Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 12:49

TIL six out of the eight competitors in the 100-meter final in the Seoul 1988 Olympics were found to have taken performance enhancing drugs [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 07:49

TIL Tommy Davidson (comedian) was abandoned in the trash at 18 months old, before being rescued by a white woman who became his adoptive mother. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 05:49

TIL That two days before 9/11 Parade Magazine ran a blurb about the FBI trying to "smoke out" Osama Bin Laden and "see clearly through the smoke" with matchbook advertisements, just as they had done after the 1993 WTC bombing [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 02:49

TIL bagasse, the leftover material after sugarcane juice extraction, can produce enough electricity to sustain a sugar mill’s operations. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 01:49

TIL that actor Tom Baker landed the part of the Fourth Doctor after Barry Letts (a producer on "Doctor Who") was impressed by Baker's performance as the main villain in the 1973 Ray Harryhausen film "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 20:49

TIL that the first widely sold car rearview mirror wasn't a safety device. Instead, the 'Cop-Spotter' was intended to help you avoid the police. After the product launched in 1921, mirrors in cars grew increasingly popular, eventually being recognised as an essential safety feature. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 18:49

TIL In 1960, about 15 years after the atomic bombings, Oppenheimer embarked on a lecture tour across Japan, stopping in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 17:49

TIL that the 100th bomber group was so wild and undisciplined, that during a 1943 training flight from Kearney Field in Nebraska to Hamilton Field in California, 3 B-17s landed in Las Vegas and one pilot flew his B-17 to Tennessee to visit his wife! Their commander was subsequently fired. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 15:49

TIL when Julius Caesar died, he bequeathed his gardens "to the people as a place of recreation" and 75 Attic drachmas (roughly $350 in 2024) to every Roman living in the city. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 14:49

TIL about Geneva Steel paid bonuses to its workers with $2 bills, which then started to show up across many local businesses. This was done to show the importance of Geneva Steel to the local economy. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 08:49

TIL that Abraham Lincoln suffered from Major Depressive Disorder, was put on suicide watch multiple times, and was almost commited to a mental instituion. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 03:49

TIL in Ohio, convicted drunk drivers are mandated to drive with “Party Plates”, special red-on-yellow license plates in exchange for limited driving privileges such as work. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 00:49

TIL that the ISS will be retired by 2030 and that they will deorbit the whole station back to Earth. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

29 июня 2025 21:49

TIL that Gerard Butler was law graduate and then a trainee lawyer. However, he was fired a week before being qualified due to his habits of drinking and partying and missing work. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

29 июня 2025 20:49

TIL of the Children's crusade in 1212 when thousands of children went on a march to the holy land believing their innocence alone would peacefully bring it back to Christianity. None reached Jerusalem, with many even being sold into slavery by Italian merchants. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 10:49

TIL scholars agree that the original ending of the Gospel of Mark was a cliffhanger in which Jesus disappeared from his grave. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 06:49

TIL a man escaped from a federal prison in Illinois after jumping over two 15 foot fences only to turn himself in to the FBI 4 days later to show them his desalination invention. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 05:49

TIL That Dolly Parton declined a proposal for a statue in her honor at the Tennessee state capitol. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 02:49

TIL that at a 2004 horse race, over 13,000 fans placed bets totalling ¥121,751,200 on a first place victory for Haru Urara—a horse nicknamed the "shining star of losers everywhere." Haru Urara finished the race in 10th out of 11 spots, her 106th consecutive loss. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 21:49

TIL that SPF 30 sunscreen blocks 97% of UVB rays, SPF50 & SPF100 only increases by 1% [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 19:49

TIL in 2017 researchers hoping to study how various scavengers disrupt human remains set up a camera trap fully expecting to only see images of foxes, raccoons, coyotes, & various birds. However, they ended up capturing the first known photographic evidence of a deer gnawing on human remains. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 18:49

TIL "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy was one of Michael Jackson's favorite songs. When he met Shaggy, he told him it sounded like a song he would write, which prompted Shaggy to quip, "So you be bangin', huh?" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 16:49

TIL in 2016 the first adult great white shark (an 11.5-foot male) to ever be exhibited by an aquarium died after spending just 3 days in captivity. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 14:49

TIL The Great Male Renunciation is responsible for why male fashion is much less extravagant than female fashion in the western world. When during the enlightenment male clothing became utilitarian. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 14:49

TIL that the concept of Xenomorphs' second jaws - pharyngeal jaw - predates the discovery of the exceptional mobility of the moray's inner jaws [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 05:49

TIL New York City used eminent domain to tear down a landlord's building but accidentally left his family with a small triangle of land. The city asked the family to donate the land, but the family instead made a small plaque to commemorate the tiny chunk of land they still owned, the Hess Triangle. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 02:49

TIL before the battle of Marathon, Athenians vowed to sacrifice a goat for every Persian slain. After recording 6,400 enemy deaths, they couldn’t offer so many at once, so they sacrificed 500 goats annually to Artemis Agrotera until the vow was fulfilled. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 июня 2025 00:49

TIL in 2023 a teenager attending a Danish prince's birthday party at the palace intentionally left her shoe behind, hoping for an ending à la Cinderella. Later, the palace posted a picture of the shoe on Instagram. Part of the caption translates to: "Is it Cinderella who forgot her shoe last night?" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

29 июня 2025 20:49

TIL in 2011 a man survived an accident where he fell on the nozzle of a high pressure air hose, which pierced his left buttock & rushed air into his body at 100 pounds per square inch. He was inflated to twice his normal size with the air separating his fat from his muscles & compressing his heart. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

29 июня 2025 20:49

TIL the Navy built a 300-foot ice cream barge in WW2 that made 10 gallons every 7 minutes to boost morale in the Pacific. [Source]