Today I Learned 🎓

07 июля 2025 02:49

TIL about “Christine”, a mysterious person who repeatedly calls hairdressers across New Zealand and Australia and sets up appointments, which are always no-shows. “Christine” asks the hairdresser to describe, in great detail, various scenarios involving women getting their hair shaved or styled. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 июля 2025 00:49

TIL that sliced bread was first sold on 7 July 1928, by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. It was hailed as “the greatest forward step in baking since bread was wrapped” and by 1933, 80% of US bread was pre-sliced, leading to the popular idiom “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 20:49

TIL that Catherine of Braganza, wife of England’s King Charles II, used to sip tea as part of her daily routine, she came from Portugal where tea was already popular. The young queen's habit of sipping tea made the beverage popular in England as a social drinkable rather than as a health tonic. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 19:49

TIL the concept of cow tipping, the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment, apparently developed in the 1970s, though tales of animals that cannot rise if they fall has historical antecedents dating to the Roman Empire. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 18:49

TIL that the second most translated book behind only the Bible is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 17:49

TIL that a British married couple survived almost 4 months adrift in the Pacific Ocean on a rubber raft. They survived drinking rainwater and eating raw fish and birds. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 14:49

TIL that Göbekli Tepe in Turkey is the oldest known temple complex in the world, built over 11,000 years ago, thousands of years before Stonehenge or the Pyramids, and it was constructed by prehistoric hunter-gatherers before the invention of farming or writing. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 13:49

TIL after hearing her employer and lover who admired the Marquis de Sade claim that a woman couldn't write an erotic novel; writer Anne Desclos wrote one that was both massively successful and caused the government to pursue obscenity charges because of the sadomasochistic themes therein. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 09:49

TIL Gary Webb exposed CIA ties to the crack epidemic in 1996. Though discredited at the time, later reports confirmed parts of his story. He died in 2004 from two gunshot wounds to the head, ruled a suicide but many found it suspicious given his revelations. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 07:49

TIL that in 1987, a farmer in Argentina stumbled upon a giant tibia bone sticking out of the ground. It belonged to a massive dinosaur now known as Argentinosaurus, which some scientists consider the largest land animal to ever exist [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 04:49

TIL of the existence of a popular UK character called Mr Blobby. Who has been in television since 1992 and has a No. 1 single. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 02:49

TIL Kate Bush's first tour was in 1979 to promote her first two albums, then she didn't tour again until 2014. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 июля 2025 22:49

TIL dogs began to diverge from wolves when random genetic mutations gave some wolves the ability to much more effectively digest starches and fats, causing them to follow nomadic humans and eat the leftovers of the food they ate [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 июля 2025 21:49

TIL June Huh dropped out of high school & then took 6 years to earn his B.S. Though a professor had sparked an interest in mathematics, he was accepted into only 1 PhD program due to his undergraduate experience. However at age 39, he was awarded the Fields Medal "the highest honor in mathematics". [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 июля 2025 19:49

TIL an analysis found that 69% of the individuals on Forbes' 2011 list of the 400 richest Americans started their own business, whereas, only 40% of those on the 1982 list had done the same. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 июля 2025 01:49

TIL that, despite having centuries-old "blue laws" that prevent most stores from being open on Sundays, Paramus, New Jersey generates over $6 billion in retail sales, the most of any ZIP Code in the U.S. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 22:49

TIL A man named Tommy Thompson is being held indefinitely in jail until he returns gold coins he took and sold from the shipwreck of the SS Central America [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 19:49

TIL Windows Task Manager was originally an external side project developed at home by Microsoft developer David Plummer. He donated the project to Microsoft to be used as part of the main product build of Windows in 1995. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 19:49

TIL about "Conan the Bacterium", an organism that's been around for about a billion years more than us, can survive almost anything and will likely outlast us all. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 17:49

TIL of Julian the Apostate (nephew of Constantine the Great) the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, who rejected Christianity & promoted Neoplatonic Hellenism, believing it necessary to restore ancient Roman values & traditions to save it from dissolution at the expense of Christianity. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 15:49

TIL in August 2007, 17-year-old George Hotz became the first person to remove the SIM lock on an iPhone. He then proceeded to trade the second (8GB) iPhone that he unlocked to Terry Daidone, the founder of CertiCell, for a Nissan 350Z and three more 8GB iPhones. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 14:49

TIL about Rex 84, a scenario and drill developed by the Reagan Administration to detain (in FEMA-run concentration camps) large numbers of United States residents deemed to be "national security threats" under the guise of the president declaring a national emergency. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 12:49

TIL that old Celtic, English, and Germanic folk would participate in an event called “flyting”: where two people would poetically throw insults and crude humor at each other in a duel of dictionary skill; it was essentially the earliest form of rap battling [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 08:49

TIL that Silentó, who's 2015 debut single "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)" peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 when he was 17 years old, was arrested and charged with the murder of his cousin in 2021. He plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2025, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 05:49

TIL at his second exhibition, 7-year-old Kieron Williamson sold out all 16 of his paintings in 14 minutes for a total of £18,200. At a subsequent exhibition in 2010, his paintings sold out in 30 minutes for £150,000. By 2013, at the age of 10, he had earned an estimated £1.5m from his artwork. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 03:49

TIL studies have found that Nobel Prize-winning scientists are about 25x more likely to sing, dance or act than the average scientist. They are also 17x more likely to create visual art, 12x more likely to write poetry, and 4x more likely to be a musician. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 июля 2025 01:49

TIL that a 98% effectiveness rate for a condom means that out of 100 couples using, 2 will get pregnant in a year and not that they fail 2 out of 100 times being used. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 июля 2025 21:49

TIL a study followed thousands of people, both with & without OCD, from 1973-2020 & found that those with OCD died at an earlier average age than those without it by 9 years (69 v 78). People with OCD were 230% more likely to die earlier from unnatual causes & nearly 5x more likely to die by suicide [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 июля 2025 20:49

TIL composer Alex North was initially hired to write the score for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but director Stanley Kubrick ultimately decided to use pre-existing classical pieces instead. North wasn't aware his score had been tossed aside until he attended the film's premiere. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 июля 2025 18:49

TIL during conflicts between dominant males, low-ranking male chimpanzees will frequently switch sides opportunistically [Source]