Today I learned...

[Catrin Lewis]

Today I learned that people in the Seattle region better watch out:

Approximately 14 million bees escaped after a tractor-trailer carrying more than 70,000 pounds of pollinator hives rolled over Friday in northern Washington state, authorities said.

14 million bees escape after truck overturns in Washington state

The commercial truck hauling about 14 million honeybees overturned around 4 a.m. in Whatcom County, Washington, which borders Canada's British Columbia.

www.cbsnews.com

If they're ordinary honeybees, it might be a benefit to the region. That is, if the beekeepers who have come to the rescue can't get them rounded up and returned to their hives.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Today I learned that the Jacks in a deck of cards were originally called Knaves.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

Very true, but "Knave" means "a dishonest or deceitful man", not the sort to mix with kings and queens. (Originally, though, "knave" meant "boy or young man", so I guess the name "Jacks" makes more sense, as a generic name for young men - Jack, John, James and so on).

But "jacks" replacing "knaves" makes sense: "Knave" and "King" could be easily confused, as they both start with a K.

 

[Louanne Learning]

Today I learned that yesterday would have been Marilyn Monroe's 99th birthday.

 

[JT Woody]

not a "today" learned fact but a "this week"....
it takes 6 hours to fully cremate a body on a pyre.... and 1,000 pounds of continuously burning wood

 

[Rath Darkblade]

Today I listened to the "You're Dead to Me" podcast on the BBC, which (most of the time) blends history and entertainment, and focuses on famous people or movements.

But the podcast today focused on the life of Frederick Douglass (who is obviously very famous in the USA, but perhaps not so much in the UK or Australia, where I am).

I'd heard about and read about this man before, but it's the first time I heard the full story. I'm seriously in awe. (I previously listened to a podcast about Harriet Tubman, and am equally in awe). Part-inspired, part-tearful. He didn't do it all by himself, of course, but even with the help of others, he achieved so much.

So much done, so much still to do.

 

[Bone2pick]

I learned that James Garfield, who would go on to become the 20th president of the USA, nearly died as teenager, but was saved by what could be called a miracle.

Excerpt from Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic:

As he stood alone at the bow one night, struggling with a coiled rope, he lost his balance and, before he could right himself, fell into the canal. He had fallen in before, more than a dozen times, but each time it had been daylight, and there had been men on deck to pull him out.

Now it was midnight, and Garfield was certain that he would drown. He cried out for help although he knew it was useless. Everyone on the boat was fast asleep. As he searched frantically and blindly for something to save his life, his hands suddenly struck the rope that had been the cause of his fall. Gripping it tightly, he found that, with a "great struggle," he could use it to slowly pull himself up until, finally, he fell heavily onto the boat.

As he sat, dripping and scared, on the deck of the canal boat, Garfield wondered why he was still alive. The rope was not secured to anything on the boat. When he had pulled on it, it should have fallen off the deck, slipping to the bottom of the canal and leaving him to drown. "Carefully examining it, I found that just where it came over the edge of the boat it had been drawn into a crack and there knotted itself," he would later write. "I sat down in the cold of the night and in my wet clothes and contemplated the matter. . . . I did it believe that God had paid any attention to me on my own account but I thought He had saved me for my mother and for something greater than canaling."