I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. Today (in addition to my birthday) is this month’s edition of Things I Learned.

Things I Learned

  1. Pakistan is an acronym: it is an amalgamation of the groups Panjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan. (source).
  2. The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. (source)
  3. The median age of homebuyers in the US is 49, up from 31 in 1981 (source)
  4. The first cinematic jump scare is generally agreed to be in 1942’s Cat People. (source; not so scary video)
  5. German Workers missed an average of 19.4 days of work because of illness in 2023. (source)
  6. Gladiators were fed an entirely vegetarian diet. (source)
  7. The first 3 digits of your social security number are a regional code. (source)
  8. Democrats haven’t won a majority of the white vote in US presidential elections since 1964. (source)
  9. Humans are the only creature to shed emotional tears. (source)
  10. During the 1980s, the Overseas Broadcasting Department of the Socialist Jamahiriya, based in Malta, produced two complete funk/disco albums with the aim of popularizing Gaddafi's Third International Theory. (source; music).
  11. Honey never spoils. (source)
  12. Nixon delivered his famous “I am not a Crook” line at Walt Disney World. (source)
  13. Over the past 15 years, 1 in 11 Harvard students have come from just 21 high schools (i.e. some 9.1% of students come from 0.07% of US Schools). (source)
  14. At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the automated guided vehicles that fully process $700 million of cash each day are all given official names such as Johnny 5, Megahertz, and Super Bad Decepticon. (source)
  15. Of the 1686 team seasons in NBA history, just three teams have attempted more three point shots than twos (2018 Rockets, 2019 Rockets, 2024 Celtics). (source)

Graphs I Liked