Learning new things is important if we want to live a long and fulfilling life. Acquiring new skills and activites such as puzzles and other brain games strengthens our neurological pathways and makes our brains age slower, helps prevent memory loss, and generally maintains our brain’s health.
We here are Bored Panda are huge proponents of lifelong learning. That’s why we’ve gathered another collection of the most interesting and weird fun facts from the TIL community on Reddit. So, sink in your curiosity teeth into these little nuggets of information that over 39M people on the subreddit deemed worthy for you to see.
More info: Reddit
#1
TIL in 2012 an 11-yr-old boy disappeared while shopping with his mom & then made his way to an airport. After he passed 5 security checks without a passport or boarding pass by tagging along with a family, he was able to board a flight from Manchester to Rome alone. He was discovered after takeoff.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#2
TIL that more than half the drop in America’s total fertility rate is explained by women under the age of 19 now having next to no children.
Image credits: Plupsnup
#3
TIL Using machine learning, researchers have been able to decode what fruit bats are saying–surprisingly, they mostly argue with one another.
Image credits: Festina_lente123
#4
TIL of Masabumi Hosono, who was the only Japanese passenger on the Titanic. While he survived, he was severely condemned in the United States and Japan. His account of the sinking of Titanic remains the only document to be written on Titanic stationery.
Image credits: DangerNoodle1993
#5
TIL A restaurant in Long Beach, CA, was found to be serving Popeye’s chicken and passing it off as their own. They would buy the chicken at Popeyes and upcharge for their own chicken and waffles dish. Once found out the owner refused to apologize.
Image credits: Bluest_waters
#6
TIL that in 2002, two planes crashed into each other above a German town due to erroneous air traffic instructions, killing all passengers and crew. Then in 2004, a man who’d lost his family in the accident went to the home of the responsible air traffic controller and stabbed him to death.
Image credits: Black_Gay_Man
#7
TIL that in 2007 on a trip to Paris, Prince Harry had his driver go through the same tunnel his mother Princess Diana died in at the same speed her car was going at the time, in an attempt to find closure for her death. He described the attempt as ill-conceived, saying it only brought him more pain.
Image credits: astarisaslave
#8
TIL in the 1990s a man gained an edge on a Spanish casino by recording roulette wheel results & analyzing them with a computer. He was able to predict certain numbers were more likely to hit next. After he won €600K, a legal case against him was unsuccessful; it ruled the casino should fix its wheel.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#9
TIL in 2016, a man who had been stalking “iCarly” actress Miranda Cosgrove shot at a woman in a car near Cosgrove’s home before lighting himself on fire and fatally shooting himself in Cosgrove’s yard. Two years prior, she was granted a restraining order against a different stalker.
Image credits: waitingforthesun92
#10
TIL that, until 1999, the disc on the Japanese flag was shifted 1% off-centre to the left.
Image credits: QuietGanache
#11
TIL Stanford University rejected 69% of the applicants with a perfect SAT score between 2008-2013.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#12
TIL that after Filipino gymnast Carlos Yulo won double gold at the Paris Olympics his gifts included a fully furnished three-bedroom home worth US$552,802, a lifetime supplies of free buffets, a lifetime supply of phone cases and free endoscopic procedures for when he turned 45.
Image credits: EssexGuyUpNorth
#13
TIL of shell cordovan, a rare “leather” that isn’t made from animal skin, but connective tissue from a horse’s buttocks. Shoes made from them are waterproof, don’t crease, don’t require polishing, and can last indefinitely. Only two major tanneries make them.
Image credits: zahrul3
#14
TIL Presiden Lyndon B. Johnson called his big johnson “Jumbo” and would show it to journalists and members of congress to show he was bigger than them. He also peed on a Secret Service agent just to prove he could get away with it.
Image credits: TacoMedic
#15
TIL Greenland is portrayed about 14x larger than its actual size on most maps.
Image credits: ToodlesMcDoozle
#16
TIL that Woodrow Wilson is the only president of the United States to have earned a Ph.D.
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#17
TIL several MTV Cribs episodes faked lavish celebrity lifestyles. Robbie Williams rented Jane Seymour’s house, 50 Cent borrowed Ferraris, and Kim Kardashian filmed at her mom’s place. Ja Rule’s episode led to a lawsuit after the real homeowner claimed unauthorized filming and property damage.
Image credits: ObjectiveAd6551
#18
TIL a man was sentenced to two years in jail after being caught cheating at poker by wearing infrared contact lenses that enabled him to see cards that were premarked with invisible ink. Security noticed his $95K winning streak because he twice folded hands that suggested he knew the dealer’s cards.
Image credits: tyrion2024
#19
TIL Lou Pai, one of Enron executives, resigned and sold his shares for $250 million to get divorced and marry a stripper. The company collapsed few months later.
Image credits: BadenBaden1981
#20
TIL Judy Garland was very close with the dog who played Toto, even letting the pup stay at her house while healing from an on-set accident. She attempted to purchase Toto but the owner wouldn’t sell.
Image credits: hillo538
#21
TIL that New York restaurants that opened between 2000 and 2014, and earned a Michelin star, were more likely to close than those that didn’t earn one. By the end of 2019, 40% of the restaurants awarded Michelin stars had closed.
Image credits: EssexGuyUpNorth
#22
TIL that legal poppy farmers in Tasmania couldn’t figure out why they kept getting crop circles until it was revealed wallabies were breaking in to eat the bulbs to get high then running around in circles trampling the flowers.
Image credits: Plowbeast
#23
TIL about “Nobel Disease”, a tendency for some Nobel Prize winners to adopt unfounded, pseudoscientific beliefs, often outside their areas of expertise.
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#24
TIL of room 641A- a secret room in an AT&T building that held secret equipment used to spy on citizens.
Image credits: ElectronicEgg1833
#25
TIL in Nazi Germany, “whisper jokes” (Flüsterwitze) served as a means for citizens to express dissent & critique the regime. One joke involved Hitler visiting an asylum where patients greeted him “Heil Hitler!” except one man. When questioned, he said, “I’m not crazy; I am the head of the ward.”
Image credits: Plus-Staff
#26
TIL your metabolism doesn’t really slow down until after age 60.
Image credits: nxusnetwork
#27
TIL in 1978, a researcher played a deceased elephant’s calls from a hidden speaker. Her family responded by frantically searching and calling out for her, with the daughter continuing for days. Moved by their grief, the researcher decided never to repeat the experiment.
#28
TIL: After Hurricane Katrina, the first strip reopened after only 3 weeks to entertain first responders and waved the cover charge. The manager said reopening was a public service. Drinks were $3 and a lap dance was $1.
Image credits: Flares117
#29
TIL 46 BC was 445 days long and is the longest year in human history.
#30
TIL about ELIZA, a 1960s chatbot created by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum that simulated a psychotherapist. It was so convincing that some users, including Weizenbaum’s secretary, became emotionally attached to it. In 2023, ELIZA even outperformed GPT-3.5 in a Turing test study.
Image credits: ralphbernardo
#31
TIL of Kyle Plush, a 16 year-old teen who died a slow death while being crushed by the third-row seat of a Honda Odyssey. While in that position, he managed to call 911 twice using SIRI, but emergency dispatchers couldn’t locate him, and he was found dead by his dad 6 hours later.
Image credits: zahrul3
#32
TIL the average high-school graduate will earn about $1 million less over their lifetime than the average four-year-college graduate.
Image credits: Ribbitor123
#33
TIL when Jimmy Hendrix’s mom died (when Jimmy was 16) his dad did not allow him and his brother to go to the funeral, instead giving them shots of whiskey and telling them that was how men should deal with loss.
#34
TIL the Eiffel Tower was repainted for the Paris Olympics. It cost an estimated $60 million dollars. 25 painters a day for 18 months straight. It’s the 20th time it’s been repainted.
#35
TIL that serial killer Richard Ramirez was out of state when his identity was publicly revealed and published by the news. Not knowing that he was now wanted, he was beaten by an angry mob once he returned to LA.
#36
TIL: The father of Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved concubine, Sally, was also the father to Jefferson’s wife, Martha.
#37
TIL: There was a former warlord and cannibal, now preacher known as General Butt Naked. He led the Naked Base Commandos, comprised of child soldiers, to commit child sacrifices and cannibalism in war. He admitted to killing at least 20k, but was not prosecuted. He now assists former child soldiers.
#38
TIL the reason many naval mines have spikes on them is because each spike contains a glass vial of battery acid. When shattered, the battery acid then energizes a lead-acid battery (which doesn’t have acid inside), which then powers the detonator.
#39
TIL Rudy Kurniawan sold an estimated $150 million worth of fraudulent wine between 2002-2012, which he produced himself in his California home. His scheme started to unravel when wine producer Domaine Ponsot caught him selling Ponsot wines that were never made. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
#40
TIL after a local article highlighted the lavish lifestyle of Alan Ralsky in 2003 (known as the “spam king” for sending millions of bulk email solicitations), critics found his physical address & signed him up for so much junk mail that, at the peak, hundreds of pounds of it were delivered each day.
#41
TIL that 1 in 20 people who take commercial DNA tests like those offered by ancestry.com discover that one of the people they thought was their biological parent is actually not their biological parent.
#42
TIL ~31% of Pakistani people aged 20-79 have diabetes.
#43
TIL That Niko Bellic is only 30 years old in GTA 4.
#44
TIL Tania Head faked being a 9/11 survivor and led a survivors’ group. She also faked her s**cide after getting caught.
#45
TIL that Mussolini’s regime used castor oil as a form of torture, forcing victims to drink large amounts, causing severe diarrhea, dehydration, and humiliation.
#46
TIL that in Roman legions, the legion’s banker also had the dangerous responsibility of being the standard bearer on the battlefield.
#47
TIL that not only do the terms ‘glass ceiling’ and ‘glass escalator’ exist, but also ‘glass cliff’, describing the tendency for companies to appoint women to leadership positions during times of crisis, when the likelihood of failure is highest.
#48
TIL: Sally Hemings was 16 years old when she gave birth to her first child with 51 year old Thomas Jefferson.
#49
TIL about Sweating Sickness, a virus in 1500s Europe that’s since vanished. Death could occur within hours of the first symptoms.
#50
TIL The Solar System is surrounded by colossal spherical shell of trillions of icy objects called the Oort Cloud.
#51
TIL The U.S. Navy estimates that heavy barnacle growth on ships increases weight and drag by as much as 60 percent, resulting in as much as a 40 percent increase in fuel consumption.
#52
TIL,world’s oldest emergency call service was started after a neighbour who wanted to report a house fire in Wimpole street telephoned the fire brigade and was so outraged at being held in a queue by the telephone exchange that he wrote a letter to the editor of The Times,which prompted an enquiry.
#53
TIL that Yemenis spend an estimated 14.6 million man-hours per day chewing khat.
#54
TIL there were different variations of The Simpsons opening theme because starting with season 2 they made 3 versions: the full 1-minute-15-second-long version, a 45-second and a 25-second. This gave editors a little extra flexibility to pad shorter episodes or add as much footage as possible.
#55
TIL that Edgar Allan Poe wrote his first detective stories after trying to debunk a famous chess-playing “robot” called The Mechanical Turk in 1836. Poe asserted that a mechanical chess player would play perfectly, but noticed that the Turk occasionally erred, and therefore suspected its creation.
#56
TIL about a 1986 arcade game called Chiller in which the player uses a light gun to activate torture devices to maim and kill restrained characters who are incapable of fighting back. It was a commercial failure in the United States because arcade owners refused to purchase it due to the content.
#57
TIL that after astronauts arrive in space they lose their sense of smell. As a result, they end up craving foods that have spicy, sweet and/or sour flavours.
#58
TIL Cockroach farming in China is a growing industry, with millions of insects raised for food, animal feed, and pharmaceuticals.
#59
TIL due to decreased air pressure on airplane cabins you are more prone to fart on an airplane.
#60
TIL James Madison wrote Washington’s 1st inaugural address, then he wrote Congress’s response to that address, and then he wrote Washington’s reply to the response.
#61
TIL: In March 2000, MicroStrategy announced that it had significantly overstated its revenue, causing a 62% stock drop in one day, in what is regarded as the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
#62
TIL researchers have observed that every culture has a word for black and white. When a culture has a third word for a color, it is always red. If it has a fourth word, it is either yellow or green.
#63
TIL: Gary Dahl, who invented the pet rock in 1975 came up with the idea at a bar with friends as a joke. He later began selling rocks. Within 2 months he was selling 10k rocks a day within half a year he was a millionaire. His later ideas of “Sand Breeding Kits” and “Red China Dirt” failed.
#64
TIL: John Paul Scott is the only inmate from Alcatraz to escape the prison by swimming all the way to San Francisco. However, he was found unconscious by teenagers beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and recaptured. It was thought impossible due to sharks, cold water, sharp rocks, and distance.
#65
TIL there is no evidence that Victorian doctors gave women orgasms to cure hysteria or that they invented the vibrator to help with this task.
#66
TIL: Fourteen children have suffocated to death inside cedar chests between 1977 and 2015. In 1996, The Lane Company recalled 12 million cedar chests with latches that automatically locked the lid when it was closed.
#67
TIL Japan’s “proof of parking” rule is a regulation requiring car owners to provide proof of a designated parking space before registering or purchasing a car.
#68
TIL that the 1963 movie Charade starring Audrey Hepburn, immediately entered the public domain upon release because Universal failed to properly display the copyright notice. The film notice omitted the word ‘Copyright’, ‘Copr.’, and the symbol ‘©’.
#69
TIL the conquest of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish was only possible because of support from the Tlaxcaltecs, Totonac, and other native peoples.
#70
TIL that since 1967, every temporary transfer of power from a US president to the vice president under the 25th Amendment was due to the president’s colon treatment.
#71
TIL that Pandora didn’t open a box – she opened a jar. (Pithos – the word in Greek for the thing she opened – is a large ceramic jar the size of a person.)
#72
TIL After becoming deaf, Beethoven found that by connecting a metal rod to a piano and biting it, he could sense the instruments vibrations through his jawbone, enabling him to ‘hear’ his music.
#73
TIL During one battle, George Washington had two horses shot out from under him and four bullet holes shot through his coat. He walked away without a single injury.
#74
Today I learned that Goku from the anime Dragon Ball has been voiced by the same voice actress, Masako Nozawa, since the first show started in 1986. She has voiced him in all the tv shows, video games and movies and also voices his sons. She is currently 88.
#75
TIL that the PNG format was developed because the GIF compression algorithm (LZW) was patented by Unisys, which required a usage fee. The patent expired in 2003 in the USA and in 2004 in Europe.
#76
TIL The 1964 Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer TV special is in a grey area of copyright due to the fact that the studio mistakenly spelled out the copyright date as 1164 in roman numerals and haven’t corrected it since.
#77
TIL Paul Bettany was in blue makeup for many scenes in WandaVision because red makeup appeared too dark in black and white.
#78
TIL that Stephen Hawking lived longer after diagnosis (55 years) than any other known individual with ALS.
#79
TIL Jimmy Carter was the first president to be born in a hospital.
#80
TIL that despite being a NATO member, Iceland has not had a standing army since 1869. They have had a defense agreement with the United States since 1951, though the US has not had soldiers stationed there since 2006, and they have defense agreements with other NATO countries.
#81
TIL Henry V, while still prince, was hit by an arrow near his left nostril during the Battle of Shrewsbury. The arrow shaft broke leaving the arrow point buried six inches deep in his head. Court surgeon John Bradmore devised a special tool to extract the arrow point and saved the prince’s life.
#82
TIL The Boston Globe was bought by the New York Times in 1993 for $1.1 billion, one of the most expensive print purchases in history, then was sold for $70 million in 2013 to the Red Sox/Liverpool owner. It lost 90% of its value in 20 years.
#83
TIL that until the late nineteenth century, approximately half of all humans born died from infections before the age of fifteen.
#84
TIL With the outbreak of the French Revolution, many chefs working for the aristocracy found themselves out of work. Those who escaped the guillotine opened their own restaurants, popularizing them over traditional food establishments like taverns and inns.
#85
TIL that Robert E Lee’s prewar family home, the Custis-Lee Mansion, was seized by Union forces during the Civil War and turned into Arlington National Cemetery. His family was not compensated until more than a decade after his death.
#86
TIL Jaleel White only auditioned for the role of Steve Urkel so he could buy a Sega Genesis.
#87
TIL Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin invented the beverage cart after refusing to play without cocktails.
#88
TIL about Iva Toguri D’Aquino, a woman misidentified as ‘Tokyo Rose’ and the only American citizen to be convicted of and pardoned for the crime of treason against the United States of America.
#89
TIL: in 2014, physicists were hired to calculate what a black hole would actually look like to the human eye for the movie Interstellar.
#90
TIL In 2020, the wine market was expected to be worth $418 billion with experts estimating that around 20% of all the wines sold around the world are counterfeit.
#91
TIL Cathode-ray tubes, the technology behind old TVs and monitors, were in fact particle accelerators that beamed electrons into screens to generate light and then images.
#92
TIL that although The Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed over 80% of the city – only six deaths were officially recorded.
#93
TIL: Walking Corpse Syndrome is a mental disorder where the person thinks they are dead, do not exist, or exist without organs or blood. Denial of self existence is present in about half of cases, while the other half think they’re immortal.
#94
TIL that Ancient Greeks and Romans purchased the sweat and body grime of famous athletes and champions in the hope of absorbing the strength and health associated with their idols.
#95
TIL Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in the Declaration of Independence, but South Carolina, Georgia, and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade blocked it.
#96
TIL By law, each person in Switzerland is entitled to a place of shelter underground.
#97
TIL “most stars we see in the night sky have already died” is a popular myth. In fact, nearly all stars we see in the night sky are alive and well.
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