31. 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.
32. 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.
33. 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.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. 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.
37. TIL that a 14th century Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta went as far as modern Indonesia, China, India, Russia, Central Asia, Balkans, Spain, Tanzania, West Africa and Maldives, and was by far the most well-travelled human before the modern era. He wrote an account of his travels, known as The Rihlah.
38. 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.
