Statue of Liberty is stepping on a broken shackle and chain to commemorate the abolition of slavery in the United States. [source, comments]

TIL that Kylie Minogue's single "I Should Be So Lucky" was written in 40 minutes by Stock Aitken Waterman while she waited outside the studio because they forgot about her for a week. She recorded the song in 1hour, but never heard the whole song until its release. [source, comments]

TIL George Washington is known as the father of the American mule. Uncommon on American farms, he believed they were more docile and hardworking than donkeys or horses. He received mules as gifts from the King of Spain and the Marquis de Lafayette and began a breeding program at Mount Vernon. [source, comments]

TIL that if you didn't move during sleeping, you could develop blood clots [source, comments]

TIL that Congressman Lucas Miller once proposed a failed amendment to change the name of the U.S. to the “United States of Earth”. [source, comments]

TIL Dr. Seuss wrote a book called The Pocket Book of Boners about the small blunders young boys make and is one of his earliest published works displaying his unique art style [source, comments]

TIL Richard Linklater cast his daughter Lorelei as Samantha in Boyhood (2014) because of her early enthusiasm for acting. A few years into the 12-year shoot, she lost interest and asked him to kill off her character, but he refused. Later, Lorelei regained her passion and stayed with the project. [source, comments]

TIL That Lev Yashin is considered the greatest footballing goalkeeper of all time, being the only keeper to win a Ballon d'Or and saving more penalties than any other in history. His said his secret was 'smoking a cigarette to calm the nerves and drink alcohol to tone the muscles' [source, comments]

TIL Soviet Chess player and musician Mark Taimanov once lost a tournament so badly to Bobby Fischer that he was thrown off the USSR team, forbidden to travel for two years, banned from writing articles, deprived of his monthly stipend, and prohibited from performing concerts [source, comments]

TIL President John F. Kennedy was a huge James Bond fan. He viewed an early print of 'From Russia with Love' at the White House on Nov 21st, 1963. It was the last film he ever saw, he was killed the next day in Dallas. [source, comments]

TIL Northern Calloway, who played David on Sesame Street from '71 to '89, had a breakdown in 1980 in Nashville's suburbs where he attacked a woman with an iron, broke into a family's house and smashed their fine crystal, and poured herbicide on his body—while wearing nothing but a Superman t-shirt. [source, comments]

TIL that, after Charles II returned from exile, Oliver Cromwell’s remains were disinterred from his tomb, subjected to a posthumous execution by hanging, and his head was put on a pole for public display for at least 23 years. [source, comments]

TIL that Shoggoths, creatures created by H.P. Lovecraft, were used by A.I. researchers to describe the mysterious nature of big language models like ChatGPT and how we see only the result of this nature's work, creating the catchphrase: "Shoggoth with Smiley Face" [source, comments]

TIL the Kola Superdeep Borehole SG-3 is the deepest human-made hole on Earth, which attained maximum true vertical depth of 12,262 metres (40,230 ft; 7.619 mi) in 1989. [source, comments]

TIL that after Betty White's death, the Smithsonian acquired her WWII AWVS uniform and shoulder bag, which turned out to be a time capsule filled with artifacts of her wartime experience. [source, comments]

TIL that Mary Anderson invented the first functional windshield wiper in 1903 after observing a New York City streetcar driver struggling to see through snow, but she never profited from her invention. [source, comments]