Today is a brand new day and before it turns into yet another small and insignificant spot somewhere in a 365-day bender, there’s time to make it worthwhile. So today, we baked you a special treat of a list that features some of the most entertaining facts you probably didn’t know.
Thanks to our dear friends and the powerhouse of Reddit, “Today I Learned,” we have quite a read to scroll through right below. The group’s whopping 26.2 million members prove that too many of us love that sense of discovery, no matter how big or small it be. And often all it takes is one specific fact to pump up your trivia muscle!
After you're done, be sure to check out our previous TIL posts here, here and here.
This post may include affiliate links.
TIL 110 years ago Dr Charles Campbell constructed 30 feet high bat roost to fight malaria. Bats that lived in the roost ate the mosquitoes and Mitchell's lake municipality was malaria-free in 4 years.
The best thing about England is the number of bat species we have, and they're all protected so leave them the heck alone!!
We have bats here. On a summers evening they fly about, it's fantastic and they eat the bloody mozzies.
Load More Replies...I had bats living in my attic, but I put a new roof on the house, and now I have bat boxes scattered around. Where I live, I had to wait until after bat breeding season to put the new roof on. I love them. We need to save them, and the bees.
So you have bats in your belfry? I love it 😹🤣😹🤣😹
Load More Replies...Totally organic pest control. The bats got plentiful food, and the people got a break from malaria. The only ones on the short end of the stick were the mosquitoes—-but they WERE carrying malaria, so if someone had to go, it was them.
I saw a dead bat on the pavement a few days ago. Never seen a random dead bat in the street before. I felt so sad about it.
That's not normal. I hope you reported it, it needs to be tested for Rabies, etc. I really hope that no kids found it, or someone's pet.
Load More Replies...I learnt about bat boxes just last week from the Alaskan bush people. Pretty good idea.
I'm always ecstatic when I hear the "fweep fweep" of bats in my yard.
I love freaking people out by calling bats to us, it's easy at dusk.
Load More Replies...If it weren't for bats, we would be overrun by insects. It's said that it's their world and we're just guests. We were really lucky to get One Badass, Bug Biting Flying Mammal! 🦇
I once had to usher a flock of hysterical aunts and cousins of my husband's out of a Palace chamber when a bat flew in at dusk. Everyone was screaming and mowing their arms around because of a bat, the whole thing was hilarious. Poor bat though, it had simply got lost and was confused. I ushered the hysterical in-laws out, closed the doors, turned the lights off and opened all windows. Bat was out in no time. Great memories.
That's how I learned I had bats in my attic... they started showing up in the house, much to the delight of the cats. I had to usher the bats into a bed room where I could close them in and let them find their way out thru open windows
Load More Replies...As a youngster, I would lay in the grass, watching hundreds of bats swarm the sky. We appreciated these little creatures since we lived in a heavily wooded swamp. Many years later I lived in a marshy area, so I put up several bat roosts on the outbuildings in my yard.
Mosquito-eating fish are good little friends to have around too, just need some water.
Betcha some people thought Dr. Campbell was batty! Turns out he wasn't they were!
If only I had a pet bat last night before some dumb mosquito tried to eat me *written while scratching the bites
I live in Central London and always get excited when I see bats from my kitchen window at dusk.
I live in northern Alabama (USA) and my neighborhood has lots of trees, and lots of bats live in the trees! Every night we can go outside and see bats flying about, looking for bugs to eat :)
I used to see bats at night when I lived in Bangkok.
Load More Replies...I wonder if they waited for it to be populated by bats naturally or if they sent away for fancy bats.
It's always better to encourage native animals. Shipping in non-native, invasive species has been amply proven to be a terrible idea. Ask Australia.
Load More Replies...So do dogs, cats, cattle, raccoons, skunks, foxes, people, etc...
Load More Replies...TIL that the first child protective services organization in the world was created after the founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals realized laws protecting animals from abuse were stronger than laws protecting children
First child cruelty case in the UK was prosecuted under animal welfare legislation.
TIL Mexico was the only country to protest the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. To honor that support, there is a square in Vienna named "Mexikoplatz"
TIL about a man who shot a protected saguaro cactus down with his shotgun in 1982. The cactus fell on him, crushing and impaling him to death.
TIL that in 2013, Star Wars was dubbed into Navajo, making it the first major motion picture translated into a Native American language
Depressing it took so long! We need to keep older languages alive. Moana was released in Tokelauan, and there are songs that were never translated into English to encourage natives to keep their language alive.
TIL that the song "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" by the artist Skrillex was observed as a mosquito repellent due to its low-frequency vibrations. The scientists also found that mosquitoes exposed to the song had sex "far less often" than other mosquitos without music.
TIL The British army breaks step when crossing bridges. This is because in 1831 a suspension bridge collapsed from all the soldiers marching in unison.
TIL that the FTC actually recommends against organizations using regular password changing policies as it only encourages users to use simple, easy to remember passwords that they then only alter in predictable ways.
TIL that in China 209 BC two generals were going to be late which was punishable by death. They realized that the punish for rebellion was the same as the one for being late, so they decided to rebel and created an uprising.
They're not general but just low level officer. Their names are Chen Sheng & Wu Guang (surname first). Their revolt was suppressed in just 6 months.
TIL that Enya lives in a castle in Ireland, and when Bo Burnham wanted to include Orinoco Flow in his film, he had to send her a hand written letter
TIL of Lady Lucy Houston, a British philanthropist who, after WWI, recognized the need for a strong Air Force... when the British government refused, she funded development of what became the Spitfire. She passed before WWII, and never saw how much that investment paid off.
TIL that a guy drove 3.25 million miles with his Volvo that he bought in 1966 until his death in 2018
TIL, While alcohol made from apples is called cider, alcohol made from pears is called "Perry"
TIL: President Nixon, wife Pat, and Henry Kissinger took lessons and practiced for months to learn to use chopsticks properly, in preparation for the dinner banquet on his visit to China in 1972
TIL that Filipino churches built during Spain's colonial period used millions of egg whites in the concrete to make it more durable. This is also why Filipino desserts often use lots of egg yolks- many were developed to use up all the extra yolks from construction projects
On the other hand, monasteries used a lot of egg yolk for their manuscripts and had to create recipes with the white, which is why we have meringue, macarons, and other sweets with a lot of egg whites.
TIL James Blunt(singer) developed scurvy in university when he ate only meat for two months 'out of principle' to annoy vegetarian classmates
He added orange juice to his diet to try to combat it and got acid reflux. Balance in diet is important!!!
TIL the sex of alligator hatchlings is based purely on temperature while incubating. At 86F or lower, the babies will all be female; at 93F or higher, they will all be male. The mother can sense these changes in temperature and will alter the nest to maintain an optimum temperature.
TIL The Vatican has its own telescope staffed by priests, and has previously been given awards for the pursuit of scientific research.
TIL that in 1939 an experiment was conducted at the University of Iowa on orphans in which the purpose was to induce stuttering in otherwise normally speaking children. Dubbed the "monster study", it caused lifelong psychological issues in some of the subjects.
TIL David Lucas, a producer of the 1976 rock hit "Don't Fear The Reaper", really did want more cowbell, while band members felt he was crazy. In a 2005 interview, the bassist recalled that the cowbell "really pulled the track together".
TIL of garden hermits, people encouraged to dress as druids and live in caves and grottoes on the estates of rich people effectively as decoration in the 18th century, usually receiving room and board as payment. One such hermit was fired three weeks into a seven year term after being found drinking at a local pub.
TIL that Stalin struggled with depression and summoned renowned Russian psychiatrist Vladimir Bekhterev to examine him. After the examination Bekhterev said only one word - "paranoiac". He died on the very next day from what most believed was poisoning.
"I have a feeling people don't like me, it's not like I ban them from speaking their minds and send them to gulags to freeze or work to death if I don't like what they say."
TIL A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus. It takes Venus longer to rotate once on its axis than to complete one orbit of the Sun. That's 243 Earth days to rotate once, and 225 Earth days to complete one orbit of the Sun.
Pretty sure Mercury is the same. Conversely, a lunar year and a lunar day are identical which is why we always have the same side facing us
Today I learned Charlie Chaplin didn't actually have a mustache, it was a part of his makeup.
Unlike Cesar Romero who did have a mustache that Ben Nye attempted to hide under makeup. (Cesar Romero played the Joker in the original TV Batman series.)
TIL there is a full taxidermed whale in a Swedish museum that was open to the public until a couple was caught making love inside it (1930's)
TIL pepperoni is an American invention. It's similar to the spicy salamis of southern Italy, but it also has elements characteristic of German sausages (smokiness, beef content, and fine grind). In Italian, "peperoni" just means "bell peppers".
In Germany, 'peperoni' is used for something similar to chili peppers. For years, when I read about 'peperoni pizza' I believed it was just a pizza with a whole lot of chili.
TIL ancient Egyptians would give opium to quiet crying babies. This practice was also a popular way to calm babies in the Victorian era, but it sometimes caused infants to starve to death as they were kept in a constant state of narcotism.
TIL that half of all panda births result in twins, however, it is very rare for both cubs to survive as giant pandas almost always abandon a cub if they give birth to more than one
I saw a Youtube video about this! Chinese scientist were trying to keep alive both babies, so they switched them up in regular intervals. The bear mama only had one baby at her at all times, while the other one was in incubator and nursed by caretakers, and then switch so both babies would get mama love and milk.
TIL that the opossum and the possum are not the same animal. The opossum lives in North America and the possum lives in Australia and SE Asia. While they are both marsupials, they belong to different orders. An example of a possum would be the sugar glider, which weighs less than 5 ounces.
TIL that in 1457 golf was banned in Scotland by king James II, because he felt that young men were playing too much golf instead of practicing archery. It remained in banned until 1502, when James IV became a golfer.
But...............HEAR ME OUT! What if they use a golf ball made of metals..........so that when the enemies comes, the can swing the golf to the enemies.
TIL President Nixon ordered the Secret Service guarding the White House to have fancy uniforms similar to what palace guards wear in other countries. Revealed in 1970, almost no one liked the new uniforms, including the US Secret Service agents. The uniforms were sold to an Iowa Marching Band.
TIL that James Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, developed a new proof for the Pythagorean theorem while discussing math with some members of Congress. His proof was published in a peer reviewed journal
TIL According to a 2011 study, SpongeBob is messing with the memory retention of children, impairing their “readiness for learning.” Findings show that allowing preschoolers to watch the series causes short-term disruptions in mental function and attention span due to frequent camera cut scenes.
That’s an interesting info. So what‘s a good alternative for young children? Dora the explorer? Or that puppy show that‘s currently so popular? (A lot of shows targeted at young children are educational in some way, but I have no idea which of these have frequent camera cut scenes. Doesn’t seem like something you can simply google, either.)
TIL the most expensive first class tickets on the Titanic were $4350 (or £870) in 1912 money. That's over $100,000 today.
TIL In 1888 Alfred Nobel (of Nobel Prize fame) was astonished to read his own obituary titled "The merchant of death is dead". Actually it was his brother Ludvig who died but the article disconcerted Nobel about how he would be remembered and inspired him to change his will.
TIL: According to Dan Aykroyd 80 percent of the dialogue of Ghostbusters was improv. "The rest was just structure and exposition."
TIL drawings of battles between knights and snails appear in the margins of many texts from the 13th and 14th centuries. There is no known explanation for the meaning behind this recurring depiction.
TIL that during Civil War, the North blockaded salt imports and destroyed salt mines in the South to sabotage food preservation. The food shortages resulted in general unrest and contributed to surrender.
Pretty standard old-style warfare, why do you think castles in europe stockpiled food and had a well?
TIL a quantum logic clock at the Univ. of Colorado Boulder is so accurate, it would not lose 1 second in 33 billion years (about 2.5 times the age of the universe)
TIl an english garbage man won the lottery for 10 million pounds (25 mill USD in today's money), lost all of it then 8 years later reapplied for his old job as a garbage man.
TIL Nokia 1100 phone, originally sold for under $100, reached the price of over $32,000 in 2009 as criminals discovered that it can receive SMS messages for another phone number, thus allowing to intercept sensitive information like one-time passwords for online banking
I just looked this phone up and found one for sale for .£14.90. Looks like the robbers were robbed😁
TIL that "granny style" is the most efficient throwing technique for free throws in basketball. The only reason no one does it seems to be because the players are afraid of ridicule. There is no rule against it.
Yep, makes you look like an idiot, but much more effective and accurate
TIL that the Beatles’ final concert for a paying audience wasn't sold out, leaving over 15,000 unsold seats, largely because no one realized it would be their last concert appearance.
I mean, any performance could be a group's last. I'm always a bit sceptical when groups advertise as their last tour, cause there's nothing to stop them changing their mind later.
TIL Elizabeth Ann is a black-footed ferret, the first U.S. endangered species to be cloned. The animal was cloned using the frozen cells from Willa, a black-footed female ferret who died in the 1980s and had no living descendants.
TIL it only takes the average person 10-20 minutes to fall asleep
My partner can fall asleep in minutes. I take hours and get up frequently.
TIL A group of engineering students from Purdue University reported that its licking machine, modeled after a human tongue, took an average of 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
TIL kamikaze pilots weren't 100% volunteer. Pilots were asked to put their hand up in a big group if they didn't want to volunteer. Amid peer pressure, hardly anyone was able to say no to the mission.
It was much more than peer pressure. It was their culture of being courageous and not chicken out. They could die with great honor or as a coward without a face, which would also bring shame on their family.
TIL That the US Army tradition of naming helicopters after Native American Tribes (something that was once an official regulation) dates to 1947 and General Hamilton Howze who felt that helicopters were meant to attack the flank and fade away...in the tradition of the Plains Indian tribes.
Instead of spreading diseases, committing genocide, and pillaging native lands, in the tradition of almost all European armies and their descendants in the past.
TIL Bruce Springsteen's mother would rent him guitars for $6 a week in 1957. Springsteen bought his first guitar as a teenager in 1964 for $18.95. Later on, his mother would take out a loan to buy him a $60 Kent guitar.
I had to read this more than once to figure out that she was paying to rent a guitar FOR him.... not that she owned a guitar and was charging HIM rent to use it. 🤣
TIL that a man bet his friend that he could make any house famous. To accomplish this, he wrote thousands of letters requesting services at 54 Berners Street. So many people showed up on the day that parts of London were shut down. The man (who watched it unfold from across the street) won the bet.
TIL that submarines use a generator to extract oxygen from water using electrolysis.
TIL Anchorage, Alaska, is almost equidistant from New York City, Tokyo, and Frankfurt, Germany (via the polar route), and lies within 10 hours by air of nearly 90% of the industrialized world
Cargo airplane hub. Strange to be at an airport where cargo planes outnumber passenger planes by a lot!
TIL that there are actually fireflies all along the west coast of the U.S.; they just prefer to be active during the day.
TIL that Smarties candy was originally made with machines that were built to make gunpowder pellets for ammunition during World War I.
And where I come from "Smarties" are sugar coated chocolate treats, pretty much M&Ms without the letters on them. And yet we also have these little sherbet pellets like in the picture, so don't ask me how THAT works!
TIL in 1967 students at the University of Colorado voted to name their new cafeteria after Colorado’s most well-known cannibal, Alfred Packer.
"Colorado's most well known cannibal", so just how big was the cannibal population there?
TIL In 2012 as a Valentine’s Day promotion, Pizza Hut offered a $10,010 “proposal package” that included $10 in pizza and breadsticks, limo service, a photographer, fireworks, and a ruby engagement ring.
TIL that the two least profitable movies of all time both take place on Mars. Mars Needs Moms, an animated Disney film, lost $143 million, and John Carter, a live action Disney film, lost nearly $127 million.
I have a feeling that movies taking place on Uranus would be major blockbusters.
TIL: There's a guy who is responsible for maintaining the database of time zones which computers and operating systems use to configure locales. His name is Paul Eggert. And he's a computer scientist based in California.
TIL that d'Armond Speers tried to teach his son Klingon language, used by Klingons in Star Trek series, as a first language. The boy answered mostly in English which his mother talked to him in and at the age of 5 stopped answering dad when he was speaking Klingon to him.
TIL that humans didn't perform the critically acclaimed high five before the 70's.
TIL Spirit Halloween, which is owned by Spencer's, runs over 1200 locations each year for 4-8 weeks. They spend the rest of the year scouting empty locations for the next Halloween season
TIL that screensavers were originally created to save CRT screens from burning an image into the display due to prolonged, unchanged use.
TIL Americans Watched Over 57 Billion Minutes Of The Office In 2020
And I've only watched about 5-10mins of it. That was enough for me.
TIL traditional battleships are no longer used by any navy. Most were decommissioned following World War II, but the US maintained 4 that were in and out of service until the 1990s.
ah yes the iowa class, some of the most decorated ships in American history
TIL in the early 2000's Serena and Venus Williams, along with their father Richard, were regularly accused of "match fixing" when the sisters competed against one another. One incident, where Venus pulled out entirely from a semifinal match against her sister (tendinitis), had fans demanding refunds
Serena once said in an interview at Wimbledon that she puts more effort into playing her sister than she does into a semi-final at Wimbledon. Having observed my family's competitive nature, I can understand that.
TIL the 'Fake Shemp' - using one actor to fill in for another - is now prohibited by Screen Actors Guild rules, as a result of a lawsuit filed by Crispin Glover over his replacement in Back to the Future II
Not exactly true, they have terms to follow because if it was banned completely they couldn't use stunt / body doubles, and they couldn't have recast Rhodes in iron Man for Don "why did they do it" Cheadle
TIL Vince Gilligan strongly regretted introducing the machine gun to Breaking Bad's last season and found writing a convincing explanation for it so difficult that he nearly abandoned the plot device out of frustration
TIL The 1941 American movie drama 'Citizen Kane' was originally a box office flop. The movie failed to recoup its cost at the box office. Radio City Music Hall's management refused to screen Citizen Kane for its premiere. Today, Citizen Kane is considered the Greatest American Film of All Time.
Some say it was sabotaged by William Randolph Hearst, who was not pleased that Kane was clearly modelled on him.
TIL that the destruction of Hiroshima was caused by only half a gram of matter being converted to energy: the weight of a butterfly
This is 100% false. Around 1 kilo probably underwent fission. Bad no matter what, but lots of material is needed to make an atomic bomb. I know because I got a C in the physics of nuclear weapons class in college
TIL that I can read censored curse word fluently without even pausing!!!!😂
My favourite bit of censorship in the comments was W**g W**g, the name of a giant panda.
Load More Replies...I recently learned that earwigs, those little insects with pincers, have wings. I saw one unfold theirs and take off. :0
Like we needed another reason to hate those mother effers? UGH
Load More Replies...TIL that it takes 1.1 gallon of water to grow one almond. That's 1900 gallons of water to grow 1 pound. 80% of the worlds almonds are grown in California. Maybe throw some of that water on the wild fires?
And about 30% of honeybees in the US die each year when they ship and use them to pollinate almond crops, which provides zero nectar for them, hence having to be fed sugar syrup. Then the colonies are sent back home with all the diseases and parasites they got in that huge bee Woodstock and spread it back to the reat of the colonies back home. The single greatest bee killer is almond production. Tell that to your vegan friend who won't eat honey while they drink their almond latte.. 😑
Load More Replies...I have pictures, people even commented on the pics (see alligator post). Maybe it's your phone?
Load More Replies...Dear people who works at Bored Panda, would it be so hard for you to add a picture now and then? Now you have no pictures an not information enough to make it interesting. We could rather read Wikipedia.
I had to scroll upwards to check if there were really no pictures - I did not even notice! Maybe that's because I'd rather read text only than be annoyed with unfitting or meaningless pictures always stating "not the actual photo"...
Load More Replies...TIL that I can read censored curse word fluently without even pausing!!!!😂
My favourite bit of censorship in the comments was W**g W**g, the name of a giant panda.
Load More Replies...I recently learned that earwigs, those little insects with pincers, have wings. I saw one unfold theirs and take off. :0
Like we needed another reason to hate those mother effers? UGH
Load More Replies...TIL that it takes 1.1 gallon of water to grow one almond. That's 1900 gallons of water to grow 1 pound. 80% of the worlds almonds are grown in California. Maybe throw some of that water on the wild fires?
And about 30% of honeybees in the US die each year when they ship and use them to pollinate almond crops, which provides zero nectar for them, hence having to be fed sugar syrup. Then the colonies are sent back home with all the diseases and parasites they got in that huge bee Woodstock and spread it back to the reat of the colonies back home. The single greatest bee killer is almond production. Tell that to your vegan friend who won't eat honey while they drink their almond latte.. 😑
Load More Replies...I have pictures, people even commented on the pics (see alligator post). Maybe it's your phone?
Load More Replies...Dear people who works at Bored Panda, would it be so hard for you to add a picture now and then? Now you have no pictures an not information enough to make it interesting. We could rather read Wikipedia.
I had to scroll upwards to check if there were really no pictures - I did not even notice! Maybe that's because I'd rather read text only than be annoyed with unfitting or meaningless pictures always stating "not the actual photo"...
Load More Replies...