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Today I Learned: 26 Interesting And Weird Facts To Satisfy Your Curiosity
Learning new things is important if we want to live a long and fulfilling life. Acquiring new skills and performing activities such as puzzles and other brain games strengthens our neurological pathways and makes our brains age slower, helps prevent memory loss, and generally maintains our brain's health.
We here at Bored Panda are huge proponents of lifelong learning. That's why we've gathered another collection of the most interesting and weird fun facts from the TIL community on Reddit. So, sink your curious teeth into these little nuggets of information that over 39M people on the subreddit deemed worthy for you to see.
More info: Reddit
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#1
TIL in 1978, a researcher played a deceased elephant’s calls from a hidden speaker. Her family responded by frantically searching and calling out for her, with the daughter continuing for days. Moved by their grief, the researcher decided never to repeat the experiment.
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#2
TIL that more than half the drop in America’s total fertility rate is explained by women under the age of 19 now having next to no children.
#3
TIL that legal poppy farmers in Tasmania couldn't figure out why they kept getting crop circles until it was revealed wallabies were breaking in to eat the bulbs to get high then running around in circles trampling the flowers.
#4
TIL after a local article highlighted the lavish lifestyle of Alan Ralsky in 2003 (known as the "spam king" for sending millions of bulk email solicitations), critics found his physical address & signed him up for so much junk mail that, at the peak, hundreds of pounds of it were delivered each day.
#5
TIL that not only do the terms 'glass ceiling' and 'glass escalator' exist, but also 'glass cliff', describing the tendency for companies to appoint women to leadership positions during times of crisis, when the likelihood of failure is highest.
#6
TIL that Stephen Hawking lived longer after diagnosis (55 years) than any other known individual with ALS.
#7
TIL in 2012 an 11-yr-old boy disappeared while shopping with his mom & then made his way to an airport. After he passed 5 security checks without a passport or boarding pass by tagging along with a family, he was able to board a flight from Manchester to Rome alone. He was discovered after takeoff.
#8
TIL that after Filipino gymnast Carlos Yulo won double gold at the Paris Olympics his gifts included a fully furnished three-bedroom home worth US$552,802, a lifetime supplies of free buffets, a lifetime supply of phone cases and free endoscopic procedures for when he turned 45.
#9
TIL of Masabumi Hosono, who was the only Japanese passenger on the Titanic. While he survived, he was severely condemned in the United States and Japan. His account of the sinking of Titanic remains the only document to be written on Titanic stationery.
#10
TIL in the 1990s a man gained an edge on a Spanish casino by recording roulette wheel results & analyzing them with a computer. He was able to predict certain numbers were more likely to hit next. After he won €600K, a legal case against him was unsuccessful; it ruled the casino should fix its wheel.
#12
TIL that in 2002, two planes crashed into each other above a German town due to erroneous air traffic instructions, killing all passengers and crew. Then in 2004, a man who'd lost his family in the accident went to the home of the responsible air traffic controller and stabbed him to death.
#13
TIL about ELIZA, a 1960s chatbot created by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum that simulated a psychotherapist. It was so convincing that some users, including Weizenbaum's secretary, became emotionally attached to it. In 2023, ELIZA even outperformed GPT-3.5 in a Turing test study.
#14
TIL,world's oldest emergency call service was started after a neighbour who wanted to report a house fire in Wimpole street telephoned the fire brigade and was so outraged at being held in a queue by the telephone exchange that he wrote a letter to the editor of The Times,which prompted an enquiry.
#15
TIL James Madison wrote Washington’s 1st inaugural address, then he wrote Congress’s response to that address, and then he wrote Washington’s reply to the response.
#16
TIL Lou Pai, one of Enron executives, resigned and sold his shares for $250 million to get divorced and marry a stripper. The company collapsed few months later.
#17
TIL A restaurant in Long Beach, CA, was found to be serving Popeye's chicken and passing it off as their own. They would buy the chicken at Popeyes and upcharge for their own chicken and waffles dish. Once found out the owner refused to apologize.
#19
TIL: Sally Hemings was 16 years old when she gave birth to her first child with 51 year old Thomas Jefferson.
#20
TIL of shell cordovan, a rare "leather" that isn't made from animal skin, but connective tissue from a horse's buttocks. Shoes made from them are waterproof, don't crease, don't require polishing, and can last indefinitely. Only two major tanneries make them.
#21
TIL The U.S. Navy estimates that heavy barnacle growth on ships increases weight and drag by as much as 60 percent, resulting in as much as a 40 percent increase in fuel consumption.
#22
TIL of Kyle Plush, a 16 year-old teen who died a slow death while being crushed by the third-row seat of a Honda Odyssey. While in that position, he managed to call 911 twice using SIRI, but emergency dispatchers couldn't locate him, and he was found dead by his dad 6 hours later.
#23
TIL Stanford University rejected 69% of the applicants with a perfect SAT score between 2008-2013.
#24
TIL when Jimi Hendrix’s mom died (when Jimmy was 16) his dad did not allow him and his brother to go to the funeral, instead giving them shots of whiskey and telling them that was how men should deal with loss.
#25
TIL Presiden Lyndon B. Johnson called his big johnson “Jumbo” and would show it to journalists and members of congress to show he was bigger than them. He also peed on a Secret Service agent just to prove he could get away with it.
#26
TIL that in 2007 on a trip to Paris, Prince Harry had his driver go through the same tunnel his mother Princess Diana died in at the same speed her car was going at the time, in an attempt to find closure for her death. He described the attempt as ill-conceived, saying it only brought him more pain.
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