We’re often told that studying about the world keeps us motivated, feeds our curiosity, and generally makes our lives more exciting. One truly great thing about having the internet in our hands at all times is that we can quickly find fun and intriguing tidbits of information about virtually anything. Yet, we humans need constant reminders to sharpen our minds by learning something new as often as we can.
Luckily, the Today I Learned forum is a Reddit powerhouse that has more than 26.9M people on a mission to exercise our brain cells. Members of this community continue to share the knowledge they recently found out themselves every single day.
So, to celebrate their efforts, we’ve collected some of the most fascinating facts floating around the subreddit for you to enjoy. Continue scrolling, upvote the ones that were new to you, and let us know what you think about them in the comments! And after you’re done taking notes, check out our previous posts about interesting trivia right here, here, and here.
#1
TIL People built a statue of “Kabang” a hero dog that got her face disfigured after saving two girls from a speeding motorcycle. She died last year, almost a decade after her heroic action
Image credits: xtremerussell
#2
TIL A juvenile narwhal lost in the St. Lawrence River got adopted by a group of beluga and has stayed with them since at least 2016
Image credits: Filobel
#3
TIL, the library at University of Coimbra in central Portugal hosts a colony of bats. Every night, the windows of the library are left open and the bats come in to feed on insects, thereby protecting the centuries-old historic documents. Every morning, librarians clean the bats' excrement.
Image credits: piponwa
#4
TIL British actress Emilia Clarke has survived two brain aneurysms and has since founded SameYou, a charity working to develop better recovery treatment for survivors of brain injury and stroke
Image credits: miguelabduarte
#5
TIL In 2019 a man robbed a bank, threw the money out onto the street, and shouted "Merry Christmas!" He then went to a Starbucks where he waited to be arrested.
Image credits: haddock420
#6
TIL hospital patients recover quicker when they are able to see a park/vegetation from their window
Image credits: TheNewNormal1
#7
TIL After conservative activist Mary Whitehouse successfully campainged to stop Alice Cooper's 'School's Out' being shown on the BBC music show 'Top of the Pops', Cooper sent her a bunch of flowers, since he believed the publicity helped the song to reach number one.
Image credits: Szabo84
#8
TIL about Mary Ellen Pleasant, a black woman in the 1800s who amassed a fortune by eavesdropping on investors while working as a domestic
Image credits: ap0110
#9
TIL Lonnie Johnson, the man who created the “Super Soaker” (the world’s best selling toy) was awarded $72.9M in a Hasbro Settlement for unpaid royalties.
Image credits: Reddit__PI
#10
TIL that you can buy a room on a cruise ship and live on it. You pay a yearly fee and all amenities are provided like normal cruise ships.
Image credits: InquiziTor-Mo
#11
TIL in the mid 1890s, Mary Whiton Caulkins completed all requirements towards a PhD in Psychology, but Harvard University refused to award her that degree because she was a woman.
Image credits: 67demigod
#12
TIL that in Churchill, Canada, locals keep their car doors unlocked in order to provide other residents a quick escape, should they encounter a polar bear
Image credits: NorthNorthSalt
#13
TIL that the Judean Date Palm was extinct until scientists germinated 2,000 year old seeds to bring the tree back into existence. The seeds were discovered in an ancient jar in Israel, dated between 155 BC to 64 AD.
Image credits: albino-ugandan
#14
Til theres a place off the coast of Australia where octopus, who are mostly solitary creatures, have made a small “city” of sorts.
Image credits: JulienTheBro
#15
TIL- apples are not indigenous to North America, nor most of Europe. They originated in Kazakhstan, in central Asia east of the Caspian Sea. The capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata, means “full of apples.” By 1500 BC apple seeds had been carried throughout Europe
Image credits: curiousgurl
#16
TIL that Dory from "Finding Nemo" is deemed one of the most neuropsychologically accurate movie portrayals of an amnesic syndrome and the considerable memory difficulties faced daily by people with it
Image credits: 1954isthebest
#17
TIL someone translated Dracula into Icelandic and it took over 100 years for anyone to point out he just made a fanfic-rewrite of what he wanted the story to be.
Image credits: davidsdungeon
#18
TIL In 1992, Nirvana brought an all-girl band to Buenos Aires to open for them, and the crowd was "throwing money and everything out of their pockets, mud and rocks, just pelting them." So, Nirvana, in protest, played lesser known songs and teased hit songs without actually playing them.
Image credits: seven3true
#19
TIL fire poles in fire houses were originally installed to allow for faster descent than the houses' narrow spiral staircases, which were themselves installed because horses kept climbing to the second floors and getting stuck.
Image credits: mike_pants
#20
TIL about Kate Warne, America's first female detective, who in 1861, in the guise of a "rich southern lady visiting Baltimore," infiltrated a secessionist social gathering and revealed a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln before he took office.
Image credits: WouldbeWanderer
#21
TIL scientist Claire Patterson spent over 20 years trying to convince the public that lead was poison.
Image credits: HappyPoodles
#22
TIL that actor Richard Harris only accepted to play Albus Dumbledore because his granddaughter threatened never to speak to him again if he didn't.
Image credits: FrenchieSmalls
#23
TIL Robert Propst, inventor of modern day Cubicles in 1968, called them “monolithic insanity” before he died in 2000.
Image credits: Holmes02
#24
TIL there was a trend of headless photography in 19th century Britain ("Victorian Headless Portraits"). The models usually had their heads in a platter, or were holding them in their hands. This was made by taking multiple photos and combining the negatives - kinda like the early days' Photoshop.
Image credits: https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/s628c4/til_there_was_a_trend_of_headless_photography_in/
#25
TIL Humans will walk in circles when lost unless there is some sort of external reference point.
Image credits: openletter8
#26
TIL that Robert Kearns invented the intermittent windshield wiper only to see his invention show up in Ford and Chrysler cars without giving him any credit or money whatsoever, after years of lawsuits he settled with ford for 10.2 million and won a judgment against Chrysler for $30 million
Image credits: RockNrolllegend
#27
TIL that in the 1800s, US dairy producers would regularly mix their milk with water, chalk, embalming fluid and cow brains to enhance appearance and flavor. Hundreds of children died from the mixture of formaldehyde, dirt, and bacteria in their milk
Image credits: Ingenuity_Silent
#28
TIL the oldest evidence of humans in the Americas was found less than four months ago, and was several thousands of years older than previously thought
Image credits: Ccaves0127
#29
TIL that a 2,000 year old Roman cosmetic cream was discovered intact. The owner’s fingerprints where they last touched the cream can still be seen
Image credits: [deleted]
#30
TIL there are now more Spanish-speakers in the United States than there are in Spain.
Image credits: moomoomeow2
#31
TIL about the speed camera lottery in Stockholm, Sweden. Driving at or under the speed limit would make you eligible to win the lottery where the prize funds come from the fines paid by speeders. In the trial the average speed was reduced from 20mph to 15,6mph (22% reduction)
Image credits: miguelabduarte
#32
TIL Fish & Chips was an aid in winning WWII. Sir Winston Churchill saw the comfort food as a 'good companion' and was a dish that didn't get rationed to keep morale up. On the frontlines, troops calling "fish" and allies calling "chips" was an effective way to tell whether you were friend or foe.
Image credits: ruelmoralesmusic
#33
TIL we thought dolphins couldn't breathe through their mouths until 2016, when a dolphin with a damaged blowhole learned to mouth breathe
Image credits: Gintian
#34
TIL Krusty the Clown from the Simpsons was originally intended to be Homer in disguise, which explains why they look so similar.
Image credits: Puffx2-Pass
#35
TIL in 1890 as part of a program to bring all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays to North America, 60 starlings were released in New York's Central Park. There are now over 200 million European starlings across the US, causing billions in crop damage and deadly hazards at airports
Image credits: geekteam6
#36
TIL that due to their high fat and low water content, pistachios can self-heat and spontaneously combust if stored inproperly
Image credits: SIRasdf23
#37
TIL that PhD students display twice as many symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as depression than other people.
Image credits: Nice_Dude
#38
TIL Dolly Parton sleeps in make-up (and washes it off in the morning) just in case she has to go out in the middle of the night if a natural disaster strikes
Image credits: MorsesTheHorse
#39
TIL that Aspirin and Heroin were both invented in a two-week period by the same man: Felix Hoffmann, a German chemist who worked for Bayer (and under Adolf Von Baeyer) in the late 1880’s.
Image credits: TummyStickers
#40
TIL: that its a common practice in China, to not tell an old person about their cancer diagnosis, where it is believed that telling them can make their condition deteriorate quicker.
Image credits: Weak-Hamster-
#41
TIL 75–80% of Olive Oil sold in the US is adulterated, including major brands. Organized crime's profit margin on adulterated olive oil is 3x that of cocaine. Olive oil fraud has gone on for 4 000 years.
Image credits: smyrna1
#42
TIL Kurt Cobain didn't particularly like his song Smells Like Teen Spirit saying "It's almost an embarrassment to play." And "I can barely, especially on a bad night, get through 'Teen Spirit.' I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away."
Image credits: SonOfQuora
#43
TIL that Groundhog Day was introduced to America by German settlers who originally used a hedgehog to predict the weather, switching to the groundhog as they were easier to come across in the Keystone State.
Image credits: InformalCommunity
#44
TIL in 1989 a Soviet pilot ejected from a Mig-23 fighter jet over Poland after experiencing technical problems. The jet continued to fly on autopilot for 600 miles before running out of fuel and crashing into a house in Belgium, killing its occupant.
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Image credits: yayyemen
