Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 15:49

TIL The FBI has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Ruja Ignatova, a billionaire criminal, one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and the founder of the fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin, which The Times described as 'one of the biggest scams in history. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 13:49

TIL: In 1944, Polish POWs were granted permission by their German captors to stage an unofficial POW Olympics in the Oflag II-C camp. An Olympic Flag was raised, made with a bed sheet and pieces of colored scarves. The event has been considered to be a demonstration of Olympic spirit during wartime. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 12:49

TIL There is a classification of lifeform called Endolith that can live inside rocks and have a life cycle of thousands of years, it is also speculated they may exist in interplanetary objects such as comets and meteors thus supporting the Panspermia theory. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 08:49

TIL there's a condition called "auto-brewery syndrome" where your body literally turns carbs into alcohol, and you can get drunk just by eating bread or pasta. Some people have been arrested for DUI without touching a drop of alcohol. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 06:49

TIL Roman Emperor Diocletian was the first to voluntarily retire in 305 AD to grow cabbages. When begged to return to power, he declined, saying "If you could see the vegetables I grow with my own hands, you wouldn’t talk to me about empire." He lived out his days gardening by the Dalmatian coast [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 02:49

TIL the value of a taxi medallion (permit allowing a taxicab to operate) in New York City peaked in 2013 at over $1 million. By 2019, medallions were being sold for as low as $136,000. Since many cab drivers took out loans to buy when values were high, many have been forced to declare bankruptcy. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 00:49

TIL rate of change in speed is "acceleration", but rate of change for acceleration is called a "jerk" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 22:49

TIL Lew Ayres, who played Paul Bäumer in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), was a WWII conscientious objector which Erich Maria Remarque, the novel's author, disapproved of. He stated: “I am very sorry. I didn’t expect it to have an effect like this. I think we all should fight Hitlerism." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 21:49

TIL a Catholic priest invented the Big Bang Theory. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 20:49

TIL: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, The Bobbsey Twins, and several other children's mystery books all had the same publisher, Stratemeyer Syndicate, and were all largely authored pseudonymously. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 18:49

TIL that Hasekura Tsunenaga was, in all likelihood, the first Japanese to cross the Atlantic. He set sail from Tsukinoura, travelled overland through Mexico, then sailed to Europe, where he visited Spain, popped briefly to France, and travelled to Rome for an audience with the Pope in 1615. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 17:49

TIL Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks containing this image of Yoda sitting next to King Faisal while he signed the 1945 UN charter [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 15:49

TIL Rabies causes excess saliva production while triggering hydrophobia to prevent saliva dilution while swallowing therefore maximizing it's spread [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 13:49

TIL that between 1915 and 1926, Encephalitis Lethargica, also known as sleeping sickness, swept the world. It left people frozen, awake but unable to move or speak. Half a million died or became trapped in their bodies. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished without explanation. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 07:49

TIL in 2017 a woman received new hands from a male donor after she underwent Asia's first upper arm double-hand transplant. To the surprise of her doctors, the limbs (which were hairier & darker) became more feminine & lighter over time, resulting in their color being closer to her own skin tone. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 14:49

TIL That Cop killer Donald Eugene Webb was on the FBI’s Top 10 Most Wanted list for longer than anyone else at the time, and never captured. Turns out the reason for that is his wife was secretly hiding him at her own house and after he died she buried him on her property. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 13:49

TIL that many WW2 aircraft used a radio system so secret that it was supplied with a self-destruct button to prevent it falling into enemy hands. It was so badly designed that pilots and radio operators often blew up their equipment when trying to turn it on. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 12:49

TIL papayas can naturally change sex while growing and scientists are working on methods to produce fruit-only plants [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 06:49

TIL a pesticide applicator applied it to the wrong trees and over 100k bumblebees were killed in Oregon in 2013. The streets were littered with bees. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 05:49

TIL that in 1860, 57% of South Carolina’s population was enslaved [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 00:49

TIL that Kim Il Sung, founder of North Korea, was raised in a Presbyterian Christian family, with his Grandfather being a minister, and his father being an elder in the Church. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 23:49

TIL 7 of the 8 US Presidents that have died in office were all elected in years divisible by 20 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 22:49

TIL when Marquis de Sade died in 1814, his son burned all of his unpublished manuscripts, and his descendants tried to suppress his work for over a century. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 21:49

TIL The movie, "The Land before Time" was planned to have no dialogue. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas wanted the film to be similar to "The Rite of Spring" in Disney's Fantasia. But the idea was abandoned to make the film appealing to children. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 19:49

TIL about Eddie Eagan, the only person to win gold at a summer and winter olympics in different events (in boxing and the bobsled), and who also studied at Yale, Harvard and Oxford, practised as an attorney and served in both WW1 and WW2 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 17:49

TIL Edward Craven Walker; the inventor of the lava lamp, was a pioneer in naturism in film. He got around censors by not showing pubic hair, and directed the first naturist film to receive public release in the UK. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 16:49

TIL about the variability hypothesis, the hypothesis that human males generally display greater variability in traits than human females do. Sex-differences in variability have been observed in many abilities and traits – including physical, psychological and genetic ones. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 13:49

TIL about Eddie Eagan, the only person to win gold at a summer and winter olympics in different events (in boxing and the bobsled), and who also studied at Yale, Harvard and Oxford, practised as an attorney and served in both WW1 and WW2 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 08:49

TIL the Sateré-Mawé tribe use bullet ant stings in a warrior rite where boys wear gloves filled with hundreds of venomous ants for 10 minutes, causing paralysis, hallucinations, and days of shaking, and must endure this 20 times to complete initiation. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 июля 2025 07:49

TIL a man noticed a loophole in a lottery called Winfall. When the jackpot hit $5m & had no winner, it was split between those who matched 3, 4 & 5 numbers. If he spent $1,100 on 1,100 tickets, he'd have 1 four-number winner & 18 three-number winners, earning $800 profit. He netted $7.75m over 9 yrs [Source]