If you browse Reddit, the chances are you will end up on its powerhouse called Today I Learned. And it's not a powerhouse for no reason, trust me.
TIL is home to 27.3 million members who enjoy pumping their trivia muscle and coming to the subreddit to recharge their memory banks.
Created back in December 28, 2008, the community has become a destination for daily tidbits of knowledge and interesting facts. The best part, TIL is basically a never-ending stream of wisdom goodness, so if you ever have a spare moment to kill or simply need some cool things nobody knows to impress your date, TIL facts make for lightyears of scrolling. So in case you feel adventurous, more Today I Learned facts await here, here and here.
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TIL in 1818, the US began building a fort near the New York-Quebec border to defend against invasions from Canada. After two years of construction, they realized the fort was actually on the Canadian side. They abandoned it and named it Fort Blunder.
just adding a real comment so that you arent only replied to by bots
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We could use a Canadian invasion. Some common sense, manners, and everything else aboot them that is wonderful!
lol read some of the comments on Canadian news media and you'll not notice much of a difference.
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I wonder when the Canadians noticed. Did they just not tell them and figure hey if they get it built we can have a free fort?
Canada must not have been too much of a threat then, if they let the USA build a fort on their soil for 2 years. :)
The Canadians were probably watching and wondering of what those nutty Americans were up to. Maybe some helped. Sounds like a Looney Toons cartoon. "Eh, what's up, yanks?" "We're buildin' us a fort." "What are you buildin' a fort for?" "Ssshhh. We're defending against the Canadians. Be vewy, vewy quiet." "Canadians, eh?! Here let us help." "Oo"
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Québécoise here. Hahahahaha!!!! For the history buffs: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/04/fort-blunder-fort-that-america.html
Just FYI, majority of Canadians don't pronoune it "aboot". It's based on the French Canadian accent speaking English. Dont care if I get down voted. It's like in the 80's everyone thought a lot of Americans said y'all. I'm French Canadian myself so I understand the accent.
I thought it was based on the Scottish settlers who brought "aboot" with them.
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Hey Canadians! When you invade can you please bring some Boston Creme Tim Horton donuts? I'll reimburse you when I see one of you. Best donuts in the universe, and I never liked donuts. Thanks ahead of time!
In 1842 the border was altered to return the fort to the US. Fort Montgomery
It’s called Fort Montgomery, and at it’s on beautiful lake Champlain.
Ah, the U.S. government at its finest and most incompetent. (don't kill me, It is a joke AND I'm American.)
Sometimes, I ponder just how utterly amazing this country has made it this far...I love it, but wow, the cracks are showing...
Canada defeated several US invasions back then and the British did invade from canada and burn washington in 1814.
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Everything you have said has zero relevance to anything. If you're a separatist please talk about what is actually the subject. If not than telling a French Canadian anthropologist with a minor in linguistics about something as silly as "aboot" you got issues and anger about a good hearted post.
You're not making much sense if you didn't get the point.
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Oh well. At least there's some ethical integrity in the naming of the location.
So the lack of Geography education in USA isn't a recent issue ;)
Surprised they didn't just fill it with soldiers and quietly annex the land if they were able to build it without being attacked to begin with. It would be like super-squatting with guns.
Why didn’t they just claim that bit of land, I mean, that’s a lot of work, building a whole fort only to have to give it away.
Funny how they built if after the "almost US" and they US invaded Canada.
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TIL that in 1950 in Beatrice, NE, a church exploded five minutes after choir practice started. No one was hurt because every single member of the choir was late for completely separate reasons, so the church was empty.
TIL during a financial crisis in 1720, the British parliament debated a resolution for bankers to be sewn into sacks with snakes and dumped into the Thames river.
I've already claimed the concession rights the last time this was posted.
TIL Keeping cats on ships has been a long held seafaring tradition due to their efficiency as a form of pest control and the supposed luck they brought to vessels. It is thought that cats were spread around the world by groups such as the Ancient Egyptians, Vikings, and Age of Discovery explorers.
TIL that Charles Darwin often gave his old papers to his children for them to doodle on. Thus, much of what survives of his original Origin of Species manuscript represents the best of his children's writing and drawings, rather than the best of his work.
One of his notebooks was stolen from Cambridge library and has only just been returned with a note saying ‘Librarian…. Happy Easter’ 22 years after being stolen! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60980288.amp
TIL in 1952, a bus driver (Albert Gunter) was driving over Tower Bridge, when to his surprise, the bridge started opening. The double - decker bus was at the edge of the south bascule when it started rising. He made a split decision and accelerated clearing the 6ft drop. Later receiving a £10 bonus.
TIL that Stan Lee had a younger brother, Larry, who co-created Thor, Iron Man, and Ant-Man. Larry Lieber is currently 90 years old and only retired from pencilling comics in 2018.
TIL that (former) Dutch footballer Dennis Bergkamp is afraid of flying to the point that he would take car/ferry/train to away games, or not travel at all. His Aviophobia gave him the nickname of the "Non-Flying Dutchman".
TIL in Egypt, around 17000 divorce cases in 2018 cited "Candy Crush" as the cause of divorce.
I read "around 1700" and thought that candy crush had divorced them in 1700. me is dum
TIL there are 13 remaining secret apartments on the top floors of New York City’s branch libraries.
TIL that two 16-year-olds got lost in the Canadian wilderness while snowboarding, but were able to stay warm by burning their homework. The two boys were rescued the following day and managed to avoid frostbite, sustaining only minor injuries.
TIL cheetahs were at one point so close to extinction, their genetic diversity has become too low for their immune system to recognize a "nonself". Skin grafts exchanged between unrelated cheetahs are accepted as if they were clones or identical twins.
TIL John von Neumann regularly recalled complete novels and pages of the phone directory. He could divide two 8-digit numbers in his head and converse in Ancient Greek at age 6, and was proficient in calculus at age 8. When he enrolled in university at 16, he had already written a research paper.
TIL that the Eurasian magpie is one of the most intelligent birds, and one of the most intelligent of all non-human animals. The expansion of its nidopallium is approx. the same in its relative size as the brain of humans. It is the only bird known to pass the mirror test.
For those wondering, the mirror test is where an animal is put to sleep, and then marked with a coloured dot or sticker (in a location they can’t easily see themselves), woken up and given access to a mirror. If they touch the spot they see in the mirror on themselves, they pass.
TIL In 1924, the federal government funded enormous concrete arrows to be built every 10 miles or so along established airmail routes to help the pilots trace their way across America in bad weather conditions and particularly at night, which was a more efficient time to fly.
TIL the hit version of “Tom’s Diner” was remixed by the group DNA and circulated to clubs without the permission of the artist Suzanne Vega or her label. When Vega heard the remix, she advised the label to buy it and officially release it rather than sue the group for copyright infringement.
Wise. I’m sure the lawyers tried to convince her otherwise, since they’d be the only ones ultimately benefitting most from a lawsuit,
TIL Aurora Rodríguez Carballeira wanted to have a perfect daughter. Her daughter Hildegart read at 2, spoke 4 languages at 8, joined law school at 13, becoming professor there at 18, writing on socialism and sexuality, writing to figures. On 1933 her mother shot her.
Mother was later diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic. Her 18 year old daughter was growing distant, mother thought she was falling in love and so...
TIL that the "lower bar" on women's bikes is antiquated and was created to accommodate the heavy dresses women wore in the late 1800s.
Its wonderful and should be the standard. I never wear skirts but when i was still cycling i had a lot of trouble using "mens" bikes. Just put the low bar for everybody! It serves no purpose now that materials are stronger. Many mountain bikes have a small bar but much lower than the traditional ones. Also you can get hurt with the bar if you get hit.
TIL, that Lieutenant Elmo Zumwalt III contracted cancer and died at 42, after getting exposed to Agent Orange while deployed in Vietnam. It was his father, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt who ordered the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.
TIL English is not an official language of New Zealand despite it being spoken by 90% of the population. The two official languages are Te reo Māori and NZ sign language.
TIL that a 4-year-old was arrested for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. Little Dorothy Good spent 10 months chained in a prison cell after confessing to a local judge that she had a pet snake that could talk.
TIL that in the 4th century CE, Roman bishop Acacius of Amida sold the all church's treasures to free 7000 Persian prisoners captured by the Romans during war. The Persian emperor was so impressed by the act that he ordered an end to Christian persecution throughout his empire.
TIL that the sculpture here presents St Adalbert, it can be seen in Prague in St Adalbert's chaple, and that image sof Acacius of Amida are widely accesible in the Internet...
TIL that the crust of the Earth is so thin, that it makes up 1% of the earth's volume that contains all known life in the universe and can be compared with a peel of an apple.
Yet it's too deep to drill past. The thinnest part is 3 miles, but is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The deepest drill was about 6 miles, but was not even close to the mantle. Frankly, we really SHOULDN'T drill past the crust!
TIL F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen nearly bankrupted his Lotus team. They put a €50k bonus per point in his contract thinking they wouldn't score many, Kimi scored 390 in two years including 15 podiums and 2 race wins.
TIL Cancun was founded by the Mexican government using computer models to find a nice spot for tourists.
TIL Philadelphia Cream Cheese was invented in New York and has never been made in Philadelphia. Its name was part of a clever marketing strategy, because at the time (1880s) Philadelphia was known for its high quality dairy.
TIL of the "Boring Billion". From roughly 1.8 billion BC to 0.8 billion BC, relatively nothing happened on earth. There was tectonic stability, a static climate, and hardly any biological evolution. It has been termed "The Dullest Time in Earth's History"
TIL that Sesame Street was initially banned in several states, such as Mississippi, for casting black and hispanic actors.
Won't be long before Sesame street will be banned again in several states for the exact same reason and some more.
TIL Scooby Doo was designed by Iwao Takamoto, who first learned illustration from fellow prisoners in the Manzanar concentration camp for Japanese-Americans.
Read George Takai's autobiographical graphic novel--They Called us Enemy.
TIL the IRS still operates largely on mainframe computers running 60 year old code.
TIL of 'Truck Wages' or 'Company Scrip, where an employer will pay employees in company minted money that is only redeemable in company owned stores. It is referenced in the sea shanty 'Wellerman' and the last company to get sued for using it was Walmart Mexico.
TIL of the Octomom case of 2009, where a single mom was implanted with 12 embryos and gave birth to 8 babies (octuplets). They are currently the longest surviving octuplets ever. Ultimately her fertility doctor had his license revoked.
IL of Audie Murphy, an American soldier from World War II that earned every military combat med offered by the U.S Army, including the Medal of Honor at age 19. He also won medals from France and Belgium.
Then had an acting career after the war. Died at 43 in a plane crash. His wife worked at my VA clinic until 2005.
TIL that since 2004 at least 18 have people died from contracting rabies after receiving organs from infected donors. Transplanted organs are not typically screened for rabies virus, which can incubate for up to a year or more before symptoms manifest, after which time it is nearly 100% fatal.
TIL that there is a strong positive correlation between how fast someone walks and the population of the city that they're from. If a city is 10x larger than another, people will walk 24% faster on average.
I walk really quickly because I used to wait tables. For 12 years, I walked as quickly as possible for up to 8 hours a day. I have been out of the business for ten years, but I can’t shake the habit.
TIL that Aluminum was once more expensive than gold. It was a status symbol that emperor Napoleon III reserved a prized set of aluminum cutlery for special guests at banquets. Less favored guests used gold knives and forks.
TIL that while impressed by his book "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", the UK's science academy couldn't publish Isaac Newton's book due to being nearly bankrupt from spending all of its money printing the "History of Fish". Thankfully, scientist Edmond Halley's funded the printing.
And after he financed Principia, the Royal Society (not the "UK science academy", it was the Royal Society in both cases) informed Halley that they couldn't afford his annual £50 salary due to the failure of De Historia Piscium, and so started paying his salary in unsold copies of De Historia Piscium.
TIL that in the years preceding the French Revolution, the price of bread went from costing about 50% of a laborer's daily wages to about 88% of their income.
TIL in 1993, college basketball coach Bob Knight invented a fictitious player named Ivan Renko to expose disreputable basketball recruiting experts. Sure enough, the "experts" began listing Renko as a prospect and some even claimed to have footage of the nonexistent player.
TIL that NASA was inspired by Fritz Lang's film, 'Frau im Mond', to use a countdown for rocket launches. NASA used the countdown to not only help technicians synchronise, but also found that announcing the countdown would build suspense for those watching at home.
TIL screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The Social Network) takes six to eight showers a day to get over writer’s block. If writing isn’t going well, he takes a shower, puts on different clothes, and tries again.
TIL In Space there's only 9 to 12 seconds to be conscious outside airlock and humans are totally rescuable for at least 30 seconds.
And also, your body won’t explode if you go into an area with little to no pressure like inthose movies. Depending on how fast the pressure changes you may experience a very uncomfortable condition called “bends”. Divers get it when they resurface too quickly.
TIL in 1323, the Mexica, founders of the Aztec Empire, asked the King of Culhuacan for his daughter, to which the King of Culhuacan agreed. The Mexica then sacrificed her and flayed her skin, and invited the King of Culhuacan to a feast, during which a Mexica priest came out wearing her flayed skin.
TIL of Shi Pei Pu, a Chinese opera singer turned spy who obtained secrets from a French embassy worker for twenty years by masquerading as a woman. He even took a child and pretended it was theirs.
Apparently he could turn his um sack inside out to imitate Intercourse
TIL Before 2012, Pizza Hut was the largest purchaser of kale in the US, but they only used it as garnish for their salad bars.
TIL that tapeworm can live inside humans for up to 30 years and grow to 80ft in size.
TIL only white cars are allowed in Boracay island, Philippines. It is a municipal ordinance that was signed in 2001.
TIL the most destructive single air attack in human history was the napalm bombing of Tokyo on the night of 10 March 1945 that killed around 100,000 civilians in about 3 hours.
TIL that a California court ruled that a man was not entitled to the $3 billion market value of his cells, which his doctor had secretly commercialized after removing his spleen.
TIL cry rooms were an amenity movie theaters had starting in the 1940s. These were small areas at the back of a theater where those with unruly kids could continue to watch the film. The presence of these rooms declined greatly by the 1970s due to the rise of multiplex theaters.
TIL that Buddhists create sand mandalas only to destroy them, to teach the belief that nothing lasts forever.
While in college, I had the privilege of watching Buddhist monks create a mandala from start to finish. I've never experienced something as peaceful and serene since then, and I doubt I ever will.
TIL the story of the film “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” was improvised in a meeting. After the Italian director had a meeting with American movie executives, they asked him what film he had in mind, and in the span of a couple minutes, they quickly improvised the whole entire story of the film.
I read somewhere that Hank Williams used to say "if it takes you longer than 10 minutes to write a song, you're doing something wrong" and he would explain how all of his hits were written In under 10 min. Which is awesome because some of his songs are so witty n funny that it shows just how creative he was. "I'll never get out of this world alive" I mean... cmon! That's hilarious. That's my favorite hank song.
TIL a man ate over 2000 meals at Six Flags Magic Mountain over seven years by spending $150 on an annual unlimited meals pass.
And recently Six Flags did away with this meal plan, though they claim the man (and the viral post/news stories) had “nothing” to do with their decision XD
TIL David Vogel, then-president of production at Disney, read M. Night Shyamalan's spec script for The Sixth Sense and loved it. Without corporate approval, Vogel bought the rights for $3mil. Disney then dismissed Vogel from his position. The film went on to spend 5 weeks at number one.
Til ex-Miami Dolphins RD Rob Konrad swam 16 hours to shore after falling off his boat in the ocean.
TIL that within the gaming industry, mobile gaming excluding advertisements ($93.2B) is worth more than PC gaming ($37.2B) and console gaming ($50.4B) combined.
TIL that in 1966, Frank Sinatra threw a phone at Frederick Weisman, breaking his skull and putting him in critical condition for 48 hours. Weisman had asked Sinatra and his friends to quiet down.
TIL in 2011, Jayme Gordon tried to sue Dreamworks after falsely claiming he created Kung Fu Panda. During the trial it was revealed his evidence was fabricated from a 1996 Lion King coloring book. He was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud and perjury.
I’m trying to picture this “evidence”, and all I’m seeing in my head are badly crayoned drawings of pandas squeezed onto the pages in the spaces around the printed Lion King characters.
TIL about the correct way to dispose of a tattered Canadian flag: unceremoniously burn it (if natural) or respectfully cut it apart colour-wise and put it in a garbage bag (if synthetic).
TIL that during the Fall of Tenochtitlan, the Conquistadors were joined by thousands of native allies who resented the Aztecs.
Because (unlike some people pretend) all big civilizations commited attrocities, not only the european ones. All big cultures are based on conquering, killing, raping and slaving others. The Aztecs were not a peaceful people. Not that the Spanish were, they did horrible things at the time. But they were not the only ones.
TIL blood type "O" is the primary blood type among the indigenous populations of the Americas, in-particular within Central and South America populations with a frequency of nearly 100%.
TIL that Texas Instruments has gone back and forth on how their calculators handle implicit multiplication with ambiguous notation, e.g. 8÷2(2+2). Different products will give different answers.
TIL out of Qatar's population of 2.6 million, only the 12% have Qatari citizenship. 88% of their total population consists of expats, migrant laborers, mainly from South Asia.
TIL about the U.S. military's "birth control glasses" which were a nickname for an unfortunate looking pair of issued glasses. The thick brown frames and shape were extremely unpopular and equated to birth control because of how unattractive they looked. The frames were retired in 2012.
Theeee military didn't have "brown" frames in the 80s... bcgs were black plastic.
TIL that Mariah Carey demanded a $50 million inconvenience fee from ex-fiancee James Packer after they broke up. She received a multimillion dollar settlement and kept her $10 million engagement ring.
What is the point of a $10 million engagement ring? It would just live in a vault.
TIL that the ghost town of Kolmanskop, once a German, diamond-mining settlement in Namibia and one of the wealthiest cities in the world, had a hospital with the first X-Ray unit in the southern hemisphere.
Which they used to scan miners after their shift to see if they had swallowed diamonds. The black workers recieved massive doses of radiation and no aftercare.
TIL the Osage Orange is an anachronistic tree, which evolved to depend on extinct megafauna like mammoths and ground sloths. It survived their extinction due to its wood being good for making bows.
Imma call BS on this. Osage Orange, also called Bois D'arc, spreads prolifically in areas where it is native. In the 1920s someone decided it was an ornamental plant, so it got spread well beyond its native range. They might be hard to propagate in lots of places like New York or California, but believe me when I say in western Arkansas you can't get rid of them.
TIL that the left side of the ship was originally called "larboard" or the "loading side" of the ship, opposite "starboard," or the "steering side" of the ship. Because they sound too similar, the left became "port" since that was the side that was against the dock for loading.
TIL that gelatin is obtained by boiling cattle and pig carcasses.
TIL In 1976, 3 men kidnapped a school bus with 26 children aboard. They then buried them alive inside a box truck to try and get a $5,000,000 ransom.
According to Wikipedia: After about 16 hours underground, the driver and children dug themselves out and escaped.
TIL about Tojo, the monkey mascot of a WW2 US Air Force crew who crash landed in neutral Ireland, and who became such a local hero that he was given a full Irish wake and military funeral after he succumbed to a few days of solid Irish hospitality.
TIL that in December 2013 a sophomore at Harvard University sent several bomb threats through the Tor network to cancel a political history exam he was unprepared for. He succeeded, but was caught that same day.
TIL that Hidetaka Miyazaki the creator for the Dark Souls series was inspired to design its summoning based off from an experience he had when his car got stuck in the snow on a hill and a bunch of strangers came helped push his car to the top before vanishing.
Then a dark spirit invaded and pushed his car off a cliff then pointed down.
TIL South of the Border in South Carolina, just south of the North Carolina border, is a faux-Mexican themed tourist attraction. The mascot is a caricature of a Mexican bandido named Pedro. All South of the Border employees, regardless of race, are referred to as "Pedro".
This place is a politically correct nightmare but it's still kinda fun in a 'bunch of crap you want to buy but don't really want' way. Mostly silly
TIL those charities that collect 'Pop Tabs' from soda/beer cans make money via the recycling value of the metal. 23 tabs are worth 1 cent. 1lb of tabs is worth 50 cents.
Til in 1993 burger king briefly offered table service during dinner hours, offering popcorn as a table appetizer.
TIL that after a mention that Paul McCartney liked Jelly Babies, fans started throwing them at the Beatles during live concerts. In the USA, fans started throwing jelly beans at them after mistaking them to be the same thing. One concert had to be stopped twice because the Beatles kept getting hit.
TIL Sony Pictures Entertainment admitted that a highly positive review written by a critic named David Manning to the 2000 American epic historical war film The Patriot, was a product of the studio’s advertising department, as the reviewer never existed.
Sony at least admitted that they wrote positive reviews. Proves just once again that you can't trust anything without checking multiple sources.
TIL actress Thandiwe Newton decided to correct her name in April 2021 after a 30 year long career of going by Thandie due to a misspelling in the credits of her first film.
She said she wanted to reclaim her 'real' name and heritage - her first name is actually ....Melanie!
TIL Tom Cruise saved the American release of 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' by endorsing it at a buyer screening, launching the careers of Jason Statham, Guy Ritchie & Matthew Vaughn in the process.
TIL in the 1990s, the New Jersey Nets asked the NBA to change their name to the Swamp Dragons. The league spent $500,000 to protect the name. The NBA owners voted 26-1 to approve the change. The Nets were the lone no vote, who changed their mind, infuriating then commissioner David Stern.
TIL - David Lee Roth (Front Man of Van Halen in the early 80's) paid his road crew $100 for every woman they brought him backstage
Today I learned that a list looks more impressive if you repeat the same stories multiple times!
Won't be long before we just get a list of links to previous posts.
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Can somebody explain me please, why is word “dead” or “die” nowadays not OK? It is have something to do with political correctness, or it is now offending to be dead or what the heck? I really mean it. Thank you so much 🙂
They censor stuff because advertisers don't like it. No advertisers no free content.
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TIL Einstein was a real person! I always thought he was a theoretical physicist.
Today I learned that a list looks more impressive if you repeat the same stories multiple times!
Won't be long before we just get a list of links to previous posts.
Load More Replies... Can somebody explain me please, why is word “dead” or “die” nowadays not OK? It is have something to do with political correctness, or it is now offending to be dead or what the heck? I really mean it. Thank you so much 🙂
They censor stuff because advertisers don't like it. No advertisers no free content.
Load More Replies... TIL Einstein was a real person! I always thought he was a theoretical physicist.
