If you’re a fan of learning something new every day, you are probably well familiar with the ‘Today I Learned’ community, or TIL, for short. If you’re not, let us introduce you to one of the biggest treasure chests of interesting facts you can find online.
Created back in 2008, the community on Reddit now has over 40 million members, seeking to learn something new every day. So, if you’re eager to do the same, check out a sneak peek of what you can expect from the community on the list below. Or, browse our category of interesting facts for more similar content that can help you scratch that curious brain of yours.
#1
TIL Anthony Bourdain called “Ratatouille” “simply the best food movie ever made.” This was due to details like the burns on cooks’ arms, accurate to working in restaurants. He said they got it “right” and understood movie making. He got a Thank You credit in the film for notes he provided early on.
Image credits: Giff95
#2
TIL that in 1978, a 30 people hostage situation in Melbourne was resolved when the perpetrators mother stormed the place, hit him over the head with her handbag and told him to “stop being so stupid”.
Image credits: Sfinx_the_Pirate
#3
TIL that in 2018, Saudi Arabia lifted a 35-year ban on cinema. The first film to screen publicly in the country after the ban was lifted was “Black Panther”
Image credits: ModenaR
#4
TIL that while filming John Wick 4, Keanu Reeves gifted stunt performers customized T-shirts showing how many times they “died” in the film, with some dying over 20 times. His personal team of stuntmen also received custom Rolex Submariner watches after filming, as a token of appreciation.
Image credits: Icy_Smoke_733
#5
TIL Thomas Jefferson wanted the official motto of the US to be “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” When it was rejected he appropriated it for his own seal.
#6
TIL there is a Titanic monument in DC, funded by women, to honor the men of the Titanic who died so that women and children could live. Only 20% of men survived, while over 70% of women and children made it.
Image credits: fu-depaul
#7
TIL Titanic survivors who said the ship split in half before sinking were not believed for 73 years, with one survivor saying people would ‘argue’ with her about what she really saw, until the Titanic’s wreckage was found in half in 1985.
Image credits: sanandrios
#8
TIL Nissan spent $500 million in 1981 to rebrand their cars from Datsun to Nissan because Nissan executives were annoyed that Honda and Toyota had become household names.
Image credits: nuttybudd
#9
TIL Divorce papers in the roman empire had to include a culpable party, which had potential legal complications. To avoid this, couples who wanted to divorce amicably, would officially put the blame on “an evil demon” that got between them and forced them to split up, thus avoiding culpability
#10
TIL Yale psychologists compared ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ to ‘Sesame Street’ and found that children who watched ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ tended to remember more of the story lines and also demonstrated a much higher “tolerance of delay”, meaning they were more patient.
#11
TIL Looney Tunes’ Porky Pig’s original voice actor, Joe Dougherty, had a stutter he couldn’t control. It caused production costs to became too high as his recording sessions took hours. Mel Blanc replaced him, allowing the stutter to be controlled and used comedically
Image credits: TirelessGuardian
#12
TIL 9-yr-old Jodie Foster was mauled by a lion on the set of Napoleon and Samantha, leaving her with scars on her back & stomach. While being held sideways in its mouth & shook “like a doll”, she saw the crew running off. The lion did drop her when told to, but it left her with lifelong ailurophobia
Image credits: tyrion2024
#13
TIL a judge in Brazil ordered identical twin brothers to pay maintenance to a child whose paternity proved inconclusive after a DNA test and their refusal to say who had fathered the child. The judge said the two men were taking away from the young girl’s right to know who her biological father was.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#14
TIL a 2018 study found that male gorillas who participated the most in babysitting duties sired more than five times the offspring as male gorillas who avoided child care. Male gorillas are “often quite snuggly, letting infant and juvenile gorillas cuddle, play and just hang out in their nests.”
#15
TIL In 1919 Britain’s most remote colony, Tristan da Cunha, learned that World War One had started and ended after not being resupplied for 10 years.
Image credits: Forgotthebloodypassw
#16
TIL Oscar winners are forbidden from selling or disposing of their trophies without first offering it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for $1.
Image credits: TirelessGuardian
#17
TIL Mikhail Kalashnikov, creator of the AK-47, regretted its deadly legacy and feared he was responsible for millions of deaths.
Image credits: ansyhrrian
#18
TIL the 1997 death of unknown “Baby Garnet” remained unsolved until 2022, when a woman took an at-home DNA test which revealed her grandmother did it.
Image credits: sanandrios
#19
TIL: James Carter received a $20,000 royalty check for a song in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” that he had sung 40 years earlier but didn’t remember.
Image credits: EagleOfMay
#20
TIL that in 2017 Microsoft announced that it would replace Paint, its longstanding Windows drawing software, with Paint 3D. After “an incredible outpouring of support and nostalgia” from users, the company offered both to users. Microsoft later removed Paint 3D, but Paint is still available.
Image credits: TMWNN
#21
TIL that even after losing muscle, extra nuclei from past training stick around, making it easier to build muscle back.
Image credits: fogwalk3r
#22
TIL that Domino’s Pizza used to have a mascot called The Noid. In 1989, a man named Kenneth Noid held two Domino’s employees hostage, believing the mascot was designed to mock him. The employees escaped while he ate pizza. Noid was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and acquitted due to insanity.
Image credits: ICanStopTheRain
#23
TIL about YInMn Blue, a near perfect blue colour, which was discovered accidentally in an Oregon State University lab and is noteworthy for its vibrance and unusually high near infrared reflectance.
#24
TIL that in 2024 a construction company built an entire family home on the wrong lot in Hawaii after miscounting the number of telephone poles on the land. They then sold the home without the landowner knowing.
Image credits: mrinternetman24
#25
TIL that many countries used to take ships that were no longer seaworthy, anchor them near shore, and use them as prisons. During the American Revolution, more Americans died as POWs on these ships than in combat.
Image credits: ICanStopTheRain
#26
TIL Rhode Island Hospital was fined $50,000 and reprimanded by the state Department of Health after brain surgery was performed on the wrong side of a patient’s head three times in 2007. The state also ordered the hospital to develop a neurosurgery checklist that includes the location of the surgery
#27
TIL Salvator Mundi is a painting by Leonardo de Vinci, in 2017 it was sold for 450 million dollars.It is the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. The painting was bought by a Saudi Prince, who has not put it on display.
#28
TIL that of all the world’s existing companies that are 200 years +old, over half are Japanese.
#29
TIL Jamestown governor John Ratcliffe, the villain in Disney’s Pocahontas, died horrifically in real life. After being tricked, ambushed & captured, women removed his skin with mussel shells and tossed the pieces into a fire as he watched. They skinned his face last, and burned him at the stake.
#30
TIL that Michael Keaton only had 17 minutes of screen time even though the movie was called “Beetlejuice.”
#31
TIL Beastie Boys won a lawsuit for company using their songs “Girls” without permission, then donated all to a charity that is STEM programs for females.
#32
TIL in 2006 a jury awarded $5.6m to the family of a man who had the shaft of a screwdriver implanted into his spine by a surgeon after the two titanium rods he planned to use were discovered missing during the surgery. The screwdriver snapped & after 3 more back surgeries, the man died 2 years later
#33
TIL: In 1355, Portuguese King Afonso IV had his son Pedro’s mistress, Inês de Castro, decapitated in front of her children to end their romance. When Pedro became king, he had her k**lers’ hearts publicly ripped out—saying they had pulverized his own.
#34
TIL that Benjamin Franklin never patented any of his many inventions, writing that “as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.”
#35
TIL that Dr Harold Shipman is believed to have murdered so many of his patients that his trial, where he was charged with the murder of 15 people, investigated only 5% of his speculated victims.
#36
TIL in 2012, Spain’s King Juan Carlos I went elephant hunting in Botswana. The trip was meant to be secret, but he was badly injured and needed a medical flight home. A scandal erupted over the cost—and since he was an honorary president of the World Wildlife Fund at the time.
#37
TIL ancient Roman tourists would visit Egyptian tombs and write negative reviews in graffiti, like not enjoying anything but the sarcophagus and being unhappy they couldn’t read the hieroglyphs. These would ironically end up becoming valuable historical records themselves.
#38
TIL in 2017, five bald men were k**led in Mozambique because their k**lers believed that the heads of bald men contain gold.
#39
TIL speedrunner Niftski set a world record by completing Super Mario Bros. (NES) in 4 minutes, 54 seconds and 56 milliseconds, which is only 0.3 seconds slower than the established theoretical perfect time.
#40
TIL that the Crimean War helped to popularise facial hair in Victorian times. This was due to the large number of soldiers who returned home with the beards and mustaches they had grown to keep the cold out.
#41
TIL about Prions, an infectious agent that isn’t alive so it can’t be k**led, but can hijack your brain and k**l you nonetheless. Humans get infected by eating raw brains from infected animals.
#42
TIL Heath Ledger directed both of the Joker’s hostage videos in The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan wanted the homemade shorts to reflect the sadistic perspective of Ledger’s own horrifying Joker, but it was Ledger’s impressive work on the first video that convinced Nolan to let him direct the second
#43
TIL that sharks, whose oldest known fossils are from ~450 mya, are much older than Polaris, the youngest, largest, and brightest star in the Polaris system being only 70 myo.
#44
TIL In 2000 Performer Uri Geller sued the sued video game company Nintendo for £60 million over the Pokémon species “Kadabra”, which he claimed was an unauthorized appropriation of his identity since he was well known for bending spoons in his act.
#45
TIL that during the Habsburg monarchy, belief in vampires was so widespread that Empress Maria Theresa sent her personal physician Gerard van Swieten to officially investigate. He concluded that vampires did not exist, leading her to specifically outlaw all forms of “anti-vampire” corpse desecration.
#46
TIL Breaking Bad was originally going to be set in Riverside, California but was moved to New Mexico due to favorable financial conditions. Vince Gilligan then made the decision to move the story setting itself to New Mexico to avoid the Sandia Mountains in all eastward shots.
#47
TIL in 2012 as a man was cleaning out his great-aunt’s home after she died, he found 345 well-preserved comic books in a closet, including Detective Comics No. 27 (first appearance of Batman), Action Comics No. 1 (first appearance of Superman) & Batman No. 1. In total. the collection sold for $3.5m.
#48
TIL Simón Bolívar, born into Venezuela’s wealthy elite, voluntarily gave up his fortune and freed his own slaves to lead independence wars against colonial powers, becoming an enduring icon revered by leftist militias across South America today
#49
TIL: Ancient Athens had a system called ostracism, where citizens could vote to exile someone for 10 years without a trial, often used against powerful or controversial figures to protect democracy.
#50
TIL that at the Battle of Agincourt, the French army lost three dukes, nine counts, one viscount, an archbishop, their constable, an admiral, their Master of Crossbowman, Master of the Royal Household and roughly 3,000 knights and squires.
#51
TIL actress Sean Young was so desperate to win the role of Catwoman in “Batman Returns,” she made a homemade Catwoman costume and attempted to contact Tim Burton and Michael Keaton. When that didn’t work, she appeared on “The Joan Rivers Show” as Catwoman pleading to Tim Burton for the role.
#52
TIL when Ryan Gosling and Justin Timberlake were Mouseketeers on “The Mickey Mouse Club,” they lived together in Orlando, Florida. Timberlake’s mother became Gosling’s legal guardian when his mother had to return to Canada for work. Gosling and Timberlake talk infrequently, but support each other.
#53
TIL French cyclist Jean Robic would cheat in the Tour De France downhill sections by having an assistant give him a lead or mercury filled water bottle for the descent. Because of this his nickname was “The Heavy Metal Descender”.
#54
TIL Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond was a tribute to Syd Barrett who left the band in 1968 due to his d**g use and declining mental health which impaired his ability to integrate with the band. The band felt guilty about removing him but were concerned about his severe mental health decline
#55
TIL: Elderly Americans lost over $3bn to scams in 2023
#56
TIL warships used to demonstrate peaceful intent by firing their cannons harmlessly out to sea, temporarily disarming them. This tradition eventually evolved into the 21-gun salute.
#57
TIL that George Boole, founder of Boolean logic, died after walking three miles in cold rain to give a lecture in wet clothes. He developed pneumonia and was treated by his wife with cold water, which worsened his condition and led to his death.
#58
TIL that a group of artists secretly built and lived in a hidden apartment inside a Rhode Island mall for four years before being discovered.
#59
TIL Benedict IX is the only person to have been pope more than once.He served as pope for 12 years, was forced out of Rome, returned, sold the papacy to his godfather to marry his cousin, changed his mind, was deposed by Emperor Henry III, seized the Papal Palace, and was driven out for good in 1048
#60
TIL the earliest recorded autopsy was performed on the body of Julius Caesar. Only one stab wound (out of 23) would be fatal on its own.
#61
TIL that in the first edition of “The Hobbit,” Gollum willingly gave the ring to Bilbo for winning a riddle game, and the two parted amicably. After Tolkien began working on “The Lord of the Rings,” he edited the story for future printings.
#62
TIL When the fork was first introduced as an eating implement it was normal for people to have their own knife and fork made which would be kept in a special box called a cadena. Whenever someone threw a dinner party or a feast all the guests would bring their own cadenas to eat with.
#63
TIL George Clooney hung a photo of himself as Batman in his office as a reminder of what can happen when you make movies solely for commercial reasons.
#64
TIL at the premiere for “Saving Private Ryan,” while Mike Myers was still tearing up after the movie because his parents fought in World War II, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg pitched him “Shrek” and Myers thought “Well, that’s the worst f**king title I’ve ever heard in my life.”
#65
TIL when AOL used to charge users an hourly fee for access to their services, they would add 15 seconds to the time a user was connected to the service and round up to the next whole minute (for example, a person who used the service for 12 minutes and 46 seconds would be charged for 14 minutes).
#66
TIL when Emma Stone registered for the Screen Actors Guild at age 16, the name Emily Stone, her birth name, was already taken. She briefly went by Riley Stone but switched to Emma because it was difficult to adapt to Riley.
#67
TIL the 1944 Nobel Prize went to male German physicist Otto Hahn solo for the discovery of nuclear fission, despite the fact he had done the work in collaboration with Lise Meitner, a German Jewish woman forced into exile who had in fact even been the first to use the term ‘fission’ and explain it
#68
TIL that JRR Tolkien disliked the title of “The Two Towers” and changed his mind several times about which towers the title referred to. There are actually five towers relevant to the story.
#69
TIL that a boy was trapped in his own body for 12 years, fully conscious but unable to move or speak. Doctors thought he was in a vegetative state, but he later regained the ability to communicate and wrote a book about his experience.
#70
TIL Neil Armstrong claims he said “One small step for A man…” but the “A” was dropped in transmission
#71
TIL that Felicia Pearson, the actress who played Snoop in The Wire, is a fictionalized version of herself. She was in jail for second-degree murder before becoming an actress and was discovered by Michael K. Williams (Omar) in a real Baltimore club.
#72
TIL of the Battle of B-R5RB, fought in the game Eve Online. One of the the largest player-versus-player battles in gaming history, the in-game cost of the losses totaled an estimated real-world value of $300,000 to $330,000
#73
TIL that many women who flee North Korea turn to matchmaking agencies, which help North Korean women meet South Korean men. These men are charged approximately $2,500 for several blind dates within a year.
#74
TIL in 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy and marched to Rome, where his army defeated the Papal forces. The 80-year-old Pope Pius VI was arrested for refusing to grant authority to Napoleon. He was taken prisoner and died in captivity 18 months later.
#75
TIL during the American Revolution, John Adams questioned why his cousin Samuel Adams was burning handfuls of documents in his fireplace. Sam Adams replied, “Whatever becomes of me, my friends shall never suffer by my negligence.”
#76
TIL Elizabeth Greenhill (1615-1679) and her husband William Greenhill had 39 children together (32 daughters & 7 sons). All were single births save one set of twins, which is unusual as the most common cause of such a large number of children, hyperovulation, typically manifests as multiple births.
#77
TIL about Death marches: an long period of crunch time before the release of a video game that is so bad that developers sometimes sleep in their office, don’t see their family for months and lose weight
#78
TIL that Japan’s most luxurious car the Century has not been positioned and marketed as a sign of wealth or excess. Marketing literature states roughly that, “the Century is acquired through persistent work, the kind that is done in a plain but formal suit.”
#79
TIL about the Soviet ‘Dead Hand’ system — an automated doomsday mechanism designed to launch nuclear retaliation strikes without human intervention after detecting incoming missiles
#80
TIL that despite it being usually assumed that Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was based on Ed Gein, the film’s writer Tobe Hooper had only vaguely heard of him. Hooper was inspired by a pre-med friend of his from college who wore a cadaver’s face to a party as a joke.
#81
TIL of King Charles II of Navarre. Known as The Bad, he was a scheming and ineffective ruler in southern France. To treat his ailments, he was sewn into a brandy-soaked canvas, a common practice at the time. Unfortunately, the fabric was accidentally set on fire, and he burned alive in 1387.
#82
TIL King Philip IV of Spain’s first wife was 13 years old – when he was 10. They had 10 children, but the only son surviving infancy died at 16. Desperate for an heir, Philip then married his 14 year-old niece when he was 44. They had 5 children together. He also had 30 illegitimate children.
#83
TIL the earliest known depiction of Christ on a cross is a piece of mocking graffiti in an ancient Roman boys school. Jesus is depicted with the head of a donkey, the text “Alexamenos worships his god” carved underneath.
#84
TIL that in 2008, an American football player called Chad Johnson decided to legally change his name to Chad Ochocinco, “eight five” in Spanish, because his jersey number was 85, only to legally change his name back to Chad Johnson 4 years later.
#85
TIL J.K. Simmons found out he had landed the role of J. Jonah Jameson from a kid who was part of Spider-Man fan sites, which had leaked the news, before his agent informed him officially three hours later.
#86
TIL In 1945 when the representative for Canada was signing the Instrument of Surrender document for Imperial Japan, he signed on the wrong line. The next several countries had to sign below where they were supposed to.
#87
TIL that researchers have developed a blood test that can detect more than 50 types of cancer before symptoms appear, with a false positive rate of less than 1%
#88
TIL that the Nut Island effect is a behaviour phenomenon where teams of talented employees become isolated from managers, thus leading to a loss of ability to complete a task or a key function.
#89
TIL despite being key to the premise of Jurassic Park, scientists have been unable to extract DNA from insects fossilized in amber, even from those fossilized during the current Holocene epoch.
#90
TIL butterflies are often unintentionally drawn to look like they’re dead
#91
TIL Astronauts’ bones shed weight in Space, losing as much as 1.5% of their mineral density each month, and recover *most* of it back on Earth. Interestingly, astronauts with permanent mineral density loss don’t seem to experience more bone fractures than normal.
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