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Curious Facts People Learned By Accident And Can’t Stop Thinking About
We go to school, study further, then learn new things in our chosen careers. But no matter how much knowledge we acquire, there always seems to be space in our brain for more.
Sometimes we gather new information by choice. Other times it comes at us unexpectedly. Like those midnight moments when we're casually scrolling through the socials and a fun fact stops us in our tracks. Next thing, we're going down a rabbit-hole that we never planned to visit, and boom! it's 2am.
There's an entire community dedicated to sharing the facts they just recently learned, so that you too can broaden your knowledge of the world we live in. Today I Learned reads like a virtual encyclopedia, and has more than 5 million curious visitors popping by every week.
Bored Panda has put together our favorite picks from the page, from celebrity tidbits to tech, science, environmental, current affairs and more. Let us know how many of them you only learned today and don't forget to upvote your favorites.
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#1
TIL Dolly Parton is one of the largest employers in her home region of Tennessee (via Dollywood). After the 2016 wildfires, she raised over $9M through her My People Fund, giving 900+ families $1,000/month for 6 months ($10K total each) to rebuild. She was also honored by the FBI for her leadership.
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#2
TIL that Nobel laureate Tu Youyou discovered the malaria drug artemisinin after reading a 1,600 year Chinese medical text and realizing the herb had to be extracted cold, not boiled, paving a treatment estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives. She then tested it on herself to prove it.
#3
TIL that a man in India named Jadav Payeng single handedly transformed a treeless sandbar into a 1,360-acre forest by planting trees over several decades.
#4
TIL when Nintendo's Wii U console flopped, the CEO cut his own salary in half for months instead of laying off employees.
#5
TIL that Eminem, in addition to his biological daughter Hailie Jade, has legally adopted and had custody of Alaina (his ex-sister-in-law's daughter) and Stevie (his ex-wife's child with another father) and he also raised his younger half-brother Nathan.
#6
TIL that Terry Pratchett once changed his German publisher because they inserted a soup commercial into his books, and when confronted about it refused to promise that they wouldn't do it again.
#7
TIL that the "hushed" feeling after a snowfall is due to snow being a great sound absorber. Fresh, fluffy snow absorbs roughly 60% of sound on average, making it comparable to the commercial foams and fibers used inside cars and buildings.
#9
TIL in 1985, as a deliberate snub, the University of Oxford voted to refuse Margaret Thatcher an honorary degree in protest against her cuts in funding for higher education. This award had previously been given to all prime ministers who had been educated at Oxford.
#10
TIL in 2021 an antiques enthusiast bought "an exceptionally rare" 15th century porcelain bowl made in China for $35 from a Connecticut yard sale. The small white bowl "adorned with cobalt blue paintings of flowers" turned out to be one of only 7 such bowls known to exist & sold for nearly $722,000.
#11
TIL Mana Ashida, the Japanese young girl who played young Mako Mori in the 2013 film Pacific Rim, was allowed by director Guillermo del Toro to call him "Totoro-san" after the character in the animated film "My Neighbour Totoro", due to her being unable to pronounce his surname.
#12
TIL that Dolly Parton secretly coproduced Buffy the Vampire Slayer through her company, Sandollar Entertainment. As an easter egg, she and Buffy share the same birthday, which are on January 19.
#13
TIL in 2008, while Red Hot Chili Peppers went on hiatus, bassist Flea - 45 at the time - enrolled as a freshman at the University of Southern California's music program to widen his appreciation and understanding of music.
#14
TIL that most glass ever produced could still be reused today because glass can be recycled infinitely without losing quality.
#15
TIL about the Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Leigh Soto, a teacher at Sandy Hook who hid her students and attempted to redirect Adam Lanza away from her classroom. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizen’s Medal, and Paul Simon performed at her funeral.
#16
TIL Abba is the name of a well known Swedish fish-canning company that formed in 1838. When the Swedish pop group ABBA negotiated with the canners for the rights to the name, the factory gave their permission, saying "O.K., as long as you don't make us feel ashamed for what you're doing."
KarlWhale:
Just to give a bit of context. ABBA are initials of the band members.
But they still had to ask the fish canning company for permission.
#17
TIL in 2024 Bear 32, also known as Chunk, was observed eating 45 sockeye salmon in 10.5 hours from Brooks River in Katmai National Park & Preserve. At an estimated average of 3,000 calories per fish, Chunk consumed around 135,000 calories in that one sitting.
#18
TIL Pierce Brosnan saved Halle Berry from choking on a fig by performing the Heimlich maneuver after she began choking on the fruit while they were in the middle of filming a love scene on the set of Die Another Day (2002).
#19
TIL that in 2024, bots made up a bigger proportion of global internet traffic than humans for the first time.
#20
TIL A man named Cincinnatus was given absolute power to save Rome from an invasion; he did so in just 16 days, then immediately resigned and went back to his farm.
#21
TIL in 2006 Alitalia Airlines accidentally listed the fare for a business-class ticket from Toronto to Cyprus for $39 instead of $3,900. Within hours, over 2,000 people bought tickets. Alitalia honored the fare, costing the airline $7.2M. One of many mistakes on its descent into eventual bankruptcy.
#22
TIL when Simone Biles executed the Yurchenko double pike on vault during the 2023 World Championships, she willingly took a half-point deduction for having her coach stand on the landing mat, ready to step in & redirect her into a safe position if it looked as if she was headed for a "scary landing."
#23
TIL that Leonardo DiCaprio and the crew on his boat helped rescue a man who had been treading water for about 11 hours after falling overboard in the Caribbean Sea.
#24
TIL that in rare instances, the sound of tinnitus is detectable by someone other than the patient by using a stethoscope, in which case it is known as "objective tinnitus."
#25
TIL Mel Gibson was supposed to direct Good Will Hunting after making Braveheart. He developed the movie for months but wanted more time. Damon and Affleck got impatient and said they were aging out of the characters. So they convinced Mel to leave the project and let Gus Van Sant direct it.
#26
TIL in 2024 a 2-year-old girl's blood test revealed that the toddler had a blood alcohol content of .12 after a California restaurant mistakenly served her cooking wine that had been mislabeled as apple juice. The parents took their daughter to the ER after they noticed she had signs of intoxication.
#28
TIL after smallpox was declared eradicated, the sole (official) remaining specimens of the virus were preserved in two designated laboratories globally, one at the CDC in Atlanta and the other at VECTOR in Koltsovo.
#29
TIL that Madonna once leaked her own album on file sharing services but every track was a loop of her swearing at the downloaders. Hackers then took over her official site and posted the actual album.
#30
TIL scientists renamed 27 human genes in 2020 because Microsoft Excel kept auto-converting their names into dates, causing widespread errors in published genetic research.
Gene symbols like SEPT1 and MARCH1 were automatically turned into dates (e.g., “Sep-01,” “Mar-01”) when opened in Excel. These mistakes showed up in supplementary data and even peer-reviewed papers. To stop the damage, the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee officially renamed the affected genes (e.g., SEPT1 to SEPTIN1, MARCH1 to MARCHF1).
A prior study found that around 20% of genomics papers with Excel files contained gene name errors, largely due to this issue.
#31
TIL that Ice T is currently the longest-running male actor in US primetime TV history for his role as Odafin Tutuola on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, a role he has played since 2000.
#32
TIL that scientists discovered a new carnivorous caterpillar in Hawaii that scavenges trapped insects in spider webs and wears their body parts as camouflage.
#33
TIL that in 2017, a Chinese woman received a refund for her new iPhone X after it was discovered that her coworker was consistently able to unlock her phone using the Facial Recognition feature. A replacement iPhone X proved to have the same issue.
#34
TIL Gig Young was originally the actor cast as the Waco Kid in the film “Blazing Saddles”, but Gig Young was an alcoholic and collapsed on set during the first day of filming due to alcohol withdrawal. Director Mel Brooks fired him and replaced him with Gene Wilder.
#35
TIL of Titanic's "Missing Survivors": 30 passengers (2 from 1st Class, 3 from 2nd, 11 from 3rd, and 14 crew members) who survived the disaster but whose lives following the sinking have proved impossible for historians and genealogists to trace, with investigations into their lives still active.
#36
TIL that in the 1960s, Dr Pepper launched a huge campaign to convince people to drink their soda boiling hot. To combat low sales during the winter, they marketed "Hot Dr Pepper" which was to be heated in a saucepan until steaming and poured over a fresh slice of lemon. It was popular until the 80s.
#37
TIL that during the final 24 hours of George Washington's life, his physicians withdrew approximately 80 ounces (2.3 liters) of blood in an attempt to treat his throat infection. This amount represented about 40% of his total blood volume.
#38
TIL that in 1953, Isaac Asimov wrote a story where he predicted that climbing Mount Everest was impossible and that the first human to reach its summit would have to be parachuted. Everest was first successfully climbed one month after he wrote it and 7 months before it was published.
#39
TIL that it's required to speak English to be a commercial airline pilot or air traffic controller.
#40
TIL Harrison Odjegba Okene became a commercial diver who works for the same company that rescued him after he unexpectedly survived 60 hours underwater in a sunken ship.
#41
TIL that Hawaii was internationally recognized as an independent country - the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi - from 1795 to 1893, and later a republic until it was annexed by the United States under President William McKinley in 1898.
#42
TIL in Britney's debut song, "...Baby One More Time", Swedish songwriters Max Martin and Rami, mistook hit for an American slang meaning call (like "hit me up"). So Britney's actually begging for her ex to phone her one more time.
#43
TIL over 3,000 attempts are made each year to complete the Appalachian Trail and only about 25% succeed.
#44
TIL the first gold rush in the U.S. started in North Carolina, when a 12 year old boy found a 17lb nugget on his farm. Not knowing what it was, the boy's father sold it years later to a jeweler for only $3.50. Its true value at the time was $3500.
#45
TIL Orson Welles was only 25 years old when he wrote, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane. Today considered one of the greatest films of all time.
#46
TIL Lego's patent to their brick design ended in 1978, which allowed multiple companies, such as Mega Bloks, to start producing their own 'clones.'
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