Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 23:49

TIL Steam locomotives could replenish its water supply while in motion using track pans, long troughs filled with water and a retractable water scooper that would be lowered. The speed of the forward motion forces the water up the scoop pipes into the tanks or tender. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 21:49

TIL that it is possible for additional roadways to create more traffic rather than alleviate it, known as Braess' Paradox [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 19:49

TIL that at its real estate bubble peak Tokyo's total real estate value was priced more than the entire USA landmass [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 18:49

TIL about the "Phantom of Heilbronn," a mysterious female serial killer suspect who baffled German police for years,
until it turned out the DNA evidence was contaminated by factory workers making the cotton swabs used in forensic tests. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 17:49

TIL about Hitoshi Imamura, Japanese WWII General who thought his punishment was too light, so he built a replica of his prison and stayed there until his death [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 14:49

TIL only one Navy ship in active duty have sank an enemy ship: USS Constitution. (also the oldest active Navy ship) [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 12:49

TIL the UK tried to ban raves in 1994, with an act criminalizing gatherings where '"music" includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.' [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 10:49

TIL that actor Joe Spinell was hired to play a hitman in The Godfather and Francis Ford Coppola liked him so much that he hired him on as a day player for 6 months of shooting. He wound up being the second highest paid actor in the film after Marlon Brando [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 04:49

TIL that, immediately after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, an order came down from the Secretary of the Navy to destroy all personal logs associated with the use of the presidential yacht USS Sequoia during the Kennedy Administration. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 02:49

TIL In 1907, Grace Oakeshott, a British women's rights activist, faked her death to run off with her extramarital lover. It seems her husband was in on the plan, as both found it preferable to a divorce. Grace and her lover moved to New Zealand where they had 3 children before Grace's death in 1929. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 00:49

TIL that despite Antarctica going undiscovered for hundreds of millenia the first two claims of its discovery occured only 3 days apart. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 22:49

TIL Bloom Was a Secretary for 67 Years who had amassed a secret fortune of $9 Million By Copying Boss' Investments. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 21:49

TIL Jennifer Aniston had a strained relationship with her mother, who was a former model and very critical of her looks. She recalls not being the 'model child' her mother had wished for. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 19:49

TIL that a man broke into the Buckingham Palace twice in a month and the alarm was set off but dismissed as false alarm both times [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 15:49

TIL after being signed to a record label at the age of 12, Aaliyah's uncle introduced her to R. Kelly who ended up being lead songwriter and producer of her debut album; Age Ain't Nothing but a Number [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 22:49

TIL that in 1462, Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) stopped an Ottoman invasion by creating a 3km “forest” of 20,000 impaled corpses, including soldiers, women, children, and even livestock. The stench was so overwhelming, the Ottomans turned back without a fight. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 20:49

TIL the US has had four presidential yachts in its history [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 19:49

TIL in 2003 hepatitis from green onions sickened 650 in the Pittsburgh area who ate at Chi-Chi's, a Tex-Mex restaurant chain. Four died and 485 were hospitalized. It led to Chi-Chi's going out of business nationwide in 2004. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 17:49

TIL A tautological place name is a place name where different parts of the name have the same meaning, for example, "Lake Chad" (Lake Lake), "Mississippi River" (Big River River), "Sahara Desert" (Deserts Desert) [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 16:49

TIL that Colonel Sanders once studied Law and served as a Justice of the Peace in Little Rock, but his legal career ended abruptly after he got into a courtroom brawl with a client. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 13:49

TIL Columbo's signature catchphrase "Just one more thing" originated because a scene was too short, and the writers didn't want to retype the script on a typewriter, so they just had him return and add the line at the end as if he'd forgotten something. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 11:49

TIL that in 2003 Iraqi Insurgents attempted to shoot down a European Air Transport Airbus A300 cargo plane flying from Baghdad to Bahrain, but ultimately failed when the plane was able to return to Baghdad and land with severe damage. The firing of the missle was all caught on camera! [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 05:49

TIL that the phenomenon where a landline phone's cord forms a kink and gets twisted in the opposite direction of the rest of the cord is called "tendril perversion" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 03:49

TIL Dolphins can only hold their breath for 10 minutes [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

02 июля 2025 02:49

TIL that Stephen King was so obsessed with Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5 that his wife threatened to divorce him over it. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 23:49

TIL of Beatrice Muller, a New Jersey widow who became a permanet resident of the Cunard ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2. When her husband retired the pair went on the ship's world cruise every year until he died on board in 1999. From 2000 she lived permanently on the ship until it was retired in 2008 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 22:49

TIL Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, died in obscurity, was dug up by an admirer, shipped to England, then sold with a bankrupt man's house. His remains vanished and may have been turned into souvenirs. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 19:49

TIL That peanut-free schools don't decrease risk of allergic reactions. The only intervention which has been shown to decrease reactions across all ages is use of a peanut-free table. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 15:49

TIL that the courts found McDonald’s characters like Mayor McCheese and Grimace violated the copyrights covering the H.R. Pufnstuf characters [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 июля 2025 14:49

TIL in 2000, Tim Allen was to star in "The Cat in the Hat," and said, "My dream is to give it the edge that scared me. Like Alien, we’ll see very little of the cat. He’s a human being who turns into the cat, like a werewolf or vampire, as he gets more frustrated trying to deal with these children.” [Source]