MCM 2025: The Knowledge Tree

[Samurai Equine 58,423]

MCM '25: The Knowledge Tree

 

Sophie - MCM (Winter's Paradise).mp3

"Winter Paradise" by @Sophie.

 

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Knowledge grows like a tree; a holiday tree.

You can't always see every branch nor every leaf, but the knowledge is always there.

Hello there, everyone!  Welcome to the Knowledge Tree.

I openly invite you all to share any random facts you have that are absolutely fascinating. (Must be SFW and compliant with the Forum Guidelines.)
Do you know something cool or fascinating? Do you know something that might restore people's faith in humanity? Maybe some overlooked gems that more people should know about?
Now is the time to share!

Those who know me can tell you that I often like to comment on status updates with random facts (usually when I don't have much to say). So for that reason, I shall go first.

• Did you know there is a non-profit business built around kindness? The phrase “random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty” was first coined (as far as we know) in 1982 and later inspired a best-selling book and a worldwide movement encouraging spontaneous kindness. This helped lead to the creation of the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and the World Kindness Movement, which now promotes kindness across nations.
• Did you know that electroplating goes back further than you think? As an example, the Persian Empire may have created a primitive electrochemical battery (the Baghdad Battery) more than 2,000 years ago. It suggests ancient electrochemical technology well before modern electricity, showing early experimentation with electrical phenomena.
• Did you know that Charles Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol, is a bit of a hero? After getting caught in a serious train crash in 1865, he was there to help out the other passengers. And he also managed to save and preserve his manuscript of Our Mutual Friend as well.

I now leave the floor open to all of you. The facts don't have to be holiday related, but if you have some that are, that would be even better!

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Thank you for participating in Making Christmas Merrier 2025!

Remember, we are also hosting a charity, so please consider making a donation to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

Together, we can make the holiday season merry for everyone.

Donate Here!

[Paranoy 100]

 

• Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark has exactly 42 points if you count all the stars.

• In the episode "Fall Weather Friends," Twilight’s racing number is also 42.

• Applejack "survived" almost every generation

• King Sombra has died twice

[Snoopy Fan 17,386]

A Charlie Brown Christmas killed aluminum tree sales.
 

Aluminum Christmas trees were marketed beginning in 1958 and enjoyed fairly strong sales by eliminating pesky needles and tree sap. But the annual airings of A Charlie Brown Christmas swayed public thinking: In the special, Charlie Brown refuses to get a fake tree. Viewers began to do the same, and the product was virtually phased out by 1969. The leftovers are now collector’s items.

[Tao 10,021]

Pompeii:

Pompeii was famously a Roman city, right? Well, yes, but the Romans might not have been there first – some of the oldest structures unearthed in Pompeii appear to have been designed by ancient Greek settlers.

Did you know that Pompeii remained undiscovered for 1,500 years:
The city was unearthed by accident during the digging of a water tunnel in 1599. Real excavation didn’t begin until the 1700s.

 

 

 

 

[Shiny Silvermoon 4,639]

Did you know that there exist a shrimp capable of shooting high-velocity bubbles with one of it's claw? To kill their preys and defend themselves, Nature has gifted the Pistol Shrimp quite a fascinating weapon! It's claw can close with so much strength and speed that the pressure exerted on the water produces plasma. After shooting a projectile, the claw will be, for a short period of time, as hot as the surface of the sun from overheating. The noise caused by this release of energy is so loud that it can be heard from a boat. In fact, it is one of the loudest aquatic sounds, louder than a whale.

Although they aren't dangerous outside of water, do not attempt to approach one underwater! 
 

Edited December 20, 2025 by Shiny Silvermoon

[Espy 4,998]

Jungle / Drum & Bass started because two DJ's, Fabio & Grooverider, were mixing Hip Hop and Hip House with Acid House, House, NRG and Techno.

They had to speed the breakbeats up to get it to sound good and that inspired a new wave of artists, like Lennie De Ice and Goldie, to make music based on that.

This started at Heaven nightclub, at a weekly night called RAGE. Originally spearheaded by Colin Faver and Trevor Fung, it was for more mainstream house music, while Fabio & Grooverider were in the second room, Star Bar.

The second room was meant to not overshadow the main room, just mostly for crowd control reasons, but that's exactly what happened. Eventually, both Trevor Fung and Colin Faver couldn't make it one night, so Fabio and Grooverider were asked to play the main room. They did and replaced their predecessors.

Then in 1993, the night had to end because of increased police activity and growing negative sentiment of Jungle. It would immediately be rebranded as Drum & Bass; it's debated where that came from but LTJ Bukem is generally credited for the rebranding.

Different name, same music scene.

It gets even more interesting going into the 2000's but that's for another day. 

[FluttersSez 139]

Not very interesting as it isn't a real life fact. Probably gonna confuse people who haven't played Minecraft too.

Minecraft Pocket edition oddly enough had it's own Alpha versions, which had the signature blue rose and a new block exclusive to mobile, the Nether Core. It was added apparently because mobile couldn't handle the full Nether at the time. You would create an altar looking thing with gold underneath and cobblestone surrounding it.

After you were done, you'd tap the thing (you had to specifically tap the Core block with your pickaxe.) It'd turn red, spawn Netherrack around you and spawn hostile zombie pigmen for a limited amount of time. Inside were a bunch of random items like mushrooms and paintings that'd spawn, Probably since worlds were very small and limited. 

The Alpha versions went on up until 0.16.0,  

0.5.0 the Core was added, 0.12.1 the Core was removed, and the original Nether portal added.

The Core is the blue thing in the middle in that one image.

 

Edited December 21, 2025 by FluttersSez

[Emerald Heart 25,384]

The Bumblebee Bat is the world's smallest mammal. 

[TheRockARooster 56,137]

NRL (Rugby League) and AFL (Aussie Rules) are Australia’s oldest football games.

 

Wrestling is the same and can also comes in so many variations all over the world.

 

Godzilla is the longest-running continuous movie franchise in the world.

 

[SidewinderX 239]

In the 1990 thriller film The Hunt for Red October, Captain Ramius says to one of his officers, "Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please." This refers to the actual operation of submarine sonar and its impact on submarine operations. Modern submarines have two types of sonar. The first is passive sonar, which is a powerful listening system that simply picks up noise in the surrounding water. Sonar operators then listen for sounds that might indicate that another ship or submarine is nearby, such as propellers and people inside other vessels making noise; clanging pots, tools, or shouting can all be picked up by passive sonar. Since passive sonar is powerful and makes no noise, it is often used for locating and tracking enemy vessels. Just knowing the general location of a ship, however, is rarely enough to get a firing solution for the submarine's torpedoes, especially so if the target is a submerged submarine. For this, submarines use active sonar. Unlike passive sonar, which just listens for noise, active sonar sends out incredibly loud soundwaves—around 235 decibels, enough to rupture the lungs of nearby divers and disorient marine creatures so badly that they often wash up on beaches—and listens for the return signal that bounces back. From this, a sonar operator can determine the distance, bearing, and speed of the target, all of which are valuable information for computing a firing solution. Because it is so loud, however, it will alert almost everything in range to its presence, so active sonar is used only sparingly, and one 'ping' is usually enough to determine the needed information. For this reason, an enemy sub using active sonar means that your vessel has almost certainly been detected.

[Samurai Equine 58,423]

Thank you to @Paranoy, @Snoopy Fan, @Tao, @Shiny Silvermoon, @Espy, @FluttersSez, @Emerald Heart, @TheRockARooster, and @SidewinderX. 
Your facts were very interesting, and I'll totally hold onto these facts and look back on them fondly.

Here's hoping 2026 will be filled with even more wonderful facts.