35 Fascinating Facts That People Only Learned Now And Just Had To Share With Others (New Pics)
The world is fascinating! For example, just today we found out that people all over the world drink 2.6 billion servings of Coca-Cola every day, which is like 11,000 sodas every second. In fact, we learned this from a cool Reddit group called 'Today I Learned'.
This group has a whopping 32.7 million members who share new fascinating facts they learn every day. From quirky trivia to mind-bending revelations, you might just find some interesting insights in these posts. So, step right in and start scrolling. And don't hesitate to upvote the facts that really caught your attention!
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TIL that MIT will award a Certificate in Piracy if you take archery, pistols, sailing and fencing as your required PE classes.
You might love chatting about things like your job or hobbies, but it's also important to keep adding new interesting facts to what you know. "We all know that it is important to exercise the body, but very little do we talk about the benefits of exercising the mind," says Frank Elaridi, a wellness coach, the co-founder of Modern Nirvana Conference, and co-author of the Modern Nirvana Oracle Deck.
TIL in 1993 a fan at a Chicago Bulls game won a shot to make a basket from half court for $1million and made it. The insurance company disqualified him because he played bball in college but the team paid him themselves and years later he met Michael Jordan who told him "we made them give it to you"
TIL Svalbard, Norway is the only visa-free zone in the world. Regardless of citizenship, anyone can live and work there indefinitely.
Continuous learning is when you keep on learning and gaining skills to grow and open up more chances for yourself. It's about your personal and professional growth to avoid standing still and reach your highest potential.
TIL that the bees of the British Royal Family were informed of the Queen’s death and their hives were adorned with black ribbons, following old traditions of informing bees about change of ownership
TIL the first telephone switchboard operators were boys, but their "rude and abusive" behavior led them to be replaced by young women.
TIL in ancient Egypt, under the decree of Ptolemy II, all ships visiting the city were obliged to surrender their books to the library of Alexandria and be copied. The original would be kept in the library and the copy given back to the owner.
Today, ongoing learning plays an essential role in developing crucial critical thinking abilities and exploring methods of engaging with people from diverse cultures. The idea of not engaging in perpetual learning is not understandable.
TIL Abraham Lincoln was kicked in the head by a horse at age 9, almost severed a thumb with an axe, got frostbite on his feet, clubbed on the head during a robbery, had malaria and smallpox, and experienced the death of his mother, sister, and 2 sons. He suffered from melancholy(clinical depression)
TIL that in 1999, Sergio Motsoeneng ran part of the Comrades Marathon, then went into a mobile toilet to switch places with his twin brother. They won 9th place and the equivalent of about $500, but got caught when a newspaper published photos of them wearing their watches on opposite wrists.
As Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously expressed, "The only thing that is constant is change." Whether it's changes in your profession, shifts in your personal life, or transformations within your community and institutions, one of the best strategies for effectively managing change is through lifelong learning.
TIL: The amount of abs you can attain is purely determined by genetics. While 6 packs are the most common, some bodybuilders such as Schwarzenegger can only attain a 4 pack. This is due to humans being born with different amounts of fascia bands. The most you can have is a 10 pack, which is rare.
TIL In 2003, two men stole & flew a Boeing 727-223 parked at the Luanda International Airport (in Angola) and neither of them was qualified to fly the plane. The plane & the men are missing to date.
TIL Samsung created a butt shaped robot that sits on their phones to test their durability. The robot exerts 220 pounds of pressure on their phones during testing. The robot even wears jeans.
Instead of overwhelming your mind with a load of information in one go, consider taking it easy and aiming to learn something new every day. Learning something new every day can help keep your brain sharp as you get older. It improves your memory, focus, and problem-solving, and might even lower the risk of dementia, says Elaridi. Keeping your brain active is crucial since a lazy brain can struggle to remember words and ideas.
TIL A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus. It rotates incredibly slowly on its axis, taking about 243 Earth days, while it completes an orbit around the Sun in around 225 Earth days.
TIL Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan had to ask fans to stop recreating a scene from the show where a pissed off Bryan Cranston throws a pizza on his roof, because the real life owner of the house was sick and tired of this happening.
The house owner should charge everyone $50 to throw a pizza up onto his roof. It’s a weird way to make a living, but times are tough!
TIL ancient Greeks would irrigate battle wounds with vinegar and honey and then use spiderwebs to keep the honey in the wound
Learning something new regularly keeps your brain sharp and alert. It also fulfills your natural craving for novelty and growth, says Alexis Haselberger, a productivity expert. This daily learning boosts confidence, helps you connect with others, and makes you feel better overall.
TIL: In 1562, Spanish bishop Diego de Landa burned 27 Mayan manuscripts in front of the Maya people of Maní, Yucatan. This was an attempt to erase their memories of their Gods and beliefs so that they were more easily coerced into converting to Catholicism. Today, only four Mayan manuscripts exist.
TIL the youngest person to ever be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease was only 19 years old, with initial symptoms beginning at 17.
TIL in 1642, the people of New Haven, Connecticut were horrified by the birth of a "monstrous" pig with one eye. They became convinced that George Spencer, a local man with one eye, had sex with a pig and was the biological father. He was found guilty of bestiality and executed by hanging.
How about pigs born with two eyes then? Is everyone there guilty of b********y?
Learning doesn't have to be a chore. Have fun with it by choosing topics you like. Wellness coach Elaridi says to go for something that excites you, not just what you think you should learn. If you're not into a topic, you'll probably get distracted or lose interest. So, pick what you're passionate about.
TIL that Irving Berlin is the only Academy Award winner in history who presented the award to themselves. He won for writing ‘White Christmas’, and declared that opening the envelope was extremely awkward. The rules were then changed to prevent this ever happening again.
TIL that at least 4 billion people across the globe wear glasses, and 75% of adults worldwide rely on some sight correction product.
I had laser eye surgery. That was a great decision - no more glasses!
TIL in 1956 Paris and Rome signed an agreement to become twin cities of each other exclusively with the statement "Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris".
I really hope that the olympics will have the same effect on Paris it had on Barcelona. Because Paris could be so much nicer than it currently is.
If you're bored, have free time, or want a change, learning something new can make you feel better in your mind and body. It provides motivation. Picking up a new language, trying out a musical instrument, or tending to a small herb garden can bring you energy, happiness, and a sense of purpose.
TIL that most airlines never use a flight number again if that flight has a fatal crash, except for American Airlines, which keeps using flight #1 despite three major crashes.
TIL that Anne Ramsey, best known for her role in Throw Mama From The Train (1987), her slurred speech was due to operations for her throat cancer and was in pain during the whole production. She was nominated for an Oscar. Sadly she died of her throat cancer 6 months after the ceremony.
TIL that Gal Gadot was five months pregnant while shooting for wonder woman. So, the costume department covered her belly with a bright green fabric that they could digitally alter in postproduction.
One of the learning benefits is that it fights boredom. Doing the same routine daily can become dull and drain your excitement for life. While learning something new requires more effort than simply watching TV, the rewards are plentiful.
TIL that an estimated of 22% of all gold ever accounted for on the earth's surface came from a single plateau in South Africa called Witwatersrand.
TIL Paracetamol overdose is one of the leading causes of acute liver failure
Further paracetamol trivia: Pharmacists/pharmacologists don’t actually know how paracetamol works so if they were trying to get it on the market today it would never be approved.
It also boosts self-confidence, "When you acquire a new skill, your brain's prefrontal cortex becomes more active," explains Dennis Buttimer, a life and wellness coach at Cancer Wellness at Piedmont. "As you progress in mastering this skill, you'll gain confidence and courage, which can help you conquer fear and anxiety. You'll feel more empowered."
TIL about the 2010 book "Barbie: I Can Be A Computer Engineer" and that Mattell apologized for the book after extensive online criticism because Barbie had her male friends code the game she was designing and that her male friends fixed Skipper's computer that Barbie had infected with a virus
Barbie was an astronaut years before NASA employed a woman as an astronaut. And a president when almost no woman was head of state. How much have they regressed that she can't be a competent programmer.
TIL the Majority of Millennials and Gen Z use subtitles when streaming TV
Agreed. I'm Gen X (41 years old) and I ALWAYS use subtitles. I've used subtitles for 20+ years. It stems from the fact that actors don't always speak clearly and I HATE missing/mishearing lines.
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About time those in charge of making TV shows got their act together and realised how bad a job they are doing with the loud action music and the too quiet dialogue. It's not clever and it just frustrates!
This 100%. Music and crashes at volume 11 while dialog is volume 4. And why are so many scenes so dark that you can't make out anything? Shoddy camera work? They don't know how to fake darkness while illuminating the action like those before them were able to do?
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As someone who lives with neighbors, I'd rather play it slightly quietly and have the subtitles confirm what they are saying for me than be a rude loud neighbor.
Nice. I hope all your neighbours are as considerate.
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I would use a torch if it would work as well. It might be "artistic" to use low light and have actors mumble or whisper. But it makes for really bad viewing and entertainment! You want to be artistic, take up painting!
corona masks showed just how much worse my hearing is than I thought. :(
Same here. I realized how much I unconsciously relied on lip-reading.
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I (boomer) use subtitles most of the time and my hearing is great. I got into the habit when my grandkids were living on my property and often would not stop talking during shows / movies. There are some advantages beyond the obvious "old person can't hear" aspect. 1. Often some of the super soft things that don't come across on the soundtrack (maybe with headphones) are included in the captions. The other end of a phone conversation, the person on the other side of the restaurant. 2. If it is a foreign thig - particularly a lot of anime - then the captions are often more literal than the English dubs and it is interesting to see the differences in how they frame things for an English audience. 3. It's a great way for picking up new words even when audio and subs are both 'English". Stuff like if the actor has a heavy accent and is using a lot of local slang (British stuff for example).
here's a long but interesting article about sound in entertainment: https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/. for the record, i'm a 100% subtitles user and have been for as long as they've been available despite not having any diagnosed aural disorders. it's been frustrating watching anything lately bc of poor sound.
I do it because sometimes the volume of some characters talking is too low for me to hear and I don’t want to turn the main volume all the way up and blow out an eardrum when the next scene happens to be an explosion or something.
Does it make me old that I use subtitles when watching standard “live” telly?
I'm so used to having subtitles I can barely understand what's happening when I go to a theater now
Gen X here. I do the same because of working construction, concerts, clubs, and the headphones that came with the original Walkman.
I don't know about the majority, but I always have. Sometimes they don't speak clearly and subs make it so much easier to follow along. (millennial/gen z cusp 2002)
in France, we had very good dubbing actors, some even became quite known. the quality was there. For about fifteen years, it collapsed so the OV remains the best/only option.
My parents live in France and I hate watching tv over there with all the dubbing 🙈 Especially interviews where you can here the original voice and then the french one over it. It's really annoying to me 😅 either silence the original voice or use subtitles 😂 (it's also due to my adhd, the lips and sound not matching bugs me 🙈😅)
Load More Replies... My friend's mum is deaf so she grew up with subtitles, every time she was at my home she would put the subtitles on my TV and I got so used to it that I now can't watch without them.
That's because the morons making TV and films consider other sounds to be more important than the dialog.
Here's a job for AI: make it so subtitles always have max contrast against their background
i've noticed it too...i think it is so they don't have to pay as much attention/can go back and forth b/w the phone and the tv
I do this out of necessity because of the poor quality audio. But it’s a poor experience because you often read what the characters are saying before they say it, spoiling suspense, and I find that I’m not really watching, just reading. Sad that it’s apparently needed for so many.
Mostly because I don't like it too loud do I don't always hear if they're whispering. Plus other sounds and effects, it's annoying to have to go back and turn it up.
Well the voices are too low and muddled to hear. And the action scenes are too freaking loud.
I use it because although my hearing technically isn't terrible, I'm not always able to process fast enough what was said so I'll need subtitles.
That's because we are older now and are losing our hearing. I have been more than half deaf most of my life, so I always relied on reading lips and determining what was said by context and relatability. Now, I am literally 70% deaf - totally deaf in my right ear with a 30% hearing loss in my left.
I'm a gen x that does. It makes sense you read it that way you don't miss dialog.
Not everything to do with hearing poorly. The content is squashed to fit better on the bandwidth or whatever...so the dialogue is distorted and harder to understand. There was an article in The NY Times about it.
I'm Gen X and have been doing it since my early 20's. Of course, this is b/c I hung out with a bunch of guys who would have music playing and the TV on, so muted the TV and put on subtitles.
Now you know why they tell you to turn down the bass in rap music. You go deaf.
If they'd mix the sound properly so vocals weren't drowned out by background noise then maybe they wouldn't need to.
It's because shows and movies have sh#t for sound these days due to directors thinking 'everything can be fixed in post' and productions being more rushed than ever before. TVs also have sh!ttier speakers. The ensh!ttification of everything in late stage capitalism basically. But, also, subtitles are just more available and so the people that need them suddenly have access to them.
It's too bad a lot of amazon's subtitles are minutes out of sync with the video, I think it's because when they added commercials the subtitles kept going while the audio and video got re-qued but it could be another cause.
I was born in 1984 and I've used closed captioning for over 20 years
Not me, unless it's the subbed version of different Japanese animations.
I use them bc of my auditory processing issues. It's hard for me to follow dialogue if I can’t read it
Why? Do they have it on mute? Or are hoping for funny phrases they can screenshot and post?
Readily available and useful for loud atmosphere. I.e. screaming kids
I mean I do but only because of an audio processing issues due to autism
Because the movies are so freaking dark and they whisper dialog and scream every thing else.
I teach English. Sometimes I turn on subtitles because enunciation is not clear or the sound system fades in and out.
This is technically correct. Even though I feel I relate more to Xenials, I am a millennial, (born in 85) and I have subtitles turned on while watching tv. Due to my time in the military I have decreased hearing and tinnitus so rather than have my TV blaring loud, I turn on the subtitles to help fill in the things I missed or confirm what I thought I heard.
No misunderstandings from mumbling accents. Have and had always subtitles on (Gen X)
Started using subtitles when I got addicted to BBC murder mysteries to help with the accent. Never turned them off.
Interesting (I'm a Boomer). I find subtitles distracting because I'm reading them and not watching the action. My hearing is good, and I have a TV that has a setting to make speech more audible, so I keep my volume pretty low. My Gen X son asked me how I could hear it when he was visiting one day. But I did use them when my hearing-impaired husband was alive so he wouldn't keep cranking the volume up to the point it hurt my ears.
Real: https://www.wgbh.org/culture/film-and-tv/2023-08-23/turn-closed-captions-on-why-gen-z-loves-subtitles-on-movies-shows-and-tiktoks
I actually really love subtitles for programmes both in my native language and in my second language and other languages I'm learning. They help me catch things that I have have missed and they are a wonderful way to help learn new words in another language. Nine times out of ten subtitles are NOT going to match 100% was is being spoken (the meaning is still the same) as there are indeed incredibly strict rules about how much text can be displayed on screens at once and for how long.
3 of my siblings and a ton of my friends do this. I totally get it with the way many shows and films are [badly] edited for sound. The dialogue is ten times quieter than everything else.
TBF, I’d rather use sub titles than listen to something dubbed. When the voice and lips don’t sync it freaks me out.
I HATE using subtitles! I want to watch the movie, if subtitles are on I miss most of the actual movie because I can't help but read the text. Drives me bonkers!
I'm Gen X and I watch with subtitles. I have Auditory Processing Disorder, so subtitles help a lot.
Oh! I started about a year ago and assumed it was because of old age, but now I’ll tell people I do it because I’m a millenial! But seriously: I started because one night, I couldn’t hear the dialog and didn’t wanna turn the TV up and bother my neighbors so I put ‘em on and then was horrified when I saw things like “(children giggling in other room),” or “(soft troubling music).” I couldn’t hear those things! I started to wonder what else I was missing. Sure enough, I soon came to understand that the reason many scenes baffled me was because I couldn’t hear the quieter stuff! I’ve left the subtitles on ever since.
I can definitely confirm that. One of the main reasons for me is the fact what sound profile for effects and ambient is usually much louder than of actor speech. Playing with sound bar every few seconds/minutes becoming very annoying very fast therefor subtitles are there to stay for me :)
This! If there are any sound engineers out there, please consider winning an Oscar/Nobel by inventing sound equalisation!
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TIL Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt was allergic to moon dust.
Learning new things every day might help with your health, "Learning is excellent for your brain no matter your age," Buttimer points out. "When you take on a new skill, your brain starts reshaping itself since it remains adaptable. In the past, it was believed that this adaptability lasted only until adolescence. However, current research indicates that the brain can keep changing throughout our lives, and in a positive way. This leads to fewer fear responses and a more positive outlook."
TIL Japan has a ratio of one vending machine for every 30 people.
According to google, in 2023, 123'294'513 people live in Japan. Divided by 30, that means approximately 4'109'817 vending machines. That's a looooooot of vending machined!
TIL the 1 billion smokers in the world contribute to the 880,000 second hand smoke deaths each year from those that do not smoke.
Doctor recently asked me if I smoke - asked if the first 20 years of my life with my heavy-smoking mother counted. He didn't have a response to that.
TIL there are 96 bags of human waste on the moon.
Litter seems to be the calling card of our species, more than leaving a flag behind.
Here's your daily dose of motivation to learn something new each day. To kick things off, you can begin by exploring the fascinating posts on the subreddit r/todayilearned. And if you're hungry for more intriguing facts, don't forget to check out our past posts here, here, here, and here.
TIL that honey bees are *not* endangered
But many other species of bees are. The UK has lost 13 species of wild bee in recent times.
TIL from WTC debris, the structural steel was bought by scrap metal industry and sold to Chinese and Indian second hand metal markets. Several buildings were built with Twin Tower steel across Indian cities, including a college and a trade centre.
Note: this post originally had 43 images. It’s been shortened to the top 35 images based on user votes.
A ‘wellness expert’ (I put quotes around the title simply because this is a very loose term) is quoted in the article, suggesting we study what we are passionate about. A neuroscientist put it differently . That advice is: don’t follow your passion, because passion changes and fails. Instead, study and learn about things that you find interesting.
A ‘wellness expert’ (I put quotes around the title simply because this is a very loose term) is quoted in the article, suggesting we study what we are passionate about. A neuroscientist put it differently . That advice is: don’t follow your passion, because passion changes and fails. Instead, study and learn about things that you find interesting.
