50 Intriguing “Today I Learned” Facts That You Probably Didn’t Learn In School (New Facts)
It’s the holiday season, and we understand that your brain might already be on vacation mode, pandas. But it’s still a great time to learn some fun facts!
Below, you’ll find a new batch of interesting information that’s recently been shared in the Today I Learned subreddit. From how long it takes to make a jellybean to which university has banned rock music, you’re sure to find something on this list that you’ve never heard before. So enjoy scrolling through, and don't forget to upvote the facts you’ll be sure to remember the next time you need to strike up a conversation at a party!
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TIL Van Gogh's sister in law was behind Van Gogh’s posthumous success and fame, She dedicated her life to spreading his art and legacy after his death, She preserved and published his letters, organized and exhibited his paintings, wrote and translated articles and books about him.
TIL the "ALS Icebucket Challenge" actually raised enough money to create treatments for the disease (that work). It wasn't just a social media trend that went nowhere.
I took part. It was summer and I live in the high desert so it was more refreshing than a hardship
TIL in 1943, a US bomber over Germany was hit by explosive ordnance directly in the fuel tanks 11 times, but none exploded. After the shells were cut open, all were found to have no explosives in them, and one contained a note in Czech saying "This is all we can do for you now".
Schindler's workers did similar things too. Schindler had several munition factories and his jewish workers which he got from the camps for forced labour sabotaged the munition to help the enemy win. He knew about it and did nothing. He made excuses for them against the party and constantly asked for more workers, blaming lack of workers for the bad quality of the munition. That way, he saved thousands of people from the concentration camps.
TIL that monkeys in Ethiopia have managed to "domesticate" wild wolves by helping them hunt small rodents. The wolves now coexist with (even baby!) monkeys without ever attacking them, instead going for smaller, harder-to-catch prey!
This sounds sweet and heart warming but it's not gonna be good when the monkeys decide to revolt and people are getting attacked by monkeys riding on wolves.
TIL an orangutan named Fu Manchu figured out how to escape his enclosure at a zoo by picking the lock on a door. He did it repeatedly for weeks as zoo staff was stumped about how and tried every measure to prevent it only to finally catch Fu Manchu in the act using a piece of wire he kept hidden.
TIL: In about six weeks a transplanted liver section will grow into a normal-sized, fully functioning liver in a recipient, while the donor’s remaining liver will regenerate to replace the transplanted section.
TIL in 2019, basketball player DJ Cooper was suspended for two years after using his girlfriend's urine to attempt to cheat a drug test. The test "discovered" that he was pregnant.
I'm imagining the shock of the person who got the test results back 🤣
TIL that the Nike logo was designed for 35$ but the company gifted the designer stock that is now worth millions because she held it all without selling.
TIL - Rammstein once played a concert in Hamburg, Germany and the physics department of the local university picked it up on their seismograph. They did not register the sound, but literally the shaking ground.
TIL after getting LASIK surgery, Horace Grant continued to wear his signature goggles without the prescription in order to remain a positive influence so kids who needed glasses would think it's cool.
TIL There was a study in Africa that showed that cows with large eye painted on their butts would not be attacked by ambush predators.
TIL a New Zealand woman was detained in Kazakhstan because they did not believe New Zealand was a real country. When they asked her to show the country on a map, their map did not include New Zealand.
A common failure in the map world, to the point that there are online communities that collect and share them with each other. I have a few examples somewhere in this dusty old camera roll....
TIL - One of the 8 Hawaiian islands, Ni’ihau, is known as The Forbidden Island. It’s privately owned, you can’t visit without an invitation, there were 84 residents in the 2020 census, and they live primitively, like their ancestors.
I think I saw a documentary segment on this. Not so much "primitively", more like subsistence farming. If it was the same island.
TIL: There are virtually zero commercial planes that fly over Tibet, one of the reasons being that in the event of depressurization/engine failure, planes cannot descend to 10,000 feet because the Tibetan Plateau has an average elevation of 14,370 feet.
Same issue flying north to south over the Rockies or the Andes. No flights there either.
TIL The Hollywood sign was rebuilt after a successful campaign in 1978 by Alice Cooper. He was one of 9 donators to replace each letter. He bought the first "O" in memory of Groucho Marx.
TIL tennis balls used to be black and white, but changed to yellow for TV viewers thanks to David Attenborough's suggestion.
To clarify - David Attenborough was the "controller" of BBC2 at the time, when it was the first European TV station broadcasting in colour. The early cameras weren't great and yellow showed up a lot better than the dull white of previous balls. For more about the great man, read https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/nine-astonishing-ways-david-attenborough-shaped-your-world/z4k2kmn
David Attenborough was also instrumental in the popularisation of broadcasting snooker on the new colour TVs, which took snooker for the clubs and snooker halls to the mainstream. He also produced the Queen’s Christmas Message for 20 years, and he gave the green light for Monty Python to be produced.
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I remember they did it with a televised effect for awhile and people hated it
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All I can hear is The Voice: "In its natural state, the tennis ball is black and white. It's only during their mating season that the male takes on a neon chartreuse coloration so that the female can find him."
Yellow is easier to see for all but for people with sight issues, black text on yellow background is being used in all sorts of ways. Eye clinics. Leaflets. To define stairs.
This can't be right. They were yellow in 1962. Color TV didn't become widespread in the US until the late 1960s
According to this article Wembleton used white until 1986. https://www.tennis365.com/tennis-features/how-tennis-changed-from-white-to-yellow-tennis-balls-thanks-to-david-attenborough
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It’s actually florescent yellow, which looks green at a glance, but see it close up and it’s yellow. I’ve got a hoodie which is fluorescent orange. Father Dougal would say it was pink, but close up you can see the orange.
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TIL the largest air force in the world is the US Air Force. The second largest air force in the world is the US Navy.
TIL Abercrombie & Fitch’s "Appearance/Look Policy" required staff to buy the company’s clothes. After losing a lawsuit, they agreed "not to force workers to buy its clothes" and to reimburse former employees for purchases made during the period cited.
If the company wants staff to show off their clothes, they should provide them.
TIL that following the success of the 90s hit film, "the Bodyguard", Kevin Costner contacted his longtime friend, Princess Diana, to star in a sequel. She agreed. The first draft arrived the day before her death in 1997. Following her passing, the film was scrapped.
TIL: While many animals run faster than humans, the strength and positioning of our butts (gluteal muscles) gave humans the endurance to keep running and chasing prey when other animals had to stop.
Related: many herbivores will only run a relatively short distance before they stop and attempt to hide.
TIL: Many choking deaths happen in bathrooms. It turns out that people who start choking often feel embarrassed and rush to the bathroom for privacy, only to end up dying alone, often next to a toilet.
This is alarming… I did just that the last time I was coughing bc I was choking on food going down the wrong pipe. Everyone was staring af me coughing so hard so I ran into the bathroom out of embarrassment. I could still breathe so it’s not exactly the same. But I can definitely see how this is true considering I felt like I had to remove myself due to the stares!!
TIL frankincense and myrrh are the dried sap of trees, also known as resin.
The original test is Zoroastrian in origin and is described in detail by Marco Polo. A baby is offered gold, frankincense and myrrh. If they choose Gold then they're going to be a king. If they choose Frankincense then they're going to be a priest. If they choose Myrrh then they're going to be a doctor. A good fortune telling gig. Obviously, the gifts are not left with the baby. In other news, Frankincense in that time came from a tree that grew in Oman and Yemen. I have used a middle eastern toothpaste flavoured with Myrrh rather than peppermint. I do not recommend it.
TIL when Greece won its independence in 1822, Athens was reduced to a small village of 4,000 inhabitants that had faded into irrelevance over centuries. It was selected as the capital for historical and sentimental reasons. The city is now the largest in Greece with over 3 million inhabitants
TIL America had over 50,000 pay toilets in 1970 but by 1980, there were almost none. Four teenagers formed the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America. Chicago became the first major American city to ban pay toilets altogether in March of 1973.
TIL that the "seductive nature" of the Green M&M is a reference to an urban legend during the 1970s that green M&Ms were aphrodisiacs.
TIL about 'The Campaign for North Africa' - a board game published in 1978 that is estimated to take 62 days to play. The game includes 1,600 counters and the level of detail is such that Italian troops require additional water supplies in order to boil pasta.
TIl that citizens of Monaco are banned from gambling or working at casinos. The famed Monte Carlo Casino is strictly for foreigners only.
TIL that the Milky Way Galaxy is being pulled toward a mysterious area in space called "The Great Attractor" at about 6000km/s. Whatever it is, we can't see it from Earth because it's obscured the hub of our galaxy.
TIL the director of Captain Phillips didn't allow Tom Hanks and Actors playing somali pirates to meet before filming the movie, so that the pirates can terroize Tom and his crew and create a realistic tension and hostility between them.
TIL Emperor Justinian II (685-695 and 705-711) was overthrown in a rebellion and had his nose cut off to prevent him from ever ruling again. However, he managed to return to power in 705 with a prosthetic gold nose and took his revenge on those who had deposed him.
TIL the longest prison sentence ever given was 141,078 years, given to a Thai woman in 1989. She was released 4 years later.
Look up Chamoy Thipyaso if you are curious. She defrauded more than 10,000 people, and she got sentence for each case of fraud, that's why the sentence was so long. She actually received just 20 years of prison though, because that is the maximum sentence allowed by the law. She ended up serving even less than that though.
TIL that the Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 was intended to be the first craft to land on the moon. It missed the moon by nearly 6000km and ended up becoming the first spacecraft to enter orbit around the sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
The actual body count of the Soviet Space Program is still not known
TIL It would take 18 months to walk the great wall of China.
TIL Liechtenstein has been accidentally attacked or invaded by Switzerland 5 times since 1968. In 1968, chairs were broken by artillery. In 1976 soldiers were offered drinks by the locals. In 1985 a forest fire was started. Switzerland apologised or compensated for the damage each time.
Lichtenstein is one of the quartet of tiny countries along with Andorra, Luxembourg and Vatican City
TIL that Thomas Cornell was convicted and sent to the gallows for the 1673 murder of his mother, due in part to "spectral evidence" presented by his uncle, who said her ghost paid him a visit and told him that Thomas did it.
TIL Prior to 1970 most Pistachios were dyed red!
TIL in the last years of his life, J.R.R Tolkien, a devout catholic, resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, especially the use of English for the liturgy. He continued to make the responses in Latin, loudly, ignoring the rest of the congregation.
Having liturgy in your own language lets you understand the passages and meanings of what is being preached rather than the word of the priest who brings his own agenda to the people.
TIL that despite being commonly ranked as one of the worst Christmas films ever made, the 1985 film “Santa Claus: The Movie” is immensely popular in the UK. One of the film actors, John Lithgow, said in 2019 that he wishes he had a nickel for every Englishman who’s told him it's their favorite film.
TIL that in a survey of 500 law firm workers, over 50% confirmed that legal TV shows had influenced their career choice & 57% of those felt that the TV series that impacted them was a "realistic depiction of a legal career." 30% identified Suits as their show, 22% said Law and Order.
TIL - The severed head of Mata Hari was embalmed and kept in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris. In 2000, archivists discovered that it had disappeared.
Keeping the heads of famous criminals is nothing odd. The skeleton of Burke of the famous Burke and Hare murders is still on display at Surgeon's Hall at the University of Edinburgh, the Alma Mater of Dr. Know who bought the murdered corpses
TIL that The Simpsons episode where they go to Japan is banned in Japan.
That's because the episode depicts Homer disrespecting the Emperor. Japan has Lèse-majesté laws. The Emperor cannot be mocked or disrespected in any capacity in public media. While no longer a criminal offense, the figure of the Emperor is venerated in Japan.
TIL that although it's commonly believed that we can feel stares, studies on the Psychic Staring Effect have repeatedly produced results no better than random chance.
TIL America was almost named “Amerige” meaning “Land of Amerigo”, but was changed to the feminine form America, following the naming convention of Asia and Europe.
TIL: To stop cannibalism among poultry in the 1940s thought to be due to natural instinct, "Anti-Pix" sunglasses were developed to prevent birds from seeing "raw flesh or blood" due to their rose color. They worked!
TIL Japan has several "Nose Tombs" which contain tens of thousands of severed noses from Korea.
Look up The Rape of Nanking and it will tell you how horrible the Japanese were during WW II to the Koreans and the Chinese. The bad thing is they didn’t acknowledge what they did even to this day.
TIL while filming the scene in 1983’s “A Christmas Story” where Ralphie is dressed as a sheriff, a prop man gave actor Peter Billingsley real Red Man chewing tobacco. Peter, who was 12, didn’t know the difference and ingested it. Production then had to be shut down until Billingsley recovered.
Poor Ralphie! Seriously, what the heck? That's like giving a twelve year old cigarettes!
TIL that Mao Zedong gave out a box of mangoes gifted to him by Pakistan. A cult formed in China for the unfamiliar fruit. Replicas were made and publicly displayed. One man said that the fruit didn't look like anything special, and was shamefully paraded around his town and then publicly executed.
TIL director Michel Gondry found Jim Carrey's emotional state after a breakup "so beautiful, so broken" that he asked him to stay that way for one year to fit his character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
TIL it's not possible to watch every film ever nominated for Best Picture. Only 2/3 of 1928's The Patriot still exists, and the only complete prints of 1931's East Lynne and 1934's The White Parade are in the UCLA film archive
TIL that for several years Mick Jagger believed he was the father of Liv Tyler.
Wikipedia: "From 1972 to 1979, Buell lived with rock musician Todd Rundgren. In 1976, Buell became pregnant from a brief relationship with Steven Tyler. She gave birth on July 1, 1977, naming the daughter Liv Rundgren and claiming that Todd Rundgren was the biological father because Tyler was in the middle of his well-documented drug excesses. Liv told People Magazine in 1992 that "Todd's my spiritual father. I love him". By then Rundgren and Buell had ended their romantic relationship but Rundgren nevertheless signed the birth certificate and acted as a father figure to Liv, including paying for her education."
Note: this post originally had 70 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Sorry for the OT, but for days BP keeps showing me the same notifications as if they were new, even if I click on them. Does this happen to anyone else too? Edit: thanks for your answers!
Is it just me or is BP difficult to browse? Slow, unresponsive, doesn't scroll worth a dang.
Maybe loading the animated ads is eating up processor power. I'm using a tablet and it's gobbling my battery.
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Most of these are irrelevant factoids that clearly would not be taught in school
Sorry for the OT, but for days BP keeps showing me the same notifications as if they were new, even if I click on them. Does this happen to anyone else too? Edit: thanks for your answers!
Is it just me or is BP difficult to browse? Slow, unresponsive, doesn't scroll worth a dang.
Maybe loading the animated ads is eating up processor power. I'm using a tablet and it's gobbling my battery.
Load More Replies... Most of these are irrelevant factoids that clearly would not be taught in school
