One of the great myths of modern America is that divorce is rampantly common with roughly 50% of marriages ending in divorce. That stat is wrong — as of 2018, as Time Magazine notes, the number is closer to 39%. And that includes second and third marriages, which rarely reach the “until death do us part” part; per Forbes, “67% of second marriages end, and 73% of third marriages are dissolved” via divorce. But when couples do divorce, usually, they stop living together. (Usually — there are more than a handful of divorced couples that stay under the same roof either for their kids or for econom ..read more

On April 10, 2024, famed NFL running back, actor, and convicted felon O.J. Simpson died. He wasn’t in prison when he passed on, which most believe was a miscarriage of justice. In June 1994, Simpson almost certainly murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, and the prosecution had plenty of evidence to prove that point. But unfortunately, the most damning proof was DNA evidence — something that was new to most of the Americans watching, and more importantly, to the jurors that decided Simpson’s fate. They found him not guilty, even though almost any jury would, b ..read more

Hi! A week or so ago, I shared the story here about the guy who cheated on the original (that is, the UK) version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” And in doing so, I accidentally cheated you out of a new Now I Know story — because it turns out, I had also written about this guy seven years ago. But alas, I had forgotten. Oops. I honestly did not remember, at all, that I had written about it before. I only discovered the problem late this week, and only because not only did I repeat the story, I repeated the headline. I had sent someone links to three recent Now I Knows and when I copy and p ..read more

When you go to many modern-day websites, there’s a decent chance you’ll see a message asking you to “accept all cookies,” like the one seen here. Cookies allow website owners to track your activity on their website and, to a limited degree, on other websites as well. And many users don’t want to be tracked — we value our privacy, and it’s kind of creepy if you think about it. And apparently, we’re not alone. Some birds don’t like to be tracked, either. (Well, kind of.) And they’ll work together to do something about it. In 2022, researchers in Australia published a study that they didn’t expec ..read more

On September 27, 2023, Frank Rubio, pictured above, set an American record by coming home. Rubio, an astronaut, had spent the last 371 days in space, all of it (except for the transit) on the International Space Station. That’s the longest spaceflight by any American and something Rubio is certainly proud of. But his reputation aboard the ISS wasn’t quite clean when he landed. Because — jokingly, mostly — he was accused of theft. Specifically, his fellow astronauts wondered if he had eaten one of humanity’s first space tomatoes. One of the problems with being in space is that people, even ast ..read more

Today, people in North America will be treated to a solar eclipse. (Here’s a map of when, and where, you can best experience it.) It’s a rare event and the last one we’ll experience in this part of the world until the year 2044. And if you’re in the zone of totality, you’ll experience something weird — darkness during the middle of the day, as the sun all but disappears from the sky, as seen above (from Australia in 2023). Today, our understanding of the Earth and Moon’s orbits makes this phenomenon a very cool thing, but if we didn’t, darkness during the day could be taken as a sign that som ..read more

Hi! Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time reading through the emails many of you have sent me over the last week. And one of them sent me down a weird rabbit hole. Reader Heather S. sent me the note below: Not sure if you listen to the podcast Ridiculous History, but you got a shout out in part one of the Delaware Wedge! At least I assume you just be the Dan Lewis the trivia expert!  That was great to read! But it caused me some concern: I had never heard of the Delaware Wedge before. Did I forget about something I wrote about? Was this another Dan Lewis who writes about trivia? (Th ..read more

There are lots of genres of television shows out there — dramas, sitcoms, “reality TV,” etc. But there’s one genre that predates almost all of them and is still around today: the game show. In the 1930s, quiz shows got their start on the radio and quickly became a mainstay of television; in the decades since, we’ve seen an explosion of such programming, to the point where we have not one but two game show-centric TV stations in the United States. For lovers of trivia — and if you’re reading these words, you’re probably one of them! — there are multiple game shows where knowing fun facts can le ..read more

In January of 2006, Marcus Einfeld was driving around in Mosman, Australia, a suburb of Sydney, going about 60 km/hr (about 40-45 mph). Unfortunately for him, the road he was on was a 50 km/hr zone, and even more unfortunately, a police officer was there. The officer pulled Einfeld over and wrote him a ticket in the amount of A$77 (about $50 US). It wasn’t an amount Einfeld couldn’t afford — he was a former judge of Australia’s Federal Court, and generally a well-regarded member of Australia’s legal community. And admitting to driving 10 km/hr (6 mph) over the speed limit is hardly something s ..read more

Hi! Last Friday, I asked you all for a favor — help me find uplifting stories that could make for good Now I Know newsletters. And I’m overwhelmed by the response. I mean, literally overwhelmed. I’ve saved so many stories or avenues to find stories that I haven’t had a chance to go through more than a dozen of them. The initial results, while based on a small sample size, are promising. Many of the stories were heartening but nothing extraordinary — people raising money for their neighbors struck by tragedy, adults teaching kids the importance of empathy through practical means, etc. But there ..read more