42 Things I learned in 2023

In the spirit of Tom Whitehall’s and Jason Kottke’s annual lists of things they’ve learned throughout the year, here is my list of things I learned in 2023. While I strived for one for every week, I came up 10 short! However, I still wanted to share these 42 things that somehow I did not learn the first 38 years of my life on this planet.

Here is last years list!

(1) The Yankees play the song “New York New York” after every home game. However, they change the version based on the outcome. If the Yankees win- they play Sinatra. If the Yankees lose- they play Liza Minelli’s version. This one is no longer true!

(2) The Zip in ZIP code stands for zone improvement plan and the residents of the Glennborough Home Owners Association of Michigan has twice sued the US government about its zip code number.

(3) The “London Calling” album cover is from a show at the Paladium in NYC. It is now a Trader Joe’s.

(4) Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin were born within 100 miles of each other.

(5) black holes aren’t actually black and it’s quite possible light can escape them. Also, the scientist who first theorized black holes could exist died a year later in the trenches at WWI as just a private.

(6) Some soccer leagues have begun to show white cards to players/staff to recognize positive acts of fair play.

(7) of the subprime mortgages given out ahead of the crash in 2008, 40 percent alone were in California.

(8) the word fish used to be pronounced fisk.

(9) The San Diego Padres fans have a tradition of Tony Gwynn opening day on the second home game of the season because Gwynn said only real fans show up to the second game.

(10) Wayne Gretzky is by far the NHL’s number one leader in points (goals plus assists) that even if you took away every single of his goals he ever scored and just had his assists, he would still be number one in points.

(11) the hypodermic syringe was invented in 1853 and the inventor’s wife was the first person to die of an injected drug overdose.

(12) you couldn’t fly to Delaware until February of this year when one airline finally began commercial flights to Wilmington.

(13) A supposed painting by Botticelli hanging in Britain’s National Gallery was revealed as a fake after an art dealer from America realized the Virgin Mary in the painting was actually film star Jean Harlow.

(14) squirrels used to migrate in herds of thousands though no one knew why or why they have stopped.

(15) there’s a culture amongst businesses in Japan of designing their headquarters like the product they are selling.

(16) a Chicago newspaper in the 1970s bought a bar to expose corruption by city officials.

(17) in 1996, a Wall Street banker on United flight 976 became intoxicated and when asked to sit down, instead tried to pour his own drinks down the bar cart. When stop, he climbed on top of the cart, defecated, and then started running down the aisle spreading his own waste on people.

(18) The Indianapolis Star first coined the term “First World War” in 1914. Times Magazine coined the term WWII in 1939.

(19) Evolution has independently created crab-like creatures at least four times and up to 7.

(20) in a conspiracy theory being proven correct, a blogger was able to show that Disney was predicting a Hillary win in 2016 for its Hall of Presidents but when Trump won they just put his face onto the Hillary Clinton animatronic.

(21) Utah Senator Jake Garn insisted on going on a NASA flight while in Congress and subsequently became so motion sick that NASA now uses the Garn scale to measure space sickness with 1 Garn being completely incapacitated.

(22) there is an entire Wikipedia article on the at least five pseudonyms Donald Trump used with the NY press In the 1980s and 90s.

(23) the largest seller of physical music in the U.S. (CDs, LPs, records) is Starbucks.

(24) orchid is the Greek word for testicle.

(25) nearly all hummingbirds die going to sleep or waking up because the process of their hearts going from 500 bpm awake to 35 bpm asleep and back again is so taxing.

(26) it used to be a tradition in the Tour de France for riders to stop at a cafe, run in and grab as much stuff as they could, including beer and champagne, and then run out with our paying.

(27) you cannot become a saint in the Eastern Orthodox church if you die by drowning, which is why Rasputin murderers put him in water after killing him.

(28) there is a plant in Indonesia that will spontaneously combust when the temperature reaches over 90 degrees.

(29) 2023 saw the number of all-cash housing purchases rise above 50%. It is now 65%!

(30) 80% of license plates (38 states) are made by prisoners. In Vermont, some of these prisoners designed a pig into the state troopers decal.

(31) Wyoming’s Statute includes a Cowboy Code of Ethics formally adopting 10 rules of Cowboy Life including “ride for the brand” and “talk less; say more.”

(32) The red and white pole outside barber shops was originally an advertisement for blood letting.

(33) Hold the palm of your hand up in front of your mouth and say ‘Paris’ in English, You’ll feel a little puff of air on your hand. Now, try the same thing again, but try to remove that puff of air, and you’ll get something closer to the French sound.

(34) there’s a tradition amongst symphonies of pranking the conductor on their birthday with happy birthday to you.

(35) Royal palaces across the world have often used unfathomably intricate layouts as a security device. One European traveller to Japan in the eighteenth century reported that Tokyo’s royal palace of Chiyoda Castle had ‘so many intersections, different moats and ramparts that I was unable to work out its ground plan’. It is much the same to this day with Buckingham Palace. In ancient Rome, too, the architecture was presumably meant to disorient outsiders. From Mary Beard’s Book Emperor of Rome

(36) In Catania, an estimated 90 percent of business owners paid bribes to the mafia so much that the local chamber of commerce proposed making “il pizzo” tax deductible.

(37) Vatican City has 5.9 popes per square mile.

(38) approximately 20 countries prohibit people from wearing or owning camouflage clothing.

(39) in a nuclear apocalypse the main currency will be $2 bills. That’s because after they failed to gain traction in the 70s, the government stored them all in nuclear bunkers instead of destroy them. From Garrett Graff’s book Raven Rock.

(40) the first celebrity to set up their own website was Rodney Dangerfield in 1995. He would answer people’s questions on the site.

(41) Humans nostrils work separately meaning in effect we have two noses, and they are controlled partially by the arm pits.

(42) the last active Expo’s pick playing for a professional sports team was Tom Brady.