TIL in 2024, the original design of Mickey Mouse loses its copyright protection. However, Disney can still take legal action if you draw it in color, because colored Mickey Mouse is still copyright... (globaltoynews.com)
2024 will specifically pull “Steamboat Willie, “The Barn Dance,” and that original design of Mickey Mouse into the public domain in terms of copyright law. “What Happens When Disney Doesn’t Own Mickey Mouse Anymore?,” Quincy Stanford, DFB 2024 will be a good news / bad news year for The Walt Disney Company and its...
TIL During the shooting event of the 1965 World Pentathlon Championships, Herbert Polzhuber drank 10 glasses of beer and a bottle of cognac, stepped onto the shooting platform, shot all his bullets... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL Pygopodidae, aka “legless lizards”, are a type of gecko that strongly resembles snakes while being unrelated to them. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that Prey is the first ever feature film available in a full Comanche dub (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL the co-founder of Encyclopædia Britannica was a 4'6" tall Scot with crooked legs and an enormous nose that he would sometimes augment with a papier-mache version. He deliberately rode the talle... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL CJK compatibilty ideographs (often used to put a lot of symbols in fonts such as 着 which displays as the Wii logo on my machine) were originally allocated to support older standards for storing Chinese characters and derivatives in code points (en.wikipedia.org)
Sorry for the confusing title. Basically before Unicode, a bunch of different standards for storing Chinese characters (also used in Korean and Japanese which also have some of their own derivatives) emerged. When Unicode sought to unify every standard they of course had to add compatibility for older standards so for all the...
TIL there wasn't a year 0 (www.timeanddate.com)
Year AD 1 directly followed year 1 BC, without the year count ever reaching zero.
TIL scientists in a restricted zone, closed off to the public, discovered a plant grown out of the solidified lava. It was a tomato plant. Further research concluded it was from a tomato seed grown... (www.cntraveler.com)
In this week’s Maphead, Ken Jennings explains how one of the Earth’s newest formations—a volcanic island in Iceland—was formed a mere 50 years ago.
TIL married people who undergo gastric bypass surgery and lose significant weight are twice as likely to get divorced. (www.upmc.com)
A new Pitt study shows that adults who get weight-loss surgery are more than twice as likely to get married or divorced in the next five years
TIL in 2011 Abercrombie & Fitch offered Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino (from ‘Jersey Shore’) $10,000 not to wear the company's clothes because they felt it would cause “significant damage” to ... (www.wikipedia.org)
TIL the real reason Steve left Blues' Clues was because he was suffering from depression (variety.com)
After years of death rumors and depression, original ‘Blue’s Clues’ host Steve Burns is opening up about his return to the franchise.
TIL that Japanese actor Bandō Mitsugorō VIII claimed to be immune to fugu kimo, naturally toxic pufferfish liver. He ate 4 portions in a restaurant with his friends in Kyoto and died 8 hours later. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL in 1969, concert promoter Bill Graham was asked to help organize the Woodstock Festival. He agreed under one condition: that Santana would be included in the lineup. After Bill persisted, Santa... (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that in the 1980s, Tom Fogerty, rhythm guitarist for Creedence Clearwater Revival, underwent back surgery, and was given a blood transfusion that was not screened for HIV causing him to become ... (www.grunge.com)
It was reported that Fogerty’s tuberculosis was a complication from the AIDS virus, which he acquired from a tainted blood transfusion during back surgery.
TIL about Wu-Tang Clan's 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,' an album so exclusive, only one copy was ever produced. (en.wikipedia.org)
There are no circulating copies of the album online and it cannot be commercially exploited until 2103, but it can be played at listening parties....
TIL A 2021 study found that people who have experienced financial indebtedness are 2.5x more likely to commit suicide (www.researchgate.net)
TIL: The Greek intellectual Hypatia was accused of witchcraft in March 415 CE where a mob seized her from her carriage, dragged her into a church, carved out her eyes and her living flesh with oyst... (lithub.com)
In the early fifth century, a time when the increasingly powerful Catholic Church clashed with the remainders of the pagan world, Hypatia of Alexandria was a renowned pagan mathematician, scientist…
TIL that when Robert de Niro was in the process of receiving Italian citizenship, he faced opposition from the Italian American group Sons of Italy, who claimed that De Niro had damaged the public ... (www.theguardian.com)
An influential Italian-American organisation has appealed to Silvio Berlusconi, asking the prime minister to cancel Italy’s plan to award De Niro honorary citizenship.
TIL in Japan raw eggs are generally safe to eat. This is because the country has developed a "super egg machine" that checks the inside of the eggs for salmonella using spectroscopic analysis. It a... (www.mashed.com)
While most eggs are considered unsafe to eat when raw, there's a scientifically interesting reason eggs are generally safe to eat raw in Japan.
TIL that the earliest instance of referring to someone as "toast" to mean doomed was a line that Bill Murray ad-libbed in Ghostbusters (www.giantfreakinrobot.com)
TIL of the Kingdom of Bailundo, a non-sovereign monarchy located in Angola. Its king was notably deposed in 2021 after being charged of involvement in a murder (en.wikipedia.org)
Ekuikui V sometimes dubbed himself as the “king of (all) Ovimbundu”. In early 2021, Ekuikui V was sentenced to six years in prison by the Provincial Court of Huambo (TPH) for his implication in a murder in 2017. Ekuikui V had issued a judgment in a traditional court case, finding Jacinto Kamutali Epalangana guilty of killing...
NASA used math to prove astrological dates are meaningless. (nasa.tumblr.com)
The Babylonians excluded the constellation Ophiuchus from the zodiac, and Earth’s axis doesn’t point in the same direction it did 3,000 years ago.
Proteins in crushed cockroach body fragments and feces become a component of house dust. After inhaling dust, sensitive children and adults develop allergic symptoms similar to those of hay fever (lancaster.unl.edu)
Source : lancaster.unl.edu/pest/…/cockroach manual.pdf
TIL fish have thoughts and feelings, they like to have fun, and they achieve stress relief through soothing physical contact like monkeys and humans do (think mutual grooming or massage therapy). T... (thehumaneleague.org)
Now that we know fish have thoughts, emotions, and pain receptors, it’s time to let them off the hook.