Inspiring Facts

A rival cut off Takeda Shingen’s salt. Uesugi Kenshin sent him salt anyway—saying wars are won with swords, not salt.

In 2013, a man named Frane Selak survived a train derailment, a plane door explosion, a bus crash, and four car wrecks. He then won the lottery, gave most of it away, and said he was finally happy.

The entire cast of 'The Lord of the Rings' got matching tattoos after filming. The nine actors who played the Fellowship got the Elvish word for 'nine' inked on them, a pact made by Viggo Mortensen.

The first digital camera was invented at Kodak in 1975. They buried the project to protect their film business, bankrupting the company decades later.

Your brain can't distinguish between vividly imagined practice and real action. Mental rehearsal physically strengthens neural pathways.

Your brain's visual cortex rewires itself if you go blind, repurposing that area to process sound and touch with superhuman precision.

During WWII, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defied his government to save 6,000 Jewish refugees. He wrote visas by hand for 29 days straight, even throwing them from his train window as he was forced to leave.

The world's first computer programmer was a woman, Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first algorithm for Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical computer in 1843. Her work included the revolutionary idea that machines could process more than just numbers, envisioning computer-generated music and art.

The inventor of the first successful electric hearing aid, Miller Reese Hutchison, also designed some of the earliest car horns—helping people be heard in two very different ways.

The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has never profited directly from his invention—and he even gave away the code for free so the internet could grow.

Some tech CEOs intentionally use the same outfit every day—like Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck—not out of laziness, but to minimize decision fatigue and boost creativity.

In 2006, the CEO of Whole Foods reduced his salary to $1 a year, donated his entire portfolio to charity, and set up a $100,000 fund for staff facing personal problems.

The inventor of the Game Boy, Gunpei Yokoi, started at Nintendo as an assembly line maintenance worker fixing machines before being discovered by the company president and becoming one of gaming's most influential designers.

At 17 years old, an Indian man named Jadav Payeng started planting trees on a barren sandbar. At age 47, he lives in his own 1360 acre forest which now houses rhinos, tigers, deer, apes and elephants.

(Former) Billionaire Chuck Feeney gave away over 99% of his multi-billion dollar fortune to philanthropic endeavors, such as helping underprivileged kids go to college. He is now worth a few million dollars.

Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees with its profits, having funded over 200 million trees worldwide since 2009.

The LifeStraw is a portable water filtration device that allows users to drink directly from contaminated water sources, filtering out 99.9999% of bacteria and 99.9% of parasites without electricity, batteries, or moving parts.

Capt. Robert Campbell, a British officer captured during World War I, was granted leave to visit his dying mother on one condition - that he return to captivity. He kept his word and returned, only to try escaping as soon as he returned.

John F. Kennedy never kept a single government paycheck in his entire political career. Not as a congressman. Not as a senator. Not as president. His presidential salary alone was $100,000 a year — about $1 million today — and he donated every cent to charity, including the United Negro College Fund and the Boy Scouts.

Ricardo Semler took over his father's company at 21, fired 60% of top management on his first day, and handed power to employees. Under his radical approach—letting workers set their own salaries and hours—Semco grew from $4 million to over $200 million in annual revenue.

A blind American man taught himself to navigate using echolocation. His hobbies include hiking and mountain-biking, and he has now trained over 500 students in his ‘tongue-click’ technique.

During an interview when Adele was asked about her weight and figure, she replied “I don’t make music for eyes. I make music for ears”.

Theodore Roosevelt read at least one book every day.

In 1918, a homing pigeon saved over 190 American soldiers by delivering a message to nearby support despite having been shot through the breast, blinded in one eye, covered in blood, and with a leg hanging on by just a tendon.