74 of our favorite facts for 2020
Every day, our editors collect the most interesting, eye-catching, or delightful facts that appear in articles across the newspaper. Here are 74 from last year that were the most revealing.
December 30, 2020
January
1. Japan's legal system has a 99 percent conviction rate.
Carlos Ghosn, at home, is waiting for the next step
2. Fishing remains the second most dangerous profession in the United States after logging.
Overtaken by icy seas, hours before help, there was little chance of survival
3. McSorley's Old Ale House, founded in the East Village in 1854, served Abraham Lincoln and John Lennon beers.
After 190 years the most famous bar you've never heard of avoids the last call
4th The Lehigh Valley in eastern Pennsylvania is an eight-hour drive from a third of American consumers.
What the rebirth of this old steel center means for Trump
8th. In Thailand, the military has carried out 18 coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932.
The Thai soldier at the mass shooting had a business conflict with his commander
9. About 95 percent of Egypt's population lives in about 4 percent of the country, a green belt about half the size of Ireland that follows the Nile as it meanders through the desert and then fans out into the Nile Delta.
When the Egyptian population reaches 100 million, the celebration is subdued
10. Twice a day, the low tide of the Thames lowers the water level in some areas by as much as 20 feet.
Mudlarks search the Thames to uncover 2,000 years of secrets
11. In the 1960s, concertgoers at Bill Graham's Fillmore Theaters in New York and San Francisco were greeted with kegs of free apples.
In Trippy Times, Bill Graham took care of the reality
12. For decades after the birth of modern photography in 1839, one of the most common uses of the technology was a professionally taken photograph of a dead family member.
The iPhone on its deathbed
13. Scott Paper Company was the first to introduce toilet paper with cardboard tubes in 1890.
My relentless search for a tubeless wipe
14th Fearing they might run out of wood for coffins after the first air raid on London in World War II, UK Home Office officials believed they would have to bury thousands of people in cardboard or even paper mache.
How Churchill brought Britain back from the fringes
15th According to a 2008 study by the United States Institute of Peace, nearly 90 percent of women in Afghanistan will experience some form of domestic violence in their lifetime.
They killed their husbands. Now in prison they feel free.
March
16. At a concert in Vienna in 1808, his last public appearance as a pianist, Beethoven unveiled the Fifth Symphony, the Sixth “Pastoral”, the Fourth Piano Concerto and “Choral Fantasy”.
Review: Beethoven's biggest concert, now with heat
17th A study published in Nature Climate Change in March found that more than half of the world's sandy beaches could disappear by the end of this century.
The original Long Islanders fight to save their land from a rising sea
18th In the 24 years since they appeared on How To Do Business Without Trying, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick became engaged, married, and had three children, but did not trade together.
Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker spend the night together
19th The summit of Mount Everest is about the size of two table tennis tables.
After the deadly traffic jam on Everest, Nepal is delaying new safety rules
25th Around 42 percent of American adults – nearly 80 million people – live with obesity.
Obesity related to severe coronavirus disease, especially in younger patients
26th King Saud, Saudi Arabia's second king, had 53 sons and 57 daughters with numerous wives and concubines.
After a year of silence, an imprisoned Saudi princess asks for help
27. Before the industrial revolution, thunder, church bells, and cannon fire were the main sources of noise.
Loud, louder, loudest: How classical music began to roar
28. Off the coast of the Bronx, Hart Island, now a cemetery for the homeless and unidentified bodies, once housed city prisons, a Civil War prison camp, and an asylum for women.
How Covid-19 forced us to look at the unthinkable
29 Rats have to gnaw constantly because their sharp, hard front teeth grow continuously throughout their lives – about four or five inches a year.
Oh rats! Finally move your car? You can get a surprise.
30th George Washington survived smallpox, malaria (six times), diphtheria, tuberculosis (twice), and pneumonia.
What the history books don't tell about George Washington
Can
31. If they were one country, cows would be the sixth largest methane emitter in the world, ahead of Brazil, Japan and Germany.
The Burp Business: Scientists Smell Profit on Cow Emissions
32. Disney's eight film studios controlled 40 percent of the domestic box office in 2018.
For Walt Disney Co., a battered empire
33. In May, Elon Musk and his girlfriend Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, had a child and named him X Æ A-12.
Tesla owners try to understand Elon Musk's "Red Pill" moment
34. Richard Scherrer, the engineer first listed in the patent for Lockheed's F-117 stealth aircraft, had been in the moonlight in the 1950s planning some of the trips at Disneyland, including Dumbo the Flying Elephant.
View of the war over 2,500 years
35. Fungi can be trained to eat cigarette butts, used diapers, oil spills, and even radiation.
Whether you're preparing a meal or cleaning up an oil spill, there's a mushroom for that
36. In March, as the coronavirus pandemic deepened, Americans bought two million guns, the busiest month of sales since January 2013.
Smith & Wesson takes over victims of school father shooting
June
37. There can be billions of types of viruses in the world. Several hundred thousand species of them are known, and fewer than 7,000 have names.
Monster or machine? A profile of the coronavirus after 6 months
38. Brooks Brothers, founded by Henry Sands Brooks in Manhattan in 1818, is the oldest continuously operating apparel brand in the United States.
Brooks Bros., "Made in America" since 1818, may need a new business card soon
39. According to research by the Economic Policy Institute, black women make an average of 64 cents for every dollar a white man makes.
The Gross Racial Inequality of Personal Finances in America
40. A study by economist Enrico Cantoni on voting behavior found that a quarter mile further from a polling station reduced voting by 2 to 5 percent.
For racial justice, employees need paid hours to vote
41. "Gone with the Wind" is still the highest-grossing film of all time, adjusted for inflation.
The long battle for "Gone with the Wind"
42. In the past five years, Minneapolis police have used seven times as much violence against blacks as against whites.
The police in America are broken and have to change. But how?
43. Only one particular peanut, bred for the correct size and appearance of its shell, makes the cut for the baseball trade. It's called Virginia and it grows in that state, but also in the Carolinas, Texas, and to a lesser extent New Mexico.
Ballpark Peanuts, a classic summer fun, were put on a bench
July
44. Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Pakistan's aviation minister, told parliament in June that out of around 860 pilots who work for Pakistani airlines, 260 had fraudulent licenses.
The suspension of European airspace is the latest blow to Pakistan's troubled airline
45. The word "homosexuality" was coined in 1869 by the Austro-Hungarian writer Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
No longer overlooked: Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, pioneering gay activist
46. "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley's 1932 science fiction novel, is set in a future involving chemical birth control, mood stabilizers, genetic engineering, video conferencing and television.
"Brave New World" comes in the future it foretold
47. We breathe about 25,000 times a day.
Breathe better with these nine exercises
48. The self storage industry began in the 1960s when rising consumerism led Americans to buy more things than they could fit.
Americans crouch down and threaten the self-storage industry
49. At 17, Lucille Ball left her New York upstate high school for Broadway only to be told, "You just haven't got it. Why don't you go home?"
The "Wildcat" episode or "Did Broadway Love Lucy?"
50. Bayes' theorem is a means of rationally updating your previous beliefs and uncertainties based on observed evidence.
How to think like an epidemiologist
August
51. After the beetle Regimbartia attenuata is swallowed by a frog, it can slide down the amphibian intestines and force it to poop, making it appear dirty but alive.
There are two ways out of a frog. This beetle chose the back door.
52. Penicillin, discovered in 1928, would have defeated pneumonia that killed many people during the 1918 pandemic influenza.
In N.Y.C. & # 39; s Coronavirus Surge, a terrifying echo of the 1918 flu
53. The fist bump was reportedly caused by Fred Carter, a high-energy N.B.A. 1970s player.
Will we ever touch again (professionally)?
September
54. Before Dorothea Lange took a famous photo of Florence Owens Thompson known as the "Migrant Mother" in 1936, Dorothea Lange drove 20 miles past the camp where Mrs. Thompson was staying before deciding to turn around.
America on the verge of starvation
55. The beaches of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago, are covered with “soapstones” – gravel mixed with fat, traces of the mass killings of seals and whales.
Grief and geology take their time in the Book of Irregularities.
56. Martha Stewart, who sells a range of CBD products including Pâte de Fruit, was introduced to the palliative effects of cannabis by a friend, Snoop Dogg, at Comedy Central's "Roast of Justin Bieber" in 2015.
Martha Stewart, blessed on CBD, is riding the pandemic
57. In the United States, life sentences have quadrupled since the 1980s.
Making art when “lockdown” means prison
68. Sports teams first visited the White House in 1865 when President Andrew Johnson welcomed the Washington Nationals and Brooklyn Atlantics from baseball.
Even with a new president, the sport in the White House won't be the same
69. In the past seldom off the beaches of Southern California, great white sharks appear more and more frequently. The newcomers are mostly juvenile sharks who prefer the warm water closer to the coast.
When sharks appeared on their beach, they called in drones
December
70. Many stories have been told over the years about the inspiration for the song "Lola" by the Kinks. The group's singer, Ray Davies, said it came from a meeting at the Castille Club, a Paris nightspot the group was visiting.
Ray Davies over 50 years Lola
71. Underground, trees and fungi form partnerships known as mycorrhizae: thread-like fungi envelop and fuse with tree roots, helping them extract water and nutrients in exchange for some of the carbon-rich sugars that trees make through photosynthesis.
The social life of the forests
72. Olympic track star Rafer Johnson was a 1968 regular in Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign entourage. Johnson helped fight Sirhan Sirhan after the assassin shot and killed Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
Remembering Rafer Johnson in a long year of lost sports legends
