Article created by: Austėja Akavickaitė
Learning doesn’t stop the moment you get your diploma. Finishing kindergarten with flying colors? Acing middle school? Graduating high school? Finishing college? Getting your mitts on that coveted PhD that proves you always had it in you? They’re all amazing accomplishments, but they pale in comparison to what matters the most: keeping the spark of curiosity alive as you grow up and get older.
The ‘Today I Learned’ online group on Reddit is a community that celebrates lifelong learning, knowledge, and showing off our collective curiosity about the world. In short, for any Harry Potter fans out there (probably most of you Pandas, right?), it’s probably the most Ravenclaw place on the internet. A whopping 26.3 million fact-loving redditors call it their home and help make the internet a more enlightened place.
We’ve collected some of the most interesting and intriguing facts for you to enjoy today, as featured on TIL. Make sure you’ve got your thinking caps on before scrolling down, Pandas! Upvote your fave facts and don’t forget to share the best ones with your friends. Knowing stuff is great, but it becomes brilliant the moment you share the wisdom with others, whether it’s via social media or at a fancy dinner party.
Author and child independence expert Lenore Skenazy helped Bored Panda understand how to fall in love with learning and how it’s related to the things we’re most interested in. Lenore is the president of Let Grow and the founder of the Free-Range Kids movement. You’ll find her brilliant insights about how we’ve all “narrowed down our idea of what learning” and how “our species is built to learn” below, Pandas, so be sure to read on.
PS—For those of you whose curiosity can’t be sated with just these facts, don’t worry, we’ve got dessert. Take a peek at Bored Panda’s earlier articles about the wonderful TIL community here, here, and here.
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TIL of an Australian diver who befriended a baby shark. For years afterwards, whenever the shark would see him, she would swim up to him and demand cuddles
TIL alpacas are being used as bodyguards in some turkey farms, since they instinctively accept the birds into their herd and scare off foxes.
TIL that even though Henry Heimlich demonstrated his signature maneuver thousands of times throughout his life he never got the chance to use it in an actual emergency until he was 96 when he saved a woman in his nursing home from choking on a burger
TIL Agatha Christie has outsold Stephen King and J.K Rowling combined by about 2 billion books.
TIL James Michael Tyler, who played Gunther the barista on “Friends” was originally meant to only appear as an extra; he remained on the show as he was the only actor there who knew how to operate an espresso machine.
TIL the ancient Egyptians developed the first recorded early pregnancy test, whereby a woman would urinate on a bag of wheat or barley and, if the bag started sprouting, it indicated a pregnancy. In 1963, researchers measured the test as being 70% accurate.
TIL A duet sung by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson remained unfinished because Mercury walked out of the recording. He couldn’t tolerate Jackson bringing his pet llama into the studio
TIL David Bowie considered becoming a Buddhist monk, & studied for a few months in 1967 before a Lama told him he should follow music instead. His ashes were scattered in Bali in accordance with Buddhist rituals
TIL that in 1997, a 50-pound pumpkin was speared atop a tower at Cornell University, 173 feet in the air. It stayed in place for months. Alumni are still trying to figure out who did it without being noticed -- and how.
TIL Hippos sleep underwater even though they breathe air. They automatically close their nostrils and surface to breathe every 3-5 minutes. This all happens unconsciously, even in their sleep.
TIL inventor of the Murphy-Bed, William Lawrence Murphy (1856-1957), created his first hide-away bed as means to convert his one-room apartment into a parlour, specifically to host the company of his future wife. It was considered inappropriate at the time to for a woman to enter a man's bedroom.
TIL: The aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has a reverse osmosis system capable of producing more than 500 tonnes of fresh, drinkable water from sea water per day.
TIL Switzerland has 7 simultaneous "presidents", each with equal power. Every year they rotate control of 7 federal depts & who acts as "head of state" (e.g. when dealing with other countries). They come from various parties — right now it's 2 conservatives, 2 liberals, 2 socialists, and a centrist
TIL Gordon Ramsay has 16 Michelin Stars. Only two chefs have ever earned more.
TIL that when Hattie McDaniel became the first black person to win an Academy Award (for her performance in "Gone with the Wind") in 1940, she was seated at a segregated table at the side of the room
TIL In 2019, a potato chip factory in Hong Kong found a World War I grenade in a shipment of French-grown potatoes, just as the potatoes were going through their processing machines.
TIL Swedes have a national weekly eating plan. Thursdays are traditionally pancakes and split pea soup.
TIL that Confederate soldier Willis Meadows survived a shot to the eye at the battle of Vicksburg. 58 years later, he randomly almost choked to death in his own home until he coughed up a 1 ounce bullet. It was the same one that lodged into his head years earlier.
TIL researchers were able to predict whether or not a couple will stay together with extreme accuracy based on one partner’s reaction to things that excited the other. For example, if a wife says “look at that beautiful bird” and the husband blows it off, that’s a strong indication they’ll divorce.
TIL that the Luna Moth only survives 6-7 days once reaching adulthood because it has no mouth and dies of starvation.
TIL Mice do not have a special appetite for cheese, and will eat it only for lack of better options; they actually favor sweet, sugary foods. It is unclear where the myth came from.
TIL Stephen Hawking found his Undergraduate work 'ridiculously easy' to the point where he was able to solve problems without looking at how others did it. Even his examiners realised that "they were talking to someone far cleverer than most of themselves".
TIL that Velociraptors were the size of a turkey in real life, not 2m (6 1⁄2 ft) tall as they were portrayed in Jurassic Park movie.
TIL Italy, France, and Brazil are not even in the top ten highest consumers of coffee. The Nordic countries dominate coffee consumption and are all within the top ten countries worldwide. Further, Finland (the highest consumer in the world) more than doubles the annual consumption of Italy.
TIL: That most of the fake snow used in the 1980 Movie "The Shining" was repurposed from the ice planet Hoth scenes in "The Empire Strikes Back".
TIL Desert sand is effectively useless for construction. Saudi Arabia imports sand from Australia.
TIL in 1950 airlines didn’t serve alcohol when flying over dry states.
TIL When Assyrian priests saw a bad omen aimed at the King they used a ritual called The Substitute King. A commoner was found to replace the king while he went in hiding. The man lived as the king absorbing the evil spirits. When the omen passed the commoner was killed and the king returned.
TIL the International Space Station is the most expensive thing ever built by humanity at over 150 billion dollars over the course of its construction
TIL that drinking Coca-Cola is prescribed as an effective treatment for certain types of bowel obstructions
