Surprising facts, useful discoveries, and curious things worth knowing.
Google began as a Stanford University research project called BackRub, named after its analysis of website “backlinks", which used links between websites to assess the importance of pages. BackRub became Google, a name inspired by "googol" - the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.
Brian Eno created the sound and said in a BBC Radio 4 interview in 2009 that "I've never used a PC in my life; I don't like them".
Introduced in 1956, IBM’s 350 Disk Storage Unit held five million characters across 50 spinning magnetic disks, each about 61 centimetres wide. Its real breakthrough was how it retrieved information: a mechanical arm could access data directly, without searching through a reel of magnetic tape.
For someone who sleeps 8 hours per day and lives to 81, that’s about 27 years.
Used in Australia and New Zealand, “yeah, nah” depends heavily on context. It can acknowledge what someone has said before disagreeing—something like, “I hear you, but no.” “Want to get up at 5 am for a run?” “Yeah, nah.” Oxford included the phrase in its June 2026 update. Australians and Kiwis didn’t need a dictionary to understand it, but everyone else now has somewhere to look.
Back then, you might have burned a CD, printed directions or waited for someone to get off the phone so you could use the internet. Now those everyday habits sound like museum exhibits. Here’s another way to picture it: someone born in 2000 turns 26 this year—and 50 in 2050. The future hasn’t arrived with flying cars. It’s been sneaking up on us one birthday at a time.
During plague outbreaks, ships and travellers could be isolated for that long before entering a port. The number 40 in Italian is quaranta.
NASA says Voyager 1 will reach one light-day from Earth on 18 November 2026: about 16.094 billion miles (25.902 billion kilometres) away. For perspective, the Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years across, so Voyager is still only a tiny distance into our galaxy.
Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sent the first network email over ARPANET, a predecessor of today’s internet. The computers were beside each other, but the breakthrough was getting a message to travel between separate machines.
The last 20% charges slowly because the battery switches from fast constant-current charging to safer constant-voltage charging, gradually reducing the current to prevent overheating and damage.
When MTV launched in the United States on 1 August 1981, its first music video was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”—a fitting opening for a channel devoted to putting music on television. The song wasn’t even new. It had already reached number one in the UK in 1979, almost two years before MTV began broadcasting.
It's an inspiring song about not giving up, keep trying and thing's will work out.
Germany ranked third worldwide for international tourism spending, behind China and the United States. The UK followed at US$103 billion, while France recorded US$60 billion. This ranking measures residents’ total spending on international travel, rather than the number of trips taken or how much each traveller spends.
Other words used were gimboid, goit and gwenlan.
If you normally sleep at night, morning brings falling melatonin, rising cortisol, and increasing body temperature—all helping prepare you to wake up. You’re ready to clock off, but your body is clocking on. The result? Sleep that can be shorter or more broken—and waking up feeling like your battery never quite finished charging.
Maxxing means taking an activity to its fullest. An example is "Looksmaxxing" which means maximizing your physical appearance. Maxxing can be used for anything where you want to take something to it's maximum.
Explore birth years, ages, worldwide population estimates and a live timeline of history. You can learn about different generations (Gen X, Millennials etc) and watch their populations change in real time.