Many people might develop an aversion to learning while they’re in school. But exercising our mind can actually improve our memory, attention span, people skills, and might stave off the onset of dementia. We just have to find a fun and engaging way to do it!
And Bored Panda is all about learning random interesting facts. If you’re curious to know what really caused the international liquid ban on planes (it wasn’t 9/11) and why the Swiss decided to abolish tipping, scroll down and see our newest collection of interesting facts from the TIL community!
#1
TIL that Nickelodeon almost cancelled Hey Arnold’s Christmas episode because they thought kids wouldn’t care about its portrayal of the Vietnam War. An executive revoked the decision when her nine-year-old son saw a rough cut of the episode and asked ‘Mom, is that what Vietnam was all about?’.
Image credits: Toipu
#2
TIL Steven Spielberg beat James Cameron to the film rights of Jurassic Park by just a few hours. However after Cameron saw Spielberg’s film, he realized that Spielberg was the right person for it because dinosaurs are for kids and he would’ve made “Aliens with dinosaurs.”
Image credits: tyrion2024
#3
TIL that Bryan Cranston, who starred in Malcolm in the Middle, used to invite Erik Per Sullivan, who played Dewey, to spend weekends with the Cranston family.
Image credits: IT_CHAMP
#4
TIL: In 2009, two college students were jailed for refusing to pay a $16.35 mandatory tip at a Pennsylvania restaurant, citing poor service. After national attention, charges were dropped, and the case sparked widespread debate over tipping and whether it should depend on service quality.
Image credits: ObjectiveAd6551
#5
TIL that during the filming of the 2014 film Muppets Most Wanted Danny Trejo’s mom passed away. Danny managed to keep it all together when people on set gave him their condolences, until Kermit offered his own, which caused him to run to the bathroom to bawl his eyes out.
Image credits: -Appleaday-
#6
TIL Alexander the Great had a Hindu Guru who accompanied his army on their return to Persia. After he died via self immolation the army held a drinking contest in his honor, resulting in 42 people dying from alcohol poisoning, including the winner, who drank 13 litres of unmixed wine.
Image credits: Ainsley-Sorsby
#7
TIL Converse sneakers have a thin layer of felt on the bottom so that they can legally be classified as slippers and be subjected to lower import costs.
Image credits: nuttybudd
#8
TIL in 2005, Joaquin Phoenix flipped his car. He heard someone tell him to “just relax”. Phoenix replied, “I’m fine. I am relaxed.” The man replied, “No, you’re not.” The man then stopped Phoenix from lighting a cigarette while gasoline was leaking into the car cabin. The man was Werner Herzog.
Image credits: Pemulis_DMZ
#9
TIL about the oldest barrel of drinkable wine, made in 1472. It’s only been tasted 3 times – in 1576 to celebrate an alliance; in 1716 after a fire; and finally in 1944 when Strasbourg was liberated during World War II.
Image credits: thebigchil73
#10
TIL in 2016, a man deleted his open-source Javascript package, which consisted of only 11 lines of code. Because this packaged turned out to be a dependency on major software projects, the deletion caused service disruptions across the internet.
Image credits: nuttybudd
#11
TIL Flappy Bird, released in May 2013, became a sleeper hit in early 2014, and by the end of January, it was the most downloaded free game on the iOS App Store, earning $50,000 a day. However, the developer soon removed it, citing guilt over “the game’s addictive nature and overuse.”
Image credits: RealisticBarnacle115
#12
TIL Quebec’s ban on toy and fast food ads directed at children under 13 has contributed to a reduction in childhood obesity rates.
Image credits: MineMonMan1234
#13
TIL obese drivers are 80 percent more likely to die in a car accident than drivers who are not overweight.
Image credits: narwhal_breeder
#14
TIL that although the location of the former base of MI6 from 1964 to 1994 was meant to be classified, The Daily Telegraph called it “London’s worst-kept secret, known only to every taxi driver, tourist guide and KGB agent”.
Image credits: S5A-0043
#15
TIL: That Mark Chapman, killer of John Lennon, has been allowed regular conjugal visits since he accepted solitary confinement in 2014. He is allowed to spend 44 hours alone with his wife in a specially built prison home. He also gets occasional visits from his sister, clergy, and a few friends.
Image credits: appalachian_hatachi
#16
TIL that before Pope Clement VIII’s endorsement of coffee, coffee was considered satanic by many people.
#17
TIL in Icelandic folklore there’s a cat called Jólaköttur or Yule Cat. It lurks in the snowy countryside during the Christmas season and eats people who do not receive new clothing before Christmas Eve.
Image credits: nejicanspin
#18
TIL the liquid ban on planes wasn’t caused by 9/11 but by British MI5, who foiled a 2006 terror plot involving liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks.
Image credits: hl3official
#19
TIL tipping was abolished in Switzerland in 1974 after a dispute over taxes on tips. Service is now included in prices, with higher wages replacing tips.
Image credits: BezugssystemCH1903
#20
TIL: In 2016, a man stole $5 million from his workplace as an accounting department manager over the course of 7 years and spent $1 million of it on a single mobile video game, Game of War. Outside of that, he spent it on cars, furniture, and sports tickets.
Image credits: Flares117
#21
TIL Ghyslain Raza (the Star Wars Kid) began getting tutored at home because the school staff asked him not to return the following year after students started to tease or mock him which they saw as bad publicity. Although, he was able to move past it and now has a law degree & is working on his PHD.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#22
TIL that the picture “The Scream” by Edvard Munch does not depict a person screaming, but rather someone reacting to hearing a scream.
Image credits: JackThaBongRipper
#23
TIL in 2007 Trey Parker & Matt Stone, creators of South Park, negotiated an ad-sharing deal with Comedy Central that gave the creators a 50-50 split on all digital revenue. Those digital rights helped them reportedly sign a $935 million, six-year deal in 2021; one of the biggest deals in TV history.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#24
TIL children develop and share their own unique folklore (called ‘childlore’), including rhymes and games, which often disappear by adolescence and go unnoticed by adults.
Image credits: BezugssystemCH1903
#25
TIL a bank clerk dozed off with his finger on the keyboard and accidentally transferred 222,222,222.22 euros instead of 64.20 euros. His supervisor did not notice the error, approved the transaction, and was fired. The next year, a German labour court ruled the supervisor was unfairly dismissed.
Image credits: Forward-Answer-4407
#26
TIL 80% of the theatrical productions on Broadway lose money; a failure rate that has remained “unchanged for years.”
Image credits: tyrion2024
#27
TIL: Astronaut Anne McClain was the first person to be investigated for space crime in 2019, when her estranged wife accused her of accessing her bank account while in space. Fortunately, investigators found the accusations were false and her now ex was charged with making false statements.
Image credits: Flares117
#28
TIL about the Texas two-step bankruptcy, which is when a parent company spins off liabilities into a new company. The new company then declares bankruptcy to avoid litigation. An example of this is when Johnson & Johnson transferred liability for selling talc powder with asbestos to a new company.
Image credits: nuttybudd
#29
TIL that Activision has a patent for manipulating multiplayer lobbies to increase exposure to people with paid skins and get players to spend more money on microtransactions this way.
Image credits: Novacc_Djocovid
#30
TIL an off-duty nurse saved a boy’s life by giving him CPR when his heart stopped after he was hit in the chest with a baseball bat during a Little League game. Seven years later that same boy saved the nurse’s life by giving her the Heimlich maneuver after she started choking in a restaurant.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#31
TIL about Philippine Airlines Flight 812. A passenger hijacked the plane and robbed the other passengers. He tried escaping using a homemade parachute, but he couldn’t jump and needed a flight attendant to give him a push. He was killed after his parachute failed to open. Everyone else was unharmed.
Image credits: Ill_Definition8074
#32
TIL that Charlie Cox failed an audition for the Han Solo film because he got used to not making eye contact while playing Daredevil.
#33
TIL of the Red Ghost, a legend about a demonic figure roaming Arizona in the late 1800’s and once killed a woman. It turned out to be a feral camel with the decaying corpse of a man strapped on its back, likely a result of Jefferson Davis’ attempt to create a camel division in the US army.
#34
TIL CT scanners are being used to peek inside trading card packs without opening them to assess their value.
#35
TIL Empress Elisabeth of Austria was assassinated by an anarchist who intended to kill any random royal he could find, no matter who they were. She was traveling under a fake name without security because she hated processions, but the killer knew her whereabouts because a local paper leaked it.
#36
TIL In the 80s, there was a panic over reports that 1.5 million children per year being abducted in the US, but it turned out to be just bad record keeping.
#37
TIL in 1914, 4-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was shipped via parcel post. At 32 cents, her parents found it cheaper than a train ticket. Just under the 50lb limit, May rode in the train’s mail compartment with a stamp on her jacket and was delivered to her grandmother by the mail clerk on duty.
#38
TIL the most expensive fossil ever sold at auction is a mostly complete skeleton of a Stegosaurus known as Apex which sold for $44.6 million to billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin. It’s the largest and most complete known Stegosaurus skeleton, with 254 bones preserved out of approximately 319.
#39
TIL the Amazon river dumps so much fresh water into the Atlantic that it is possible to drink from the surface for about 200 mile offshore.
#40
TIL Since the World Chess Championship started in 1886, there has only ever been one instance of the title being won by a checkmate, back in 1929.
#41
TIL When the Wii U failed miserably, the Nintendo CEO halved his own salary for half a year, instead of laying off his employees.
#42
TIL That King Baldwin IV was one of the most effective leaders and warriors on the battlefield during the crusades, putting a check on Saladin’s forces multiple times. This is despite being afflicted with leprosy and dying at age 24.
#43
TIL about Dyers Burgers, who have been using the same grease to cook for over 100 years.
#44
TIL when a crow die, other crows gather to investigate about what has happened and why the crow died.
#45
TIL when Guinness World Records stopped monitoring the record for the longest time to stay awake in 1997, the record holder at the time was Robert McDonald who went 453 hours 40 minutes (18 days 21 hours 40 minutes) without sleeping in 1986.
#46
Today I learned that sound can be minus decibels. The quietest place on Earth is Microsoft’s anechoic chamber in Redmond, WA, USA, at -20.6 decibels. These anechoic chambers are built out of heavy concrete and brick and are mounted on springs to stop vibrations from getting in through the floor.
#47
TIL that in 2009, a campaign succeeded in making Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’ the Christmas number 1 best-selling single in the UK after the public grew tired of X Factor winners topping the chart every year.
#48
TIL there is a belief amongst some Catholics known as ‘Benevacantism’; the belief that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was not valid, meaning that the current Pope Francis has been an ‘antipope’, or illegitimate pretender to the papacy, this entire time.
#49
TIL a town in Colorado had an unelected mayor serve for over 50 years. He was appointed mayor pro tem because the then-mayor didn’t want to sign liquor licenses, and inherited the post when the mayor died. The town considered doing an election in 1974, but it was too expensive.
#50
TIL that up to half of the current Cherokee nation can trace their lineage to a single Scottish fur trader who married into the tribe in the early 1700’s.
#51
TIL FBI agent John O’Neill, who left his federal position because his attempts to warn of an imminent al-Qaeda attack on U.S. soil in early 2001 were ignored, got hired as the WTC chief of security three weeks before 9/11 and was killed in the attack.
#52
TIL Alberta King, the mother of Martin Luther King Jr., was murdered six years after his assassination (1974). She was shot and killed while playing the organ in Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her husband and son both preached.
#53
TIL that in 1907 French waiters went on strike for better pay, more time off – and the right to grow mustaches. At the time, lower-class workers were forbidden to have facial hair.
#54
TIL that there are “black companies” in Japan infamous for their shady business practices such as unpaid overtime, verbal abuse and harassment, forcing their employees to work in weekends/holidays and not even letting them quit by threatening to sue or even discredit them at their new workplace.
#55
TIL Jon Favreau, creator of The Book of Boba Fett, confirmed to Patton Oswalt that the scene of Fett’s hand reaching out of the sand to escape from the Sarlacc pit was cut to match Oswalt’s description of it in his improvised filibuster pitch for Star Wars: Episode VII on an episode of Parks & Rec.
#56
TIL that in 1995, Johnny Depp saved Courtney Love’s life after she overdosed outside The Viper Room in Los Angeles. Depp performed CPR until paramedics arrived, helping revive Love before she was rushed to the hospital.
#57
TIL when researchers removed eyebrows from pictures of familiar faces, it reduced the chances of recognition substantially, and significantly more than removing the eyes themselves.
#58
TIL that Matthew McConaughey has a brother named Rooster, who named his son Miller Lite and his daughter Margarita.
#59
TIL Scientists showed with study that 94% of their AI-generated exam answers remained unrecognized. The AI performed half a grade better than the students.
#60
TIL Stephen Hawking’s speech-generating device used a default American accent because he preferred it over a British one. Even when offered a modernized voice, he stuck with it, calling it his “trademark” and joking it made him sound more authoritative.
#61
TIL of the most enigmatic structure in cell biology: the Vault. Often missing from science text books due to the mysterious nature of their existence, it has been 40 years since the discovery of these giant, half-empty structures, produced within nearly every cell, of every animals, on the planet.
#62
TIL that during their 1966 world tour, which included the Philippines, The Beatles accidentally snubbed then First Lady Imelda Marcos by missing a palace luncheon sparking public outrage and a hostile send-off. It was so traumatic that the Beatles vowed never to return to the Philippines.
#63
TIL “White Coaters” were early porn films that were presented as educational and would be introduced by a “doctor” in a white coat. This was because, in 1969, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Swedish film I Am Curious Yellow was not obscene because of its educational value.
#64
TIL of the 2013 Cannes heist, in which a solo thief managed to break into a poorly guarded room and snatched a suitcase containing 72 pieces of jewellry worth $136 million from a billionaire about to do a private exhibition of his jewel collection.
#65
TIL Dogs have been banned from Antarctica since 1994 due to fears that they could spread diseases to the native seal population.
#66
TIL that, early in the AIDS epidemic, an executive of the company that made a popular weight loss drug named ‘AYDS’ was quoted as saying “The product has been around for 45 years. Let the disease change its name.”
#67
TIL Sir Paul Nurse, English geneticist and Nobel Prize winner, had his application for a US green card rejected due to the short-form UK birth certificate which he submitted not naming his parents. When he applied for a full birth certificate he discovered that his sister was actually his mother.
#68
TIL that powered flight has independently evolved four times in history: in bats, birds, pterosaurs, and insects.
#69
TIL that penis enlargement methods go back thousands of years. Ancient Greeks and Indians wrote about various dubious methods. The Topinamá tribe in Brazil in the 1500s let poisonous snakes bite their penises. Penis pumps are not a modern invention, either.
#70
TIL a team of student volunteers on an archaeological dig at a site in northern France discovered a 200-year-old note left by an archaeologist who had performed an excavation of the site in 1825.
#71
TIL Nauru has the highest obesity rate in the world (94.5% overweight, 71.7% obese), caused by the rapid adoption of Western diets after the phosphate mining boom. Traditional diets of fresh fish and vegetables were replaced by processed foods—with devastating health effects.
#72
TIL Taco Bell has tried to enter the Mexican market two times – in 1992 and 2007. Failed both times. It was too expensive, people didn’t understand what they were ordering because the names of the food didn’t make sense to Mexicans and Taco Bell used frozen meat imported from the US.
#73
TIL that until 1970, Royal Navy sailors were given daily rum rations – a tradition dating back to the 17th century to make life at sea bearable. On the final day before it was abolished, many unhappy sailors held mock funeral processions, drank their final rations and threw the rest overboard.
#74
TIL of Thomas(ine) Hall; an intersex person for whom a Jamestown Court in 1629 could not determine their sex, and thus ruled they were both and ordered them to dress in men’s and women’s clothing at all times.
#75
TIL about TV pickups, a phenomenon in the United Kingdom where there is a surge in electricity demand caused by the switching on of millions of electric kettles to brew cups of tea or coffee. This occurs during breaks in popular television programmes.
#76
TIL In 1999 a heat wave almost forced two nuclear power stations next to Lake Erie to shut down because the temperature of the water in the lake almost reached the 85 degree limit.
#77
TIL that Egypt’s Suez Canal is nicknamed among seafarers as the ‘Marlboro Canal’ due to the corruption of some of its employees that ask for Marlboro cigarettes cartons as a bribe to make things go easier.
#78
TIL that the the current Mexican ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma, is a direct descendant of Moctezuma II, the last emperor of the Aztecs.
#79
TIL that Switzerland doesnt have a head of state instead a council of 7 people.
#80
TIL of Universe 25, an experiment which involved creating a controlled environment Utopia for mice, that ended with abnormal behaviours ultimately leading to the colony’s extinction.
#81
TIL about the Japanese dish known as “Shirouo no Odorigui”. The “Shirouo”, or “Ice Goby”, are small translucent fish that are served in a shot glass while still alive and drunk with a dash of soy sauce.
#82
TIL that a recording of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots” is used by the US Navy’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school to train troops on how to survive if they are captured and tortured.
#83
TIL that before modern safety regulations, the rule of thumb was that one person would die per $1M spent on a construction project.
#84
TIL in 1984, 13-year-old Andy Smith wrote to President Reagan asking for funds to clean his bedroom after his mom called it a “disaster area”. Raegan sent a tongue-in-cheek reply saying his funds were “dangerously low” and suggested he practice volunteerism instead to solve local problems.
#85
TIL Benjamin Franklin, fascinated by compounding interest, left $2,000 in 1789 to Boston and Philly to loan to young artisans and grow for 200 years. Mismanagement diverted his vision, but the funds reached $6.5M by 1991, supporting public projects and showing the power—and challenges—of compounding.
#86
TIL about Lonnie Johnson, an American inventor who is most famously known for inventing the Super Soaker, which he initially developed while working with the U.S. Air Force. He later sued Hasbro for underpaid royalties, and was awarded nearly $73 million dollars.
#87
TIL the salary for Privates before the US entered WWII was only $0.70 per day ($15 in 2024).
#88
TIL that many American Football Stadiums have Sniper Nests built into them for SWAT team members during games and events.
#89
TIL that “Declinism,” the view that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and things were better in the good old days, goes back thousands of years.
#90
TIL that actor Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Rear Window) refused to ever appear on The Tonight Show because Johnny Carson often told fat jokes about him, and Burr would feel compelled to confront Carson about “the bad jokes he does about everybody who can’t fight back because they aren’t there.”
#91
TIL Thanksgiving’s date wasn’t fixed until 1941. Before that, U.S. presidents chose the date, with George Washington declaring the first national Thanksgiving in 1789. Thomas Jefferson refused to observe it, calling it too religious.
#92
TIL in 18th-century Naples, spaghetti was a popular street food eaten with bare hands, becoming a tourist attraction as visitors were fascinated by the locals’ ability to eat it without forks, and spectacles were even organized by tourists to witness these scenes.
#93
TIL Paul McCartney’s voice was supposed to appear on Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side Of The Moon” but Roger Waters cut them after he realized McCartney “thought it was necessary to perform” and wasn’t giving him his genuine thoughts.
#94
TIL that Keanu Reeves once rescued a woman stranded on the roadside by pushing her broken and dirty car. That woman was Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer.
#95
TIL about the case of Zhao Zuohai, a Chinese man convicted for murder after a dead body was found 18 months after a neighbour he had a fight with disappeared. However, Zhao was released 10 years later after his “victim” reappeared alive.
#96
TIL that actor Robert Reed hated playing Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch as he saw it as beneath his Shakespearean training. He often clashed with producers over the script. Despite this he got along very well with the rest of the cast and appeared in the show’s spinoffs and sequels.
#97
TIL that in the first Polish-language encyclopedia, the definition of Horse was: “Everyone can see what a Horse is”.
#98
TIL – About fluoroantimonic acid, it’s the world’s strongest acid and trillions of times more acidic than sulfuric acid.
#99
TIL Harry Truman seriously considered running for a third consecutive presidential term in 1952. He was exempt from the 22nd amendment limiting every president to two terms because of a grandfather clause. However, a dismal loss in the New Hampshire primary convinced him not to.
#100
TIL in 1828 two men from Edinburgh made a business out of killing people and selling their bodies to Robert Knox, an anatomist seeking bodies for dissection. They killed about 16 people and sold them for £7-£10 each. The suppliers were convicted, but despite public pressure, Knox wasn’t charged.
#101
TIL how horrific the 1918 global flu pandemic was, lasting just 15 months but killing 50 to 100 million people worldwide. Many would die within hours. Horrible symptoms, not just aches & cyanosis but also a foamy blood coughed up from the lungs, & bleeding from the nose, ears & even eyes.
#102
TIL that in 2020, Pakistan International Airlines was banned from flying in Europe and the United States after an investigation found that at least a fourth of all pilots’ licences issued in Pakistan were not genuine.
#103
TIL There’s a parasite that affects salmon that is related to jellyfish and is the only multicellular animal that doesn’t need oxygen. It’s been hypothesized that they initially were jellyfish cancer that escaped their host and evolved separately.
#104
TIL that in 1789, during an attempted execution by breaking wheel in Versailles, a sympathetic crowd stormed the scaffold, rescued the condemned man, and burned the wheel—effectively halting the execution.
#105
TIL that after being investigated by the FTC for their pyramid scheme-like business practices, the FTC charged Herbalife $200 million but failed to outright call them a pyramid scheme.
#106
TIL that there’s a lake in Antarctica so salty it never freezes, even at -58°F.
#107
TIL tiramisu, the Italian dessert of coffe-soaked ladyfingers, sweetened marscapone, and cocoa powder is only around fifty years old, having been invented somtime in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
#108
TIL: Most “helium” balloons are filled with ”balloon gas”, which is recycled from the helium gas which is used in the medical industry and mixed with air.
#109
TIL in 2006, the football team now known as the Washington Commanders repurposed old bags of peanuts originally supplied to a defunct airline and sold them to attendees of their games. These bags of peanuts were at least 9 months old (they had a recommended shelf life of 3 months).
#110
TIL: 1993’s Macarena (which inspired one of largest dance crazes in history) song lyrics are about a girl who cheats on her boyfriend when he enlists in the military by having a ménage à trois with two other men.
#111
TIL Traditionally, Scotch whisky is distilled twice and Irish whiskey three times. For this reason, the Irish claim their whiskey is a smoother and purer whiskey.
#112
TIL there is no official Calvin and Hobbes merchandise besides the compilation books. Bill Watterson was vehemently against merchandising his characters and even went as far as to say, “Only thieves and vandals have made money on Calvin and Hobbes merchandise.”
#113
TIL Game of Thrones became the most pirated TV show in history, with the season 7 finale streamed or downloaded over 1 billion times. By season 8, illegal viewership doubled legal numbers with 55M downloads for the premiere. HBO eventually embraced the piracy buzz, calling it a “free-to-play” model.
#114
TIL that the first age restricted town in the US is named Youngtown.
#115
TIL that it used to be illegal to own gold as a private citizen. It was enacted in 1933 under the belief that the hoarding of gold was worsening the Great Depression. It was repealed in 1974.
#116
TIL at the 1952 Olympics Emil Zátopek won three gold medals – in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres runs, and at the last minute he decided to compete in the first marathon of his life – which he also won, making him the only runner ever to have won all these events in the same Olympics.
#117
TIL the highest revenue Panda Express location in the world is located in a mall food court in Honolulu, Hawaii.
#118
TIL a violent Welsh Nationlist movement attempted to bomb Prince Charles in 1969, only for their bomb to accidentally detonate a day early, killing two of the bombers.
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