Things I Learned Today - 27th March 2019

- A number of the UK's emergency services use the what3words app to help save people's lives.

- There is a collection of sand dunes in Northern Canada that is often referred to as the 'world's smallest desert'.

- There is a high rise luxury apartment building close to the United Nations building in Manhattan, and it calls itself 'the ultimate global address'.

- The most popular visitor attraction in England outside London is Chester Zoo.

- There is a surprisingly large amount of fiction based on the story of Peter Pan.

- There is a website which takes Garfield out of Garfield cartoons 'to reveal the existential angst of [his owner] Jon Arbuckle'.

Things I Learned Today - 25th March 2019

Image taken from traintimes.org by Matthew Somerville

- There is now an incredible live map of the trains on the London Underground.

- On Friday, NASA will be conducting the first all female space walk.

- Dorset prisoners have been smuggling drugs inside dead rats.

- The NHS set up a Centre for Internet Disorders last year.

- Backgammon is among the oldest board games in the world.

- The Royal Mint is creating a series of coins which commemorate the Chinese Zodiac.

- Ancient Greek physicians prescribed shocks from electric fish for treating gout, headaches and 'prolapsed anus'.

- Alton Towers have opened the UK's first 'rollercoaster restaurant'.

Things I Learned Today - 24th March 2019

King David the Builder

- Today is the 75th anniversary of the Great Escape.

- Astronomers have discovered over 4,000 exoplanets.

- The UK is going to open its first new deep coal mine for over 30 years.

- Men are typically much more generous when attractive women are around.

- Georgia was once ruled by a king known as David the Builder.

- Daniel Craig played Lara Croft's love interest in Tomb Raider.

- Oprah Winfrey's name is spelled 'Orpah' on her birth certificate.

Things I Learned Today - 23rd March 2019

A 1993 Macintosh TV (Wikimedia Commons)

- New York City is trialing a shuttle service that uses driverless cars.

- The Red Hot Chili Peppers live streamed a gig from the Pyramids of Giza.

- Donald Trump's cabinet has a Bible study group.

- One of Apple's commercial failures was the $2,097 Macintosh TV.

- The UK has a National Food Crime Unit.

- 80s popstar David Van Day is now a Tory councillor in Essex. 

- An Australian conservation charity may have faked the rediscovery of an endangered parrot.

Things I Learned Today - 22nd March 2019

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

- The UK is officially the 15th happiest country in the world according to the UN. (Finland is at the top of the list.)

- MPs in the Canadian House of Commons sit at desks which you can hide snacks in. The Prime Minister had to apologise  yesterday for having eaten a chocolate bar.

- On average, China has been building one large coal power plant every week since 2016.

- Chemnitz in Germany used to be known as Karl Marx Stadt, and still has a huge monument to him.

- Italian football team A.S. Roma have started a Pidgin English Twitter account for the club's Nigerian fans.

- An energy drink in Zambia became popular after it was found to have the same key ingredient as Viagra.

- The word 'opera' derives from the Latin for 'work'.

- Baking a periodic table of cupcakes is a surprisingly common thing to do.

Things I Learned Today - 21st March 2019

Photo by Calvin Bradshaw from Wikimedia Commons

Here follows my second ever installment of things I learned today:

- There is such a thing as a lunar rainbow, or 'moonbow'.

- An e-petition has achieved enough signatures to crash the e-petition website. (E-petitions were originally launched in the UK as far back as 2006.)

- Apparently, Julianne Moore was supposed to star in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, but was fired because she wanted to wear a fatsuit and a fake nose.

- Over 4,000 different people have successfully reached the top of Mount Everest.

- Italy is set to sign up to China's new trillion dollar 'Silk Road' trading scheme, putting it at odds with most of western Europe.

- A local councillor from Cambridge has finally quit after living in Scotland for 10 months. Officially, he only had to attend a council meeting once every 6 months.

- A car broke the sound barrier back in 1997.

- Hertfordshire Council is going to auction 60% of its modern art collection.

- Plymouth is now home to the UK's largest bronze statue, which is based on an actor rehearsing for Othello.

- Prince Albert of Monaco competed 5 times in the bobsleigh at the Winter Olympics.

- Jay-Z's nickname 'Hova' is a reference to Jehova ('J-Hova').

Things I Learned Today - 20th March 2019

As a heavy consumer of news and other general facts, I have decided to share a few of the things I found out about today:

 - Today is the United Nations International Day of Happiness.

- Since November in the UK, it has been possible for certain organisations to raise 'super-complaints' against the police. The second ever case of this was today.

- Mexico has only one legal gun store, with most of the guns used to commit crimes being smuggled in from the US.

- Saudi Arabia will soon be home to the world's tallest building, and it will be exactly a kilometre in height.

- Germany doesn't take part in the EuroMillions draw.

- William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died on the same day - 23rd April 1616.

- The capital of Kazakhstan has been renamed Nursultan after the President who resigned the post yesterday.

- Robots will serve food and drinks, and perform other duties at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

- 90% of the royalties on Ariana Grande's latest single will go to the estates of Rogers and Hammerstein.

I hope these facts are of some interest to everybody out there. Until next time...