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81 Enlightening Facts People Just Learned When They Were Today Years Old (New Facts)
There are roughly over 7 million English language Wikipedia articles out there, a factoid that you deploy if you need to drop a fun fact, while also a good indicator of just how much information is out there. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that it would take multiple human lifetimes to read every single one. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to learn.
So we’ve once more assembled and collected the most interesting “Today I Learned” facts from the shortest month of the year. Get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and if you have any gems to share, be sure to write them out in the comments section down below.
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#1
TIL after a man fell in the snow in his backyard & broke his neck, his dog helped save his life by keeping him warm and alert by lying on his body and licking his face & hands for 20 hours until a neighbor finally stopped by and rushed him to the hospital. After surgery, he was able to walk again.
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#2
TIL about Odin, a dog who refused to evacuate during the 2017 California wildfires. When his owners returned days later, they found him alive and still guarding his entire flock of 8 goats
#3
TIL that the Switzerlands largest supermarket Migros, doesn’t sell alcohol or tobacco in stores, pays no dividends, caps profits by lowering prices if earnings exceeds 5%, is a cooperative with 2M+ members, and donates 1% of revenue to social projects, purely out of the founders moral philosophy.
Zig Zag Wanderer 9 hours ago
Co-operatives are a perfect way for workers to own the means of production, through capitalism.
#4
TIL Canadians sent 5 tonnes of maple syrup to thank a Norwegian coach who gave a Canadian skier a spare pole after she broke hers mid-race, which led to Canada winning a silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics
Zig Zag Wanderer 9 hours ago
Imagine getting that back though customs in your hand luggage.....
#5
TIL a Dollar General employee who was told she couldn't keep drinks at the cash register was fired after taking and drinking a $1.69 orange juice to stave off diabetic shock. Despite her paying for the orange juice afterward, the company said she was 'grazing'. Later, a jury awarded her $277,565.
Peeka_Mimi 9 hours ago
Walmart is the same way. You cannot "graze." They'd rather have you drop dead.
#6
TIL that the movie “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” was supposed to be rated NC-17 due to excessive profanity, with the f word being used 146 times alone. The MPAA said that 400 or more swear words would get the NC-17 rating, so Matt Stone and Trey Parker cut the number in script to 399
#7
TIL In Portugal it’s illegal for your boss to call outside work hours. The employer must respect the privacy of the worker, including periods of rest and family time. Any violation, it constitutes a serious offense and could result in a fine.
#8
TIL that Kansai International Airport in Japan reached its 30th year of service without having ever lost a single piece of luggage.
#9
TIL 7-year-old Bonnie Lohman went to the store with her stepdad & saw her own face on a milk carton. She asked to keep the image & was allowed to on the condition she kept it a secret. However after her neighbors saw the image & reported it, she learned that her mom had kidnapped her when she was 3.
#10
TIL students invented a low-cost "invisibility coat" that hides the wearer from AI security cameras. It uses a camouflage pattern to trick visual recognition during the day and emits unusual heat signals to confuse infrared sensors at night.
#11
TIL that as a child, Charles Dickens worked 10-hour days in a London boot-blacking factory - a trauma he later called the deepest shame of his life, but one that forged his strict 9–2, five-hour writing discipline and his life-long refusal to let his own children work.
#12
TIL a Burger King cook (who'd worked there for 24 years) was fired for taking home a sandwich, fries & a drink after her manager claimed she had only asked permission for a sandwich & accused her of stealing. However, a judge ruled that the cook did not intend to steal the food & awarded her $46,000
#13
TIL that playing high-level chess causes players to burn calories at an athletic rate. For example, 21-year-old Grandmaster Mikhail Antipov was recorded burning 560 calories in just two hours of sitting—roughly what Roger Federer would burn in an hour of singles tennis.
#14
TIL in "Cast Away", none of the sound on the island scenes is real. The loudness of ocean waves on the actual unhabited island they were filming on was so overwhelming that every sound on the island and ocean scenes, including Tom Hanks' monologues, were carefully recorded in a studio.
Science Nerd 7 hours ago
Same with the Star Trek shows. The sliding doors make so much noise that the conversation has to be dubbed in.
#15
TIL about the Matilda effect. It's a phenomenon where the achievements of women scientists and inventors get attributed to men.
#16
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.
General Anaesthesia 5 hours ago
The longest-running actor, female or male, is Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson in the same series since 1999.
#17
TIL the Australian Olympic breakdancer Rachael Gunn (Raygun) threatened legal action against an Aussie musical about her because the musical planned to use her stage name and "kangaroo hop" dance move. The musical continued after changing the characters' name to Sprachel Gunn, AKA Spraygun
#18
TIL the actor who played Furio in the Sopranos spotted an incorrectly labeled painting at an auction. He purchased it for $68,000 and later had it correctly appraised for $10 million.
#19
TIL that a mummified carrier pigeon discovered in a UK chimney in 1982 was carrying an encrypted D-Day message from 1944 that has never been decoded. Britain’s intelligence agency is still seeking the public’s help in deciphering it.
tom (bat/man) 5 hours ago
the code was "If you find this message after the war is over the pigeon has probably flown into a chimney and died"
#20
TIL that up until the past year, Oscar judges DID NOT have to watch the movies they were giving the awards to.
#21
TIL Fred Collins went to visit his brother at the Straight Inc. program, a teen rehab, but before he was allowed to, he was "screened" for any substance issues. After he admitted smoking the devil's lettuce, they held him against his will for 10 months before he finally escaped. He then sued them & was awarded $220,000
Upstaged75 8 hours ago
What the heck?? How did they get away with that? No one missed him? Or called the police?
#22
TIL ... about the Rice Hypothesis which posits cultures that engaged in wet rice farming that requires coordinated irrigation and synchronized planting tend to be collectivist while wheat farming cultures evolved to be more individualistic.
#23
TIL a man forgot that he had stashed $100,000 inside a 1980s TV set until the cash was returned to him 30 years later after a recycling plant worker dismantled the TV and found it. The man had forgotten the cash was inside the TV when he gave it away to a family friend many years earlier.
Upstaged75 8 hours ago
Lucky the worker was an honest person. I can't say I would have done the same......
#24
TIL before 9/11, US airports were public social hubs where you could walk to the gate, eat at food courts, and watch planes without a ticket or ID.
#25
TIL that in 2011, a woman drowned and remained at the bottom of a busy Massachusetts public pool for two days, hidden by cloudy water
#26
TIL about the "McEmbassy." Every McDonald’s in Austria has a 24-hour hotline to the US Embassy to help American travellers who are in distress or have lost their passports.
#27
TIL about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, a hypersensitivity to the fear of being rejected by others, which is commonly connected to ADHD.
#28
TIL Takeru Kobayashi retired from competitive eating because he says he no longer feels hunger or fullness.
Upstaged75 8 hours ago
I don't ever feel hunger. It's due to scar tissue in my esophagus from surgery. He probably damaged his as well. And it's not as great as it may sound. I can go all day without eating, but then I get cravings and pig out at night. It's not particularly healthy.
#29
TIL a woman nicknamed the 'Rooftop Ninja' lived for about a year inside a sign on the roof of a Family Fare grocery store in Midland, Michigan. Inside the sign, she had a computer, printer, desk, and coffee maker. She was discovered by a contractor who noticed an extension cord running into the sign
#30
TIL that "black boxes" on airplanes are legally required to be orange.
#31
TIL that an Englishman named Collingwood Ingram helped reintroduce an extinct Japanese cherry tree after recognizing it in a painting, having seen the same tree growing in England
#32
TIL in 2011 an emperor penguin named Happy Feet arrived in New Zealand after swimming about 2K miles from Antarctica. He is the second emperor penguin ever to be found in NZ (first was in 1967). At the beach he ate sand, likely mistaking it for snow, and needed 4.4 lbs of it removed from his stomach
#33
TIL Peter Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin was extremely pleased with how the film came out, got along well with the cast, and his only regret was that his character passed and he couldn't appear in the sequels.
#34
TIL that Cancún didn’t exist until 1970, its location was chosen using early computer models to identify a suitable place for a new resort city. The area had only three residents at the time.
#35
TIL we know where China’s first emperor is buried, but his 2,200-year-old tomb—described as containing a scale model of China with rivers of mercury—has never been opened.
Kira Okah 5 hours ago (edited)
The mercury levels in the local air and soil are a definite "keep away" note. Also China is avoiding opening any more royal tombs, given how badly they botched up the prevous attempt (which not only damaged the tomb/artefacts/bodies, but left the place accessible during the Cultural Revolution, where drunk red guards destroyed several artefacts and burned the bodies of the Emperor and two Empresses).
#36
TIL the “Invisible Gorilla” experiment which fooled most people. In a famous 1999 study, participants watched a video of people passing a basketball and were asked to count passes. Midway through, a person in a gorilla suit walked through the scene and half of participants didn’t notice the gorilla.
#37
TIL that Stellen Skarsgard suffered a stroke in 2022, which affected his memory. Because of this, he had been forced to wear an earpiece with his assistant feeding him his lines for his recent films.
#38
TIL two studies both found that most people stop listening to new music in their early 30s. A 2015 study of people's listening habits on Spotify found that most people stop listening to new music at age 33 and a 2018 report by Deezer found it be to at age 30.
FlamingoPanda 6 hours ago
Seems to be a bit of bias in the studies based on how Spotify handles playing songs as well as a lot of ambiguity in the term new. Although many do keep listening to the same few bands there are definitely lots of people around who happily listen to a wide range including new music.
#39
TIL that salted raw celery used to be the third most popular dish on New York menus and more expensive than caviar due to issues with growing it.
#40
TIL that in 1994, an American teenager in Singapore pled guilty to stealing road signs and vandalizing cars. He was sentenced to 6 lashes of a cane, which was reduced to 4 after media outrage in the US
Liliana Spiro 1 hour ago
Out of curiosity I did a quick web search and found the following: "Judicial caning remains a legal and active form of corporal punishment in Singapore for various crimes, including immigration offenses, vandalism, robbery, and d**g trafficking. It is a mandatory sentence for certain offenses, with up to 24 strokes for adult males aged 18-50. New laws as of late 2025 have extended its use to scammers".
#41
TIL that curry was brought to Vietnam by French colonisers when they also colonized Pondicherry in India. Curry was adapted to Vietnamese tastes by adding coconut milk and lemongrass.
#42
TIL that “42% Of People Don't Know Potato Chips Are Made From Potatoes”, thanks to a survey by Lay’s parent company, and as a result “Made With Real Potatoes” is now printed on the bags.
#43
TIL about a soda machine offering 'mystery' drinks operated for nearly 20 years, but no one knew who operated it or kept it stocked.
#44
TIL that in the 16th century, Spain discovered a mountain of almost pure silver in Bolivia (Potosí). They mined so much of it that they accidentally caused massive hyperinflation across Europe, making their own currency worthless and bankrupting the Spanish Empire multiple times.
#45
TIL that moon dust (lunar regolith) is electrically charged and will stick to anything it comes into contact with. It's also likely toxic to humans. Apollo astronauts regularly complained of coughing, watery eyes, throat irritation and blurry vision after each foray onto the moon's surface
Robert Trebor 8 hours ago
When they came back inside they brought me dust with them on their suits. Couldn't change on the ladder. Probably got into the air conditioning equipment.
#46
TIL Weird Al was set to a series of Star Wars parody sketches where he would interact with the movie via green-screening, but Mark Hamill refused to allow usage of any footage with him in it, despite already getting approval from Lucas and Alec Guinness, so the idea was scrapped
#47
TIL of the "sterile cockpit" or "sterile flight deck" rule. When an aircraft is operating during a critical phase of the flight (anytime they're below 10,000 feet), the crew is only allowed to engage in conversation related to the safe operation of the aircraft
Did I say that out loud? 8 hours ago
That's because,on too many occasions,the flight crew weren't concentrating on their jobs resulting in the plane crashing, often with loss of life.
#48
TIL some dogs have shown spontaneous empathy in Harvard lab experiments, approaching and trying to “help” humans who pretended to be in pain.
Smeghead Tribble Down Under 8 hours ago (edited)
Harvard lab experiment? OP clearly has never had a pet. My cat does this, all the dogs and cats I've ever had have done this, I once had two female ferrets who would lose their crazy little minds if I laid on the floor and pretended to ignore them (they thought there was something wrong) They'd dig madly at my hands, and lick and nip any bit of skin they could find until I got up.
#49
TIL during a menstral cycle, the entire uterine lining can shed in one large piece that resembles the uterus. This is known as a decidual cast.
Upstaged75 8 hours ago
It sounds awesome if that's all you bleed for the whole month. Although it also sounds horrifying. 😫
#50
TIL The 2021 Razzie Awards had a special category for "Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie," with all eight of his performances that year being nominated. Four days after the awards ceremony, Willis' family announced his aphasia diagnosis.
#51
TIL Kidney (and other organ) donations typically do not last the rest of the patient’s life. ~50% of transplant organs fail within 10 years.
Science Nerd 6 hours ago
But without the transplant, would the recipient have lasted 10 years?
#52
TIL Christopher Columbus made significant errors in estimating the distance to Asia. If the Americas didn't exist, then he'd have ran out of food and passed long before reaching Japan.
Upstaged75 8 hours ago
Are they still teaching kids that he "discovered America"? (America as in the US) I know they changed Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day. (in the US)There's a joke about celebrating Columbus Day by walking in to a stranger's house and telling them that you live there now. 😁
#53
TIL when South Korean students take their college eligibility test every November, day-to-day operations are halted or delayed on test day. Shops are shut, banks close, even the stock market opens late. Most construction work halts, planes are grounded and military training ceases.
#54
TIL Apple recently paid $95 million because Siri was caught eavesdropping on private conversations, like doctor visits and illegal deals, then sending those recordings for human contractors to listen to. Siri was triggered not just by "Hey Siri," but by phrases that sounded similar like "seriously."
Zig Zag Wanderer 9 hours ago
I don't let any 'assistants' at all on my phone. Never will if I can help it.
#56
TIL that people consistently underestimate how much their personality will change in the future, a bias known as the “end of history illusion.”
#57
TIL that human bone is as strong as steel but 50 times lighter. Pound for pound, our bones are actually 4 times stronger than concrete.
Tea Drinker 4 hours ago
Is this the beginnings of an environmentally sound alternative building material? Cuz ew.
#58
TIL that one of the reasons why trash cans are scarce in Japan is due to the 1995 Sarin Gas Attack where the Aum Shinrikyo cult hid Sarin Gas - a toxic chemical - in trash cans at Tokyo subway. In response, many public trash cans were removed as a precautionary measure to prevent similar attacks.
#59
TIL that out of the six Marines depicted in the iconic “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” photo, only three of them would survive the battle.
#60
TIL French scientist Étienne Klein was criticized after sharing a fake image of Proxima Centauri that turned out to be chorizo
#61
TIL Elijah Wood revealed in a 2021 interview that he still hadn't finished reading The Lord of the Rings
Gingersnap In Iowa 9 hours ago
I think 🤔 that "extra credit" project he did should help his final grade.
#62
TIL Dr Pepper is not a cola, root beer, or fruit-flavored soft drink, but instead belongs to its own category called "pepper sodas", named after the brand itself
#63
TIL Even though Pedialyte is marketed towards children, over a third of sales come from adults with hangovers.
Upstaged75 8 hours ago
The only time I've seen it advertised in the last few years is to adults. Hangovers are the theme of the commercials. 😂
#64
TIL that there was a popular myth in many muslim majority countries that Neil Armstrong had converted to Islam upon hearing the call to prayer on the moon, going as far to require the US state department to issue a denial
#65
TIL that 44% of the world's adult population has never consumed alcohol
Zig Zag Wanderer 9 hours ago
I'm betting a lot of Indians, Muslims and Chinese are on that list
#66
TIL that Magnus Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players of all time, has never lost 3 or more classical chess games in a row in his adult professional career. The last time he lost 3 games in a row was in 2003, when he was 12.
#67
TIL about the concept of "gardening" in the field of cryptography: acting in such a way as to induce your enemy to send messages containing a known string, to assist in decryption.
#68
TIL that under a law called the Berry Amendment, the U.S. Military is legally required to ensure 100% of its clothing is made in America. Every stage of production, from the raw cotton or wool to the zippers, buttons, and even the thread, must be 100% U.S. sourced and manufactured.
#69
TIL that people who sleep on their left side report nightmares more frequently,while right side sleepers tend to experience calmer,more pleasant sleep.
#70
TIL: The fastest mile by a human is 3.28.36 minutes on a down hill asphalt course in New Zealand by Kenyan Mike Boit.
Sally Moen 5 hours ago (edited)
I read a book about the running training done by Kenyan sprinters. Running is a really popular sport for folks there, and alot of them start out running barefoot, which trains the feet to go faster in a more natural way, and the runner keep the stance even when wearing shoes.
#71
TIL an audit at the University of North Carolina found that one of its most reliable servers had been walled off for 4+ years without anyone even noticing
Sally Moen 6 hours ago (edited)
I'm at first confused as to why they would wall off a waiter, like in an Edgar Allen Poe story. Then I realized it's a computer server
#72
TIL in 1996 a 37-year-old woman survived after she crushed a whole black widow spider, mixed it with 10 mL of distilled water and then injected the mixture intravenously. One hour later she presented to the ER complaining of severe, generalized muscle pain & cramping, a headache, and anxiety.
#73
TIL Family Guy was cancelled - then later revived because DVD sales were unexpectedly huge
#74
TIL that Detroit, once America's 5th largest city at 1.85 million residents in 1957, saw 66 straight years of population loss to a low of 630,000 residents in 2022. This makes it the only US city to drop below 1 million after reaching it. It would see its first reversal of this trend in 2023.
#75
TIL the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States are less than 100 miles apart.
Upstaged75 8 hours ago
The highest is Mount Whitney and the lowest is Badwater Basin. Both in California.
#76
TIL: Nickelback's How You Remind Me was the most played song on US radio that decade. It was played over 1.2 million times on the radio between when it was released in 2001 to the end of 2009
#77
TIL that rapper J. Cole graduated high school with a 4.2 GPA and graduated college magna cum laude, in 2007, with a 3.8 GPA
#78
TIL about 85% of the dialogue in This Is The End (2013) was improvised, whereas, around 95% of the dialogue in Superbad (2007) came directly from the script. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg cowrote both movies together.
#79
TIL that in 2013, Jennifer Lopez became the first major Western star to perform in Turkmenistan, one of the most repressive countries in the world, to sing "Happy Birthday" to its leader.
#80
TIL Katy Perry’s halftime performance at Superbowl XLIX that saw the Seahawks and the Patriots face off in 2015, was seen by more people then the general game itself.
#81
TIL about the Kumari of Nepal, young girls who, before their first period, are worshiped as living goddesses. The girl chosen to be the Kumari of Patan (the most important Kumari except for the royal Kumari) in 1953 never had her period and served until 1984, when she was replaced against her will.
Multa Nocte (she/her/86 47) 8 hours ago
"A Kumari is considered to be the living embodiment of the goddess Taleju (a form of devi Durga), the venerable powerful manifestation of divine woman power, ingraining Hindus and Buddhists to treat their females, mothers, sisters, wife and daughters with respect as goddess." --> Wiki
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