People Are Sharing Uncommon Facts On ‘Today I Learned’, Here Are 40 Of The Most Interesting (New Pics)
You deserve to do something nice for yourselves today, pandas. That might include taking a long, hot bath, doing some relaxing yoga or even exercising your brain by learning something new. And if you don’t have time for a bath or a yoga mat on hand at the moment, why not take ten minutes to pick up some fascinating, fun facts?
We’ve taken another trip to one of our favorite places on the internet, the Today I Learned subreddit, to find out some information that you probably didn’t learn in school but you might still want to know! So enjoy finding out more about history, animals and even our own species, and be sure to upvote the facts that you won’t ever forget!
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TIL about a cat named Room 8 that lived in a public school for 16 years. During his time their he would disappear during the summer and return, like clockwork on the first day of school. He became so well known that poems and songs were sung about him.
In 1968, in a teary farewell, students at Elysian Heights Elementary School bade goodbye to their beloved furry feline friend -- named Room 8, for the room he entered by an open window in 1952. A fixture at the school for 16 years, the celebrity gray-and-white alley cat had posed for countless pictures, including one that was emblazoned on school T-shirts. Room 8, the unofficial school mascot, became the subject of a school mural; a sculpture and several poems etched into the sidewalk in front of the school; a TV documentary called "Big Cats, Little Cats"; and a 1966 illustrated children's book called "Room 8," written by the school principal, Beverly Mason, and teacher Virginia Finley. Royalties from book and T-shirt sales went to the library fund, and a trust fund was set up in Room 8's name at the Los Angeles Orthopaedic Hospital. Students who once decorated his newly dug grave with handpicked flowers have returned to the pet cemetery over the years to say their "hellos."
TIL elderly pedestrians in Singapore get more time to cross the road at traffic lights. By taping their concession card on the crosswalk button, the green man stays lit for up to 13 seconds longer.
TIL Ubisoft offered to share their detailed 3D model of Notre Dame from Assassin's Creed: Unity, some 5,000 hours of research, with the French government reconstruction effort after the fire in 2019.
They offered but it was declined, for a good reason : Notre Dame had already been scanned multiple times by specialists who have much more detailed and technical models of the cathedral. It’s a good gesture by Ubisoft but not really useful.
TIL the Kootenai Indian Tribe of Idaho and Montana harvests millions of dollars of sturgeon caviar a year, but put all the eggs back in the rivers. They are desperately try to save the shrinking white sturgeon population which they believe are “sacred messengers.”
TIL : about the game "Foldit", a puzzle game about protein folding. In 2011, its gamers helped decipher a protein of a HIV-like virus, solving a scientific problem that went unsolved for 15 years in as little as 10 days.
TIL Highway hypnosis, also known as white line fever, is an altered mental state in which a person can drive a car, truck, or other automobile great distances, responding to external events in the expected, safe, and correct manner with no recollection of having consciously done so.
TIL that sharks don’t make sounds. Across 400-500 species, no one has ever found an organ even capable of producing sound.
so they do not make that noise...? der-dunt.... der-dunt.... der-dunt.der-dunt.der-dunt..?
TIL that just before Laika went into space, one of the scientists using her for testing brought her home to play with his children. Knowing that she would not survive her journey.
Aww poor pup! They shouldn't have sent her in space, she died 5-7 hours after take off. She died alone and scared :(
TIL in 2001, Mattel made a vibrating Harry Potter broomstick that led to many questionable Amazon user reviews. They discontinued the toy after adult stores in Times Square started selling them for twice their original retail price.
TIL when Captain Francesco Schettino was asked why he abandoned the sinking Costa Concordia cruise ship in 2012 while the ship’s passengers were either dying or trying to escape, his excuse was that he accidentally fell into a lifeboat. He received 16 years in prison for his role in the incident.
TIL It has been scientifically proven that stroking a cat can lower one's blood pressure.
TIL that three years after winning gold at the 2004 Olympics, wrestler Rulon Gardner and two friends’ plane crashed into Lake Powell Utah. The three men swam an hour to the shore through 44F (7C) degree water to the shore and waited all night without shelter for rescue. All three men survived.
Meanwhile I’m shivering out of my skin because I’m drinking a milkshake with the fan on
TIL that there is a type of octopus, an argonaut, where the male fills its sex organ with sperm, then rips it off and presents it to a female.
TIL about the "Tanganyika-Laughter Epidemic". A student in 1962 in Tanzania started laughing in a school in Kashasha. The laughter quickly spread to hundreds of people, causing schools to close for months. Researchers believe it was caused by stress, social tensions. No official explanation was given.
Apparently these are pretty common. Documented cases from middle ages upto to the latest one that happened in Brazil this year (2023) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_hysteria_cases
TIL that, on 16 November, 1949, students in Ghent (Belgium) stormed the medieval castle, lowered the portcullis and threw fruit from the walls at the police to protest a new tax on beer. The event is still commemorated yearly by the city as the greatest student prank in its history.
TIL that when Johannes Rebmann, the first European to see Mount Kilimanjaro, published his discovery in 1849, it was dismissed as a malaria-induced hallucination because it was believed that snow at this latitude was impossible. It took 12 more years for scholars to accept the mountain's existence.
If the Earth were flat, cats would have knocked everything off by now.
TIL that not only are the mountains on Saturns moon Titan named after mountains and ranges from works J.R.R. Tolkien, but the plains are named after locations from the Dune Universe.
TIL the Black Death contributed greatly to the rise of the British Pub and pub culture. Thanks to the plague, scarcity of labor greatly improved the standard of living for peasants, who in turn spent their extra money on beer.
Ye (the) Olde Fighting C***s pub in the picture is in St Albans in the UK.
TIL. MSG isn’t bad for you and it’s bad reputation stemmed from what’s called the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.
TIL: about Nebraska's "safe haven" law that didn't have an age limit to drop off unwanted babies. A wave of children, many teenagers with behavioral issues, were dropped off. It has since been amended.
That’s both sad and funny and is a pathetic commentary on many levels of our world!
TIL only a slim majority of Americans realize Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
As someone who happens to be Puerto Rican, it makes me just a little sad :,)
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I actually had this conversation with a racist after he made a 'they should go back to their own country' comment. He was quite surprised to hear that this IS their country, and that Puerto Rico is a US territory. (The amount of US History that's taught in public schools is criminally low, and there's no requirement to take any history class that isn't about the US. Also, the US History taught is painfully sanitized and loaded with nationalist propaganda.)
TBF It's usually taught in schools. Not sure where you're getting these "facts" but it was quite required for me to take US and World history classes in public High School. These just aren't exactly the A+ students you're dealing with.
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I think this stems from the fact Puerto Rico sends a team to the Olympics. I remember back when Puerto Rico beat the US basketball team in the Olympics and broke their winning streak. I kept telling everyone it was ironic that they got beaten by their fellow citizens and no one caught on.
More likely reasons are that Spanish is the standard language, Puerto Rico doesn't appear of most maps depicting the United States, the people there "don't look like Americans", and other reasons, mostly deplorable.
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40% of Americans don't believe in evolution. 33% of millennials believe the earth is flat. 63% of young US adults don't know how many Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust. 23% believe the Holocaust is a myth or exaggerated. ----- This is called America's brains on GQP. It ain't drugs destroying the American brain. No eggs and frying pans here. It's good ol' American Republicans screwing around with our education system. Our news. It's an epidemic of brainwashing. And it's only going to get worse unless you get involved, educate your friends & family AND VOTE BLUE.
Holocaust knowledge is not based on state politics, my New York ranks as one of the lowest, just barely above Texas, while Nebraska and Idaho are among some of the highest. https://www.claimscon.org/millennial-study/
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only about 6-7% of Puerto Ricans feel that way in polls. The big debate is statehood or status quo (which some like because no federal taxes).
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Puerto Rico do not feel bad. I was born in Albuquerque and for most of my life people asked me if I was ESL and if I used pesos. Ugh what happened to geography?
A good majority of Americans can't find their home state on a map anyway so don't feel bad.
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Really? Didn't they study history in school? I grew up on the East Coast and had many friends who were Puerto Rican. Figured everyone knew this.
I'd believe it! I've actually met U.S. citizens who think New Mexico isn't a state.
I have too, whenever I tell people I love visiting New Mexico a lot of them say "wow you're brave, isn't Mexico really bad?" It blows my mind.
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That's because the education system in the US is f**ked, and almost useless.
In the immortal words of Stephen Sondheim, "Nobody knows in America, Puerto Rico's in America."
My hubby literally just argued this a couple of wks ago w/ his bff & had to prove when PR was claimed as a territory (late 1800s in case you're wondering).
1899, to be precise, as a result of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Spanish-American War. Guam and the Philippines also became US territories under this treaty.
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Why are American flag manufacturers not lobbying for this? They would make a fortune
Load More Replies... Not just Americans… they are the fun Americans! Every Puerto Rican friend I have and hang around has never let me down on making sure it was interesting.
Allow me to introduce myself, I'm an uninteresting Puerto Rican. Have an adequate evening.
Load More Replies... When I was a high school social studies teacher I would work at Wal-Mart during the summers. Around 2005 I had to go through training in which the company touted its "international" stores, including those in Puerto Rico. :(
Oh, lordy! 🤦🏾♀️ Not an excuse but an explanation, the Walton family hails from Arkansas and we all know how rich and diverse the education systems are in the south.
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Now ask how many realize that Guamanians, American Samoans, and people of the U.S. Virgin Islands are also American Citizens.
There was a news article this week about a woman who was refused boarding on a flight to PR because she did not have a passport. She could not convince the a s s holes that PR is a part of the US and she didn't need a passport. Took them a day to get her on a flight.
Recently, a Puerto Rican person who was detained at a US airport and refused entry because he didn't have a passport. He had a driver's license, he came directly from Puerto Rico and no one believed he was a citizen!
And a slim percent of us citizens recognize people from nebraska as citizens because Nebraska is a democratic hoax
I can think of one specific American who clearly doesn't know this.
A guy was denied a rental car at Hertz because both the clerk and security guard didn't believe him that PR was part of the US and were demanding his passport. He never did get a car, but did get an apology from Hertz (BFD).
TIL See above. Why are we never taught this!? I didn't know this and now I'm ashamed at myself for never realizing it!
I've lived among Puerto Ricans in several cities, and yeah, this is an unbelievable truism. The most recent was the Puerto Rican man who couldn't rent a car because he was a "foreigner". And, per usual, the police made the situation worse.
I grew up there in the 1960s, a white Chicago kid. I had a wonderful time there with the Puerto Rican kids, growing up in a paradise. It infuriates me how poor the education in in the US.
Yet they don't really have the rights, the full rights of a US citizen. Aren't they petitioning for statehood?
Wow people are stupid. I bet they don't know about Guam either.
Trump didn't when he took office... I forget the quote, but they asked for FEMA assistance and he basically said that's only for America. I live in South Florida, and there are plenty of Puerto Ricans here, but I imagine if you're from Iowa you would only know if you paid attention in school, something the average American doesn't do!
It isn't the fault of the students. It's the fault of the people setting the curriculum.
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Personally, I'm surprised that it is a majority at all, considering that there is a non-zero minority that do not realize New Mexico is part of the United States. I was once asked for my Green Card to prove residency when presenting my NM birth certificate to get a driver's license. New Mexico is the only state that puts USA on its license plates.
As a Puerto Rican who still lives in Puerto Rico , I often joke between my peers that Puerto Rico keeps getting bullied to the point that we've been colonized twice (colonized is prob not the correct term for what the US did to us after but it's just part of the joke we do)
I think it’s sad that there are people studying for U.S. citizenship that know more about the U.S. than people born here…..
I have a staff member (works at a different location) who got in trouble for being loud. She called me, said "I'm not being anything but myself here. They can't handle my Puerto Rican-ness!" Love that gal.
And Puerto Rico is not a State. The Congress keeps turning that down. I don’t believe they are allowed to vote.The people in Guam can vote. They have no representative in Congress (meaning they have no say) and are not afforded the same Constitutional Rights as those in the 50 states.
Congress isn't turning it down. The people of PR vote against it every time they are asked to vote for stateht
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Ummmm you do realize América is made of three parts, right? North, central and South America, therefor Puertoricans are in fact Central "Americans". The term American doesn't only belong to the North.
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Bunk! It's only a slim majority of Americans that know any thing. What's yer point?
TIL that when the Bible was first translated into Finnish, there was no word for lion since nobody had ever seen one. The translator instead used the word “jalopeura” which means “noble deer”.
TIL elephants are capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror, which is a sign of self-awareness. Elephants were shown a mirror and their reactions were observed. They went through a series of behaviors, including touching their own bodies and inspecting their mouths.
Many animals pass the mirror test. One of them is my cat! It's notoriously difficult to mirror test cats because they don't care for our scientific endeavours and often just ignore the mirror altogether. About a year ago I was doing some stuff in the kitchen and one of my cats accompanied me. He got a bit too annoying, so stuck a sticky paper to his back. Once he realised I put something on his back and that something wasn't easily coming off, no matter what he tried, he jumped to the open kitchen window and stared into the glass of the window which currently had the kitchen wall behind it, so he could see what was on his back. To do this he needs to know, that he can see himself when staring into a mirror and for this he needs to be aware of himself. I was a very proud cat dad that day
TIL birth rates in the U.S. have dropped more than 20% since 2007.
TIL that when Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed for MLS club LA Galaxy, LeBron James sent him one of his Lakers jerseys as a "welcome to LA" gift. Zlatan's response was to sign it and send it back.
I wouldn't expect anything less from Zlatan! A legend sure, yet unlike the others.
TIL of "Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome" where the body doesn't respond to testosterone so they have the genetic makeup of a man while showing the physical traits of a woman.
I have a relative with this. She's very petite and feminine and only found out when periods didn't start in teen years. Sadly this was in the 60's and she wasn't treated very well by doctors and her parents who made her feel like a freak. Years of mental illness followed as a result. Very sad.
TIL that there are at least 5 species of shark living in the Thames estuary (which runs through London), and that one of those species is venomous.
TIL that out of 400-500 species of shark, the Sand Tiger Shark is the only one known to fart.
TIL that the morning after the Titanic sank, a man on a nearby vessel who was unaware of the sinking photographed an iceberg with a red streak he suspected to be paint from a ship. For years the law firm for White Star Line, the Titanic’s owner, had the original displayed in their office.
TIL: In 1880, the average ages of consent in the US were set at 10 or 12 years old in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7.
TIL that the crew of the sinking Daniel J. Morrell believed they were moments from being rescued, only to discover in horror that the lights were from the stern section of their own severed ship, still under power and barreling towards them.
TIL during its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
TIL Domino's Pizza was unsuccessful in its attempt to expand into Italy, they failed to win over the local Italians as they preferred their local pizzerias.
TIL that the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the continental US occurred in New Madrid, MO, in 1812. It was so violent that the shaking was felt in New York, made church bells ring in South Carolina, and made part of the Mississippi River run backwards.
TIL that in 2002 members of a simulated Mars mission in Utah uncovered an actual dinosaur fossil when on a mock spacewalk.
TIL that Sweden has 267,570 islands, the most of any country in the world.
And it’s part of Scandinavia, which in my mind proves itself as amongst the most functional governments in the world! Dare we call it “socialism?!” God forbid! (Looking entirely at you, USA).
TIL: Castrati were singers who were castrated before puberty to develop a unique voice for singing. They were primarily in church choirs and operas. Italian operas without one would be doomed to fail. The Pope tried to ban them in 1748, but failed as it would drastically reduce church attendance.
"Better to castrate little boys than let women sing in church!" - Vatican logic. The regressive and backwards thinking of the Catholic Church is nothing if not consistent.
TIL Brontosaurus is a valid dinosaur again. As of 2015 it is no longer considered to be the same species as Apatosaurus.
TIL that lower class Germans are stereotyped as giving their children names that sound exotic in German, such as “Kevin.” Prejudice against people with such names is strong enough that the term “Kevinism” was coined to describe it.
TIL in 2012 in Cebu, Philippines, after a 6.9 earthquake struck the city, someone shouted while finding their daughter whose name is "Chona Mae". This was misheard as "Tsunami" and eventually caused a mass panic.
Note: this post originally had 111 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
Interesting thanks. I'd prefer if people put more detail to substantiate their claims, e.g. the country, date, time, context, etc.
One thing a lot of people don't realize is that the frequently quoted "stone-age people only worked 20 hours a week to provide for their basic needs" was the conclusion of a VERY shady and lazy anthropology "experiment" in the UK many, many years ago, involving a professor, his students, and truckloads of food and supplies being shipped to their camping site every week.
I have a degree in anthropology and I've never heard that!
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Huh. I never realized we had the most island in the world. Can that really be true…?
Finally, a BP article with new facts that are actually interesting.
Interesting thanks. I'd prefer if people put more detail to substantiate their claims, e.g. the country, date, time, context, etc.
One thing a lot of people don't realize is that the frequently quoted "stone-age people only worked 20 hours a week to provide for their basic needs" was the conclusion of a VERY shady and lazy anthropology "experiment" in the UK many, many years ago, involving a professor, his students, and truckloads of food and supplies being shipped to their camping site every week.
I have a degree in anthropology and I've never heard that!
Load More Replies... Huh. I never realized we had the most island in the world. Can that really be true…?
Finally, a BP article with new facts that are actually interesting.
