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35 New ‘Today I Learned’ Facts That Prove It’s Never Too Late To Learn Something New
With New Year’s resolutions up and rolling, many of us are bringing on gym memberships, improving language skills, taking up new hobbies, getting into self-care and mindfulness, spending more time with family members, and basically, trying hard to be a better version of ourselves.
Meanwhile, our mental muscle is often forgotten and just as we give our bodies nutrients, so do we need to feed our brains with good stuff. So please, dear readers, stop whatever you’re doing. This is an invitation to a workout for your brain cells.
Today, we have a heavyweight treat for them, a brand new collection of incredible Today I Learned facts that range from miscellaneous ones perfect for trivia and mind-bending ones that may totally change your perspective of things. Scroll down below, upvote your favorite facts and be sure to check out our previous posts with Today I Learned goodness here, here and here.
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TIL about Mary Ellen Pleasant, a black woman in the 1800s who amassed a fortune by eavesdropping on investors while working as a domestic
TIL a bridge in Ireland that was designed to swing open for ships couldn't be opened for four years because someone lost the remote control
TIL outraged Egyptians had once lynched a Roman for killing a cat.
TIL that Betty White holds the Guinness World Record for longest TV career by an entertainer, with credits spanning 80 years (1939 to 2019)
$70k was donated to the San Diego zoo in her name for her 100th birthday, stunning Zoo officials. That woman had more class in her little finger than most of her contemporaries. RIP Betty, I know there are hundreds of animals on the other side of the rainbow bridge waiting.
As for me, I donated to Alley Cat Allies on her 100th birthday.
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I think she should hold the record for being the most universally loved celebrity of all time.
She has some close competition though. George Burns immediately springs to mind, but Betty was a famous philanthropist... George was just sweet! :)
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Yeah, had to look up her filmography, she hasn’t done anything after 2019
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It's so sad tho she was about to turn 100 :( Rest in peace we all love you!
The earliest Christmas radio drama still extant is one with her in the role of Anne, an 8 year old girl. When she was 8.
I wonder why they say that she acted until 2019 when I was still seeing her on TV in 2021?
Probably repeats, or stuff she did before the end of 2019. She may have had a few things in the works for 2020 but then the pandemic hit.
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TIL: Carrie, Stephen King's first novel that launched his career, was rescued from the trash can after his wife Tabatha removed the crumpled up pages, read them and told her husband she wanted to know the rest of the story
TIL In 1993 a French man driving a Citroen car in a remote area of the Moroccan desert had a breakdown and became stranded. To survive he tore down the car, built a motorcycle from the parts, and rode it back to civilization. When he arrived he was ticketed for operating an illegal vehicle.
I would have immediately then been arrested for assault on an officer.
TIL Queen Elizabeth II has reigned longer than her father, uncle, grandfather and great-grandfather combined
TIL the British Hedgehog Preservation Society won a campaign in 2006 to force McDonalds to redesign their McFlurry cups due to hedgehogs repeatedly getting stuck in them and dying.
TIL that owls cannot move their eyes. This is because their eyes are not balls, but cylinders that are held in place by bones called sclerotic rings. This is also the reason that owls have evolved to be able to rotate their head 270 degrees left and right, and 90 degrees up and down.
TIL that in 1945, General George S Patton, upon the liberation of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany, forced 1,000 local citizens to tour the camp to witness firsthand the atrocities that had taken place within.
After Patton toured the camp, he ordered the mayor of Weimar to bring 1,000 citizens to Buchenwald; these were to be predominantly men of military age from the middle and upper classes. The Germans had to walk 25 kilometres (16 mi) roundtrip under armed American guard and were shown the crematorium and other evidence of Nazi atrocities. The Americans wanted to ensure that the German people would take responsibility for Nazi crimes, instead of dismissing them as atrocity propaganda. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower also invited two groups of Americans to tour the camp in mid-April 1945; journalists and editors from some of the principal U.S. publications, and then a dozen members of the Congress from both the House and the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchenwald_concentration_camp
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
Reminds me of the bear attack safety rhyme: If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it's white, say goodnight.
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.
TIL that according to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.
TIL: The inventor of shopping carts, Sylvan Goldman, had to hire "decoy shoppers" to wheel the carts around stores and demonstrate their convenience, due to not catching on initially.
TIL that octopuses have copper-based blood rather than iron-based blood…which makes their blood blue in color. (Incidentally, they also have three hearts to pump that blood.)
TIL dolphins sleep with one eye open. Because they have to periodically go up for air and also be aware of predators, they are able to rest only half of their brain at a time and stay always somewhat conscious.
TIL About the "murder bottle". Many Victorian mothers would use a self feeding bottle to give their babies milk instead of breastfeeding. These bottles were made of earthenware & glass & were incredibly hard to clean which caused severe bacteria build up & caused the deaths of thousands of babies.
TIL of the Lodz Ghetto, where at one point 20000 'useless eaters', mainly children under 10, were rounded up and taken away from their families to be exterminated. Many parents committed suicide.
This is so sad an depressing. The ghetto in Lodz, Poland’s second largest city and major industrial center, was established on April 30, 1940. It was the second largest ghetto in the German-occupied areas and the one that was most severely insulated from its surroundings and from other ghettos. Some 164,000 Jews were interned there, to whom were added tens of thousands of Jews from the district, other Jews from the Reich, and also Sinti and Roma. The ghetto, although intended to be a temporary transit facility, lasted for more than four years after the interests of local Nazis led to a decision to exploit the Jewish labor force. In the spring of 1940, the Lodz ghetto was sealed from the rest of the world by a wooden fence surrounded by additional barbed-wire fences. The Jews were packed into the ghetto with no electricity or water. Disease and starvation rapidly diminished their numbers. https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/ghettos/lodz.html
TIL of Titanic survivor Frankie Goldsmith. His father died during the sinking, and when he and his mother arrived in America they settled in Detroit near Navin Field (Tiger Stadium). He never attended a game due to the cheers of the crowd reminding him of the cries of the dying people in the water.
TIL about Ismail al-jazari wrote the “Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices” where he described 50 mechanical devices along with instructions on creating them. He has been described as the father of robotics and modern day engineering.
TIL about Project 100k, where LBJ and Sec of Def Robert MacNamara decided to lower the mental and medical standards to recruit more soldiers to fight in Vietnam. These soldiers died at ~3x the normal rate.
TIL that in 1670, against a judge's instructions, a jury refused to find two men guilty. The judge held the jury in contempt; locked them up overnight without food, water or heat; and fined them. On appeal, the Chief Justice ruled that a jury could not be punished for returning the wrong verdict.
TIL In 1941, almost 10% of all recruits for the US military were rejected because they did not have 6 opposing teeth on their upper and lower jaws. US dental health was so poor before WWII that it was the leading cause of rejection.
Apparently you have to be in perfect health. No genetic conditions, chronic conditions, disorders, missing any body parts. Nada.
TIL Leonardo Da Vinci saved 13,000+ pages of notes and drawings on anatomy, physiology, engineering, mechanics, geometry, mathematics, bird flight, flying machines, botany, proportions, topology, weaponry, musical instruments, art, and more, all in mirrored shorthand written from right to left.
My auntie was a total genius (too bad I did not inherit any of those genes. The closest I can come is being a wise ass). She could write backwards snd forwards at the same time on two different pieces of paper. She would send my sister and I letters written entirely backwards and alternating words between each paper. Sooooo creative, caring and beautiful. She taught me how to shop to save money, spent countless hours volunteering for the disabled and less fortunate. RIP Aunty Ev.
TIL that in Norse mythology, Loki got pregnant by a horse, he would then later give birth to the eight-legged horse Sleipner which would become Odin's horse
Loki was a shapeshifter who also changed genders when it suited him.
TIL Keanu Reeves was offered the lead role in The Matrix after 5 leading actors in 1990s turned it down.
TIL the Great cheese riot of 1766 was a reaction to inflated cheese prices. The mayor tried to restore order but was knocked down by a cheese. The military were called & shots were fired, killing one man. He'd been guarding his cheeses
HEY, hands off my cheese. The Nottingham cheese riot (also known as The Great Cheese Riot)[1] started on 2 October 1766 at the city's Goose Fair. The riot came at a time of food shortages and rising prices in England. Violence broke out when local citizens intervened to prevent Lincolnshire merchants taking away Nottinghamshire cheeses they had bought at the fair. A warehouse, shops and a cargo boat were looted; and hundreds of cheese wheels were rolled through the streets. The army was deployed when the mayor was unable to restore control. One man was killed and others wounded as soldiers opened fire on the crowds. Order was eventually restored after some days of unrest.
TIL in order to rescue the kids out of the flooded Thailand cave in 2018, rescuers drugged the kids unconscious then cave dove the the unconscious kids over 1km underwater
TIL English words of Hindi or Urdu origin include bandana, bangle, bungalow, cheetah, cushy, dinghy, juggernaut, jungle, khaki, loot, punch (the drink), pundit, pyjamas, shampoo, thug, and typhoon
Wow I thought we took all those words from English! I did recently learn however that khaki comes from the Urdu word khaak, meaning dust or earth. But what's up with cheetah, we don't even have them here. We call leopards cheetah lol.
TIL Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein, was named Chairmain of the Iraqi Olympic Committee in 1984. Athletes who disappointed him were subject to torture and imprisonment
TIL the movie Gremlins was so intense that it was responsible for the movie rating of PG-13.
I remember seeing this for the first time in a non-chain movie theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. People were super reactive during the move, it was great. Sounds of cringing, yelps, oh-my-goshes, etc. At one point, the Mom is in the kitchen and hears scary noises upstairs. We all know what that means. The scary thing comes down and attacks the Mom while she cowers in fright. So, we were all so surprised when she looked up at the ceiling, then at the knife block, then PICKED UP THE KNIFE. And headed UPSTAIRS. The entire theater erupted with encouraging sounds and "Yes!" and the like. It was so awesome. First time I ever saw a woman plan to fight back in a movie in my life. I will never forget it. Best in-theater movie experience of my life.
TIL The mongols had a superstition that said that spilling royal blood would lead to great disaster. So instead they had other creative ways of executing such people. Including sewing up your orifices, drown you in molten metal or have horses trample you.
TIL that a modern highway now runs through the site of the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans held back a massive Persian army for three days. A statue of the Spartan leader, Leonidas, stands just a few feet from the road.
Also, the coastline - which played such a major part in the battle (helping to create the chokepoint that allowed the Greek force - which was 7000 from multiple Poleis, not just 300 from Sparta - to hold off the much larger Persian force) has also moved over the past 2500 years. It's now almost 6 miles from it's ancient location.
TIL of Adolf Hitler’s Madagascar Plan. The plan was to relocate all the Jews to Madagascar. This idea later was shelved in favor for the mass genocide of the population.
TIL that a middle school football coach in Oregon was fired for trying to take his team to Hooters to celebrate the end of the season.
TIL: Archaeologist Alexander Peev was executed by firing squad in 1943 on suspicion of sending a coded message to the Soviet Union. It was actually an ancient inscription he wanted Russian archaeologists to help him interpret. The text remains undeciphered.
TIL that showman P.T. Barnum got his start by purchasing an enslaved woman named Joice Heth. She was in her 70’s but he claimed she was 161 years old and had been the nanny of George Washington. He exhibited her until her death, and then allowed the public to view her autopsy for 50 cents each
TIL that even though Edward Bannister won 1st prize for painting at the 1876 Philadelphia centennial international exhibition, after discovering Bannister’s identity, the judge wanted to rescind his award because he was black. However this wasn’t possible due to protests from the other competitors.
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
TIL the Russian Soyuz series of spacecraft has been in continual use with the same basic design for 55 years and 140 flights. It is widely considered the world's safest, most cost-effective human spaceflight vehicle. At least one is always docked at the ISS at all times for use as an escape craft.
Cheapest - only because they charge less, because It is also the least efficient. At the time of construction they didn't have the technology to fine process titanium, so every time the rockets carry hundreds of kg more than needed. When asked in the 90s, russians were ashamed to admit and said it was in preparation of mars missions for radiation shielding.
TIL of the Sony rootkit scandal: In 2005, Sony shipped 22,000,000 CDs which, when inserted into a Windows computer, installed unn-removable and highly invasive malware. The software hid from the user, prevented all CDs from being copied, and sent listening history to Sony.
TIL of a Danish Bog Army. Hundreds of 2000-year old warrior skeletons have resurfaced from a bog, suggesting a violet event occurred nearby.
TIL about the diabolical ironclad beetle (Nosoderma diabolicum), a species of beetle which has one of the toughest exoskeletons of all insects, which lets it endure forces up to 39,000 times its body weight and makes it impossible to put a insect pin through without drilling a hole first
TIL in the middle ages mainly blind people were hired as treadwheel operators on construction sites, as they would not be scared from the sheer drop sight below them. It is also considered one of the worst jobs in history, as the wheels often broke.
In Edo-period Japan, only blind people were allowed to perform massage professionally. This ensured that sighted people would not take a job which could be done by a blind person.
TIL George Patton led a sabers-drawn charge against U.S. WWI veterans and their families who were seeking promised bonuses, known as the “Bonus Army”.
TIL Guy Fieri invites Make-A-Wish families to every taping of 'Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives'
TIL that the Indonesian Army nearly conducted an amphibious landing in Somalia in order to free the crew of an Indonesian cargo ship captured by pirates. The plan was never executed because the pirates were all killed by Indonesian Special Forces and the hostages freed before they made it to shore.
TIL : Kanye West's mother, Donda, has a law named after her known as 'Donda West law' that requires patients to have a physical examination before cosmetic surgery. Donda West unfortunately passed away from heart problems one day after her surgery.
TIL there's an 18% average mortality rate for catch and release fishing with the rate varying significantly between species
TIL Elton John stiffed the Pinball Hall of Fame after filming a video there in 2004. Owner Tim Arnold didn't receive the promised $500 and concert tickets, and maintains an open challenge to wrestle Sir Elton.
TIL Middle aged men with resting heart rates of 80 beats or higher per minute are likely to die four to five years earlier than men with resting heart rates of 65 beats per minute or less.
TIL the Golden Age of Piracy, between 1650s & 1730s happened because of: more valuable cargo being shipped over vast ocean areas; reduced European navies; & corrupt officials in overseas colonies.
Cheetahs don't have retractable claws like other cats. Their claws, much like a dog's, are needed for traction when chasing down prey.
Cheetahs are amazing. Although they are a cat that is big, they are not technically a Big Cat. They purr and don't roar which is the difference between Big Cats and all other cats. Also, they chirp like birds. It is crazy when you hear it. Sadly they are heading towards extinction because they lack almost any genetic diversity along with the thinning of the population presented by human encroachment. The survival rate of their cubs in the wild is abysmally low. The father cheetah ditches immediately and the mother is left alone to raise 3-5 cubs on her own. And they're not terribly effective hunters. Even when they do kill, they then have to deal with other predators taking their kill. When raised in captivity, they are usually paired with a lab dog because cheetahs are shy and their dog friend is a trusted companion.
TIL that Teslas provide a lot of environmental damage because of the factories they were made in.
Since ancient times, "sages'" or "saints" in India have been able to go into a hibernation-like state where they go into deep meditation and don't move for not only hours, but days. No food, no water, no movement at all. The science behind it hasn't been deciphered yet beyond calling it some kind of hibernation.
TIL there is a town in Oregon called "Boring." There are actually two other places in the US called "Boring." Lol.
Yes I used to live in portland and going to the beach sometimes we crossed through Boring
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.
Agreed, there are way too many stories about people being insufferable idiots. We come here to relax, not to decide who is to blame in a bad story.
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For at least 2000 years, Polynesian sea-based people of the modern Marshall Islands navigated the vast expanse of sea using rebbelib, or stick charts. Tiny seashells represented the island locations, but most unique about these maps was that the ocean swells or currents provided the main navigation, as were drawn by the sticks of the framework. The maps were memorized before the journey, and the people in the canoes would have to listen closely to the water against the boat in order to "feel" the swell and determine where they were. gallery-14...-chart.jpg 
Does that also include making more than $12,000 a month online? LOL
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The first escalator was introduced as a novelty ride at Coney Island in 1896. In 1898 one was installed in Harrod's department store. Smelling salts and cognac were offered at the top for those traumatized by the ride. In 1911 an escalator was installed in the London Underground subway. A one-legged man named Bumper Harris was employed to ride the escalator to show everyone it was safe to ride.
Who say you can't be home schooled by computer - I learn so much and probably ask a bunch of stupid questions! But I usually can find the answers in my computer. I think if I was educated by computer I would not be as dumb as I am!
Wish some of these facts would come with a warning. I have new nightmares
Agreed, there are way too many stories about people being insufferable idiots. We come here to relax, not to decide who is to blame in a bad story.
Load More Replies... For at least 2000 years, Polynesian sea-based people of the modern Marshall Islands navigated the vast expanse of sea using rebbelib, or stick charts. Tiny seashells represented the island locations, but most unique about these maps was that the ocean swells or currents provided the main navigation, as were drawn by the sticks of the framework. The maps were memorized before the journey, and the people in the canoes would have to listen closely to the water against the boat in order to "feel" the swell and determine where they were. gallery-14...-chart.jpg
Does that also include making more than $12,000 a month online? LOL
Load More Replies... The first escalator was introduced as a novelty ride at Coney Island in 1896. In 1898 one was installed in Harrod's department store. Smelling salts and cognac were offered at the top for those traumatized by the ride. In 1911 an escalator was installed in the London Underground subway. A one-legged man named Bumper Harris was employed to ride the escalator to show everyone it was safe to ride.
Who say you can't be home schooled by computer - I learn so much and probably ask a bunch of stupid questions! But I usually can find the answers in my computer. I think if I was educated by computer I would not be as dumb as I am!
Wish some of these facts would come with a warning. I have new nightmares
