They say that knowledge brings more knowledge — the more you know, the easier it is to learn new things. Luckily, we have an endless source of information right there at our fingertips, so discovering something novel is as easy as tapping on a few links on our screens. Still, if you’re looking for a reminder to sharpen your mind and expand your mental horizons, the Today I Learned subreddit is here to save the day.
With a mind-boggling 27.2M members and counting, this Reddit powerhouse is on a mission to share “interesting and specific facts about something that you just found out.” People there collect precious tidbits of wisdom and continue to share quick and exciting facts every single day.
So let’s celebrate their efforts by taking out our notebooks, grabbing our pens, and allowing ourselves to learn something different, new, and potentially useful. Bored Panda has collected some of the best facts from this online community for you to enjoy, so continue scrolling and upvote the ones you enjoyed most! And when you’re done, be sure to check out our previous posts with more interesting trivia here, here, and here.
#1
TIL that figure skater Mabel Fairbanks, who was was banned from rinks as a child due to her African American and Native American ancestry, went on to coach skating greats like Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Debi Thomas, and was the first African American in the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Image credits: RedditPrat
#2
TIL that two buttons in WWII RAF uniform can be put together to make a mini compass which indicates towards north.
Image credits: LiuKang69
#3
TIL in the Red Sea, giant moray eels have been observed hunting cooperatively with coral groupers. The grouper approaches an eel’s hiding place and shakes its head rapidly to indicate that it wants to hunt. The eel recognizes the signal and accompanies it on the hunt where they work in tandem.
Image credits: AquamarineCheetah
#4
TIL that some urban birds like finches and sparrows use cigarette butts as a form of pest control for their nests. The nicotine in the cigarettes helps keep parasites away.
Image credits: Hilla007
#5
TIL that by 400 BC, Persians had developed Yakhchal, Ancient Refrigerators capable of storing solid ice in the summer in the desert.
Image credits: Severe-Draw-5979
#6
TIL that Michigan police once rounded up a group of local drug dealers by inviting them to the fake wedding of two of the dealers’ regular customers, who were really undercover police officers. The arrests got underway after the band (also undercover police officers) played “I Fought the Law”.
Image credits: PikesPique
#7
TIL that during his time as the narrator for the US version of the first four seasons of the children’s TV show Thomas the Tank Engine, George Carlin spoke his lines to a teddy bear in the booth because he was nervous about performing without an audience.
Image credits: FuriouSherman
#8
TIL the mother of the last Comanche chief was a white woman who was kidnapped at age 9 & assimilated into the tribe. She later married a chieftain & bore him 3 children before she was found at age 33 & returned to her bio-family. She never accepted white society & committed suicide by starvation.
Image credits: Shark-Farts
#9
TIL that the Animal Planet reality series ‘River Monsters’ ended because star Jeremy Wade was able to catch essentially every exceptionally large freshwater fish species on earth, leaving no remaining content for the show.
Image credits: the_freshest_scone
#10
TIL the crawfish farming industry in Louisiana grew after rice farmers began breeding them in their rice fields. They realized that they could farm crawfish throughout the year without it affecting their rice. It also served as an extra source of income for them.
Image credits: dilettantedebrah
#11
TIL that smokers whose insula got damaged after a stroke were able to quit smoking easily one day after the stroke, with no relapse and urges, suggesting that this brain region might play a role in nicotine addiction.
Image credits: PBGr12
#12
TIL that In 2015, that a three-story tall lamp post became so corroded by urine that it snapped and fell over, crushing a nearby car.
Image credits: BringsHomeBones
#13
TIL Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young stole a pickup truck in order to get to Woodstock to play their sets.
Image credits: Coocat86
#14
TIL that dingoes were brought to Australia by humans around 4,000 years ago, and are actually an ancient breed of domestic dog.
Image credits: BainVoyonsDonc
#15
TIL Oreo has to call the white center “creme” instead of “cream” because the FDA does not allow manufacturers to use the word “cream” to describe a food that contains no cream at all.
Image credits: nathanthrax
#16
TIL in 2015 an Australian woman put a bet on a horse at 100-1 and won $825, she then took a selfie with the winning bet slip, posted it to Facebook, somebody saw it and put the barcode into an automated betting machine and stole her winnings.
Image credits: Status-Victory
#17
TIL that two dim stars from the Big Dipper served as an ancient eye test. If you had lived in the time of the early Romans and could see them, you would have been eligible to be an archer in the Roman army.
Image credits: transylvanea
#18
TIL: Robin Williams autopsy revealed he had about 40% loss of dopamine neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout his entire brain and brainstem from Lewy body disease (LBD).
Image credits: Whitn3y
#19
TIL Wild Rodents Will Run on Mouse Wheels if You Leave Them in the Woods.
Image credits: SurrealKeenan
#20
TIL that In 2010, a black Nigerian couple living in London gave birth to a white, blond haired & blue eyed baby that they called ‘The Miracle Baby’.
Image credits: xhqshs
#21
TIL that a “Silent Man” in the UK repeatedly gets arrested for standing on a certain road to block traffic. He never speaks a word, not even to the court or his own lawyer. Everytime he is released, he repeats the crime and remains completely silent.
Image credits: Wordlife4461
#22
TIL that the snow used in the Wizard of Oz was actually asbestos fibre.
Image credits: LatinaNinaa
#23
TIL the samurai Yanagizawa Yoshisato helped his samurai clan pay off their debts by selling goldfish. He took his best goldfish breeders over to the town of Koriyama so they could use its plentiful waters for this. His clan made goldfish more available to the general public and not just the rich.
Image credits: dilettantedebrah
#24
TIL of J. L. Hunter “Red” Rountree, who after his wife passed and seemingly with nothing left to live for decided to commit his first bank robbery at the age of 86. Red blamed banks for making him bankrupt and by the time he passed away in 2004 he had robbed 2 more banks.
Image credits: Status-Victory
#25
TIL the record for the longest name ever used was held by a German-American man. The name is so long it can’t fit in this title but was abbreviated as Hubert B. Wolfe + 666 Sr. The name has its origins in his Great-Grandfather’s sarcastic response to a law mandating German Jews take a second name.
Image credits: Ornery-Jackfruit-510
#26
TIL That a journalist accidentally discovered his wife was the world’s best Tetris player.
Image credits: scootscoot1477
#27
TIL the 1972 Attica prison uprising in Upstate New York, in which the prisoners demanded better living conditions, ended on the 5th day when law enforcement stormed in and killed 29 prisoners and 10 hostages. Prisoners were then stripped naked and forced to crawl through the latrine and beaten.
Image credits: mankls2
#28
TIL about Frieda Caplan, a pioneer in the world of produce who built a successful business in the 1960s by promoting items that, at the time, were relatively unheard of in the U.S. such as mangoes, shallots, and a New Zealand fruit originally called “Chinese gooseberry,” which she dubbed the kiwi.
Image credits: PikesPique
#29
TIL Miranda Gibson lived on a small platform 60 metres above the ground in a 400-year-old Eucalyptus tree to protect the surrounding forest. A bush fire forced her to evacuate after 449 days but Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area was officially extended by 170,000 hectares a few months later.
Image credits: Str33twise84
#30
TIL that actor Gary Busey once refused to perform a scene set in heaven because he said the set design looked nothing like the real heaven he visited during a near-death experience while in a coma.
Image credits: dennismarr
#31
TIL that, on average, half of all service dogs fail their training. Due to this poor rate, South Korea experimented with cloning service dogs that had already passed their training. The resulting clones passed at rates much higher than average.
Image credits: Yurekuu
#32
TIL Rio de Janeiro was once the capital of Portugal. Following the conquest of Portugal by Napoleon, the Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil (1808-1821). They then established the capital of Portugal in Rio de Janeiro.
Image credits: Cogz45
#33
TIL 45 years ago, ahi (tuna) were caught for fun and ground into pet food. In Japan, tuna was called neko-matagi, meaning “fish that even a cat would disdain”.
Image credits: olagon
#34
TIL that Iceland was once covered in trees until the Vikings came and cut them down to make room for sheep.
Image credits: zahrul3
#35
TIL Freshwater snails are one of the world’s most deadly animals because they transmit the organism that causes schistosomiasis (aka bilharzia), which is, in and of itself, one of the most deadly parasites on the planet! Nearly 230m people were infected in 2014 and there are~200,000 deaths annually.
Image credits: ecstaticadventure
#36
TIL: For The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., Bruce Campbell auditioned by grabbing himself by the collar, then performing a forward-flip, a trick he and Raimi had taught themselves back in high school.
Image credits: Dudegabebrown
#37
TIL the modern gas container, the jerry can, was invented in 1937 Germany. In the start of WWII, the UK used leaky, flimsy tin containers called “flimsies” but soon captured jerry cans and the Allies started copying the German design.
Image credits: Specialist_Check
#38
TIL spaces between words in documents first appeared in Irish and Anglo-Saxon Bibles in the seventh century. Paleographers today identify the extinction of ‘scriptio continua’ as a critical factor in augmenting the widespread absorption of knowledge in the Pre-Modern Era.
Image credits: coffeeinvenice
#39
TIL that a proposed 1896 Pennsylvania law required motorists who encountered livestock to: stop their vehicle, disassemble it, and conceal the parts until the livestock were sufficiently pacified.
Image credits: SomeGuy671
#40
TIL in Minnesota in 2017, a 20 year old woman shot her 22 year old boyfriend through an encyclopedia from about a foot (30 cm) away for a Youtube video and he died. She was sentenced to 6 months in prison.
Image credits: mankls2
#41
TIL Eurypterids, an order of arthropods completely wiped out by the world’s biggest mass extinction, were scorpion-like giants that could reach almost ten feet in length.
Image credits: wauwy
#42
TIL that in 1429, King Charles VII of France exempted the town of Domrémy from paying taxes “forever”, after a promise to Joan of Arc. Taxes were imposed again during the French Revolution.
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