Today I Learned 🎓

24 июля 2025 03:49

TIL that among their other duties, US Marshalls are, in essence, bailiffs for US federal courthouses. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 июля 2025 01:49

TIL Crosswalk "push to walk" buttons in cities like New York no longer control traffic lights, yet pedestrians keep pressing them because it feels like control [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 июля 2025 00:49

TIL: AI fever turns Anguilla’s “.ai” domain into a digital gold mine. In 2024, 23% of Anguilla's entire yearly revenue consisted of selling its national domain name ".ai". [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 19:49

TIL that pet cats form attachments with their human owners that are similar to the bonds formed by children and dogs with their caretakers. It's the first time that researchers have empirically demonstrated that cats display the same main attachment styles as babies and dogs [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 16:49

TIL world-renowned herpetologist Karl Schmidt was fatally bitten by a boomslang (an arboreal African elapid). To get some data out of the situation, he described every symptom in detail almost until the point of death. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 15:49

TIL that the creator of VeggieTales mother forbade two things on the show 1. They could not display Jesus as a Vegetable 2. The Veggies can have no redemptive relationship with God [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 14:49

TIL That Benito Mussolini was given a ceremonial weapon called “Sword of Islam”, recieved the title “Protector of Islam” and saw himself as being a heir to the authority of Ottoman Caliphs since he took over Libya. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 13:49

TIL: Rather than fiddling while Rome Burned, Nero rushed to the city from his villa to organize the relief effort. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 11:49

TIL 17 y.o Matthew Scheidt a billing clerk intern spent days posing as a physician's assistant at a Florida hospital. He performed CPR, and even examined undressed male patients without anyone questioning him for days after convincing the hospital badge office that he had recently been promoted. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 08:49

TIL a man from New Zealand tried to sell his “slightly-used soul” on TradeMe, the auction had received 32,000 hits and more than 100 bids. By 4pm someone had tracked him down and offered him $5001 for his soul, which he accepted. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 04:49

TIL Rapper 50 Cent once dropped 54 pounds in order to better portray a cancer patient in a movie. The film, "All Things Fall Apart", was straight-to-video. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 23:49

TIL that in 1985 the Mayors of the modern cities Rome and Carthage signed a ceremonial peace treaty, a mere 2131 years after the end of the Third Punic War [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 21:49

TIL that Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was humiliated that the term "masochism" was named after him. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 19:49

TIL The sinking of the USS Panay and 3 Standard Oil tankers carrying 600 fleeing Chinese civilians ships during the battle of Nanking in 1937. 3 americans and an unknown number of Chinese civilians would die. FDR would order footage of the sinking edited to lower Japanese culpability and avoid war. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 18:49

TIL William Horatio Bates developed a (dangerous and ineffective) alternative therapy method of treating nearsightedness that involved using a lens to focus sunlight directly onto a patient's eyes [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 июля 2025 02:49

TIL scurvy was so common during the Age of Sail that shipowners and governments assumed a 50% death rate from the disease for their sailors on any major voyage. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 июля 2025 01:49

TIL about Christiane F., a teen drug addict at the Bahnhof Zoo (Zoo Station), a hotspot for drug trafficking and underage sex work in West Berlin. Her book is widely read in German schools to warn about dangers of drug addiction. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 21:49

TIL that Irish Sign Language (ISL) is unique among sign languages for having different gendered versions, with men and women using different signs for the same words. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 16:49

TIL about Dale Schroeder, a man from Iowa who used his life savings to help send 33 kids to college. He never married, had no kids, grew up poor and worked at the same company for 67 years. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 16:49

TIL that FBI agents advised radio stations not to play "Sixteen Tons" in the late 1940s because they considered it subversive and accused Merle Travis of communist sympathies. Tennessee Ford's version later became one of the best selling singles in history. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 15:49

TIL A woman donated her kidney to her boss and got fired for taking too long to recover. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 13:49

TIL of the siege of Beitang cathedral during the Boxer rebellion, where 41 Italian and French marines managed to hold off thousands of Chinese troops for months until Japanese allies arrived to relieve the siege, saving the lives of 3,900 Christians who took refuge inside the cathedral. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 13:49

TIL Bill Gates paid a $28 fine every day for 13 years, from 1988 to 2001, to keep a Porsche 959 that was impounded by US Customs. By the time he got his hands on the car, he'd paid more than $133,000 in total from the fines. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 10:49

TIL there used to be a “joke restaurant” in Japan that served curry specifically formulated to have similar taste and texture to human feces. The curry was served in toilet-shaped bowls. The restaurant was founded by Ken Shimizu, who is also one of Japan’s best-known adult media stars. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 04:49

TIL that before Ozzy Osbourne famously bit the head off a bat he bit the head off of two live Doves that were meant to represent peace. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 июля 2025 00:49

TIL about Lucille Ricksen, a child star from the silent film era. She was often cast playing adults opposite fully grown men and her age was concealed from the public. She died at only 14. It’s believed that her mother and agents overworking her caused to her illness and early death. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 21:49

TIL Ozzy Osbourne gave up taking acid after talking to horse for an hour [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 21:49

TIL In the 1950s Turkey (a member since 1949) rejected a Council of Europe proposal for a flag with a cross in golden circle over blue, citing religious concerns, despite suggestions to add a crescent to address Muslim objections. The circle of stars was adopted instead [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 19:49

TIL about Carl McGunn - Died in 1981 in Alaska when confusion about who was picking him up resulted in him being abandoned to starve [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

22 июля 2025 18:49

TIL In social psychology, the boomerang effect refers to the unintended consequences of an attempt to persuade resulting in the adoption of an opposing position instead. Typically, the more aggressively a position is presented to someone, the more likely they are to adopt an opposing view. [Source]