Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 22:49

TIL in Spain, sangria is considered a drink for foreign tourists despite Spanish origins and EU laws that say that only Spain and Portugal can label the drink that name. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 19:49

TIL a mummy said to be an Egyptian king's two year old son was bought in 1886 for a Vermont museum, where it sat in the attic for decades. In 1945 a curator, told to throw it out, instead cremated it in his neighbor's furnace and buried it in his family plot in Vermont with a headstone dated 1883 BC [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 18:49

TIL about the "Batman effect": In an experiment, a woman appearing pregnant boarded a train. In some trials, another experimenter dressed as Batman also entered. Passengers were far more likely to offer the woman their seat when Batman was present—67.2% compared with 37.7%. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 17:49

TIL that the FIFA World Cup trophy is hollow. If it were made of solid 18-karat gold, it would weigh over 70 kg (154 lbs) and be too heavy for players to lift. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 17:49

TIL that WW2 General George S. Patton believed in reincarnation and claimed he had fought in wars for thousands of years. He believed he'd lived as a Roman legionary, a knight in the Hundred Years' War, and even a marshal under Napoleon. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 14:49

TIL When Will Rogers presented Best Director at the 1934 Oscars, he opened the envelope and simply announced, "Come up and get it, Frank!" Frank Capra, certain he was the winner, ran to the podium to collect the Oscar, only to discover Rogers had meant Frank Lloyd, who had won for Cavalcade. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 11:49

TIL while the early English colonists in Roanoke Island, North Carolina were widely believed for centuries to have disappeared there were actually oral and written accounts of these settlers blending into nearby Native American communities that were later proven true by archeological evidence. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 11:49

TIL of Rudy Linares, who pull the plug on his son Samuel to end his suffering, and cradled him as he died while holding hospital staff at gunpoint, after they stopped him due to fears of legal problems [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 06:49

TIL the only mammals native to New Zealand are two species of bats and marine animals. It has no land based native mammals. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 05:49

TIL that Raymond Moody coined the term "near-death experience" in 1975 after interviewing 150 people who had been clinically dead and revived, and found they all described the same structural experience independently with no prior knowledge of each other [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 03:49

TIL In 2005 Argentinean soccer star Maradona confessed that his team spiked with tranquilizers the water of the Brazil team during the 1990 world cup. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 01:49

TIL Athletic Bilbao is the 4th most successful team in Spanish football history, has won 24 league cups, and has never been relegated. This is despite the fact that they only recruit and play players of Basque origin, a diaspora of roughly 3 million people, less than the population of Iowa. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 July 2026 23:49

TIL that the color of Spain's third stripe flag has controversy. The Republicans (anti-monarchist) had purple as the 3rd stripe to represent Castille. The Nationalists used red in the bottom stripe. The current flag uses red. Many trade unions and left-wing groups waive the purple striped flag. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 July 2026 22:49

TIL towards the end of filming "Tenet," Robert Pattinson gifted Christopher Nolan a book of Oppenheimer speeches. According to Nolan, the speeches showed Oppenheimer "wrestling with the implications of what's happened and what he's done." This led to Nolan's decision to make "Oppenheimer" (2023). [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 July 2026 20:49

TIL Insurance was invented by Marcus Licinius Crassus. As the richest man in Rome, he formed a private 500-man fire brigade. When an uninsured building caught fire, his men would negotiate a rock-bottom sale price with the panicked owner before putting the flames out. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 21:49

TIL Out of all the surviving works of ancient greek tragedian Euripides, 68% have female protagonists, compared to 29% in Sophocles and 15% in Aeschylus. He often had them express overtly feminist views and challenge moral and social standards, which drew some criticism from contemporaries [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 18:49

TIL Argentina was the catalyst behind the invention of soccer's yellow/red card system. In 1966, their captain refused an expulsion, later blaming language barriers. To prevent this kind of situation in the future, the universal color-coded system was developed so all players understand the calls. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 17:49

TIL that in March 2003, 16 players on the Chicago White Sox were planning to voluntarily skip their steroid tests to register an automatic fail, because if a certain percentage of players failed the MLB would make testing mandatory for the next 3 seasons. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 17:49

TIL that during his time in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi used derogatory racial slurs against Black Africans and petitioned colonial health authorities to keep Indians segregated from Black people. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 16:49

TIL that a Canadian academic study on Mother Teresa found that her clinics often lacked proper pain medication due to a philosophy that glorified human suffering, while she herself received advanced care in modern Western hospitals. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 12:49

TIL in 2019, the Chinese space mission Chang'e-4 had cotton seeds sprout on the surface of the Moon [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 11:49

TIL that a 1993 rap album called Bangin' on Wax was recorded entirely by actual, active rival Bloods and Crips and sold over 500,000 copies, with all proceeds from the initial sales going directly to local schools and community parks [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 07:49

TIL the University of Oxford was already teaching students for more than 200 years before the Aztec Empire was founded. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 06:49

TIL that while filming Tenet, Robert Pattinson attempted to hide that he was auditioning for The Batman by claiming he had a family emergency whenever he had to do a screen test. Christopher Nolan immediately guessed what he was doing. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 04:49

TIL about Fatal Familial Insomnia, a rare and incurable genetic brain disorder that permanently destroys a person's ability to sleep. Patients remain completely awake for months, suffering from progressive hallucinations, panic attacks, and dementia, until they inevitably die from exhaustion. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 01:49

TIL that 50% of West Germany's massive post-World War II and interwar foreign debts were canceled by creditors via the London Agreement on German External Debts. The agreement allowed the German government to invest heavily in rebuilding, which helped create "the economic miracle". [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 July 2026 00:49

TIL Leonor, Princess of Asturias, who was born in 2005, has been preparing to become Spain's first Queen regnant in over 150 years since she became the first in line to the throne at the age of 8 & was given the title Princess of Asturias. The last Queen regnant was Isabella II (reign: 1833-1868). [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 July 2026 22:49

TIL According to Aristotle, sale of land was prohibited in Sparta, but giving land away as a dowry or bequeathing land as inheritance, was not. Because this practice heavily favored women, in his time about two fifths of all land in Sparta was owned by women [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 July 2026 21:49

TIL in 1782 King Taksin of Thailand was deposed in a coup. His friend, a general fighting in Myanmar, returned to Bangkok and put down the coup. However, he then executed Taksin and crowned himself, starting the current Thai dynasty. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 July 2026 19:49

TIL that, both geologically and ecologically, Lake Baikal is more like a tiny ocean than a huge lake. It's situated on a continental rift, contains both hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, and has lifeforms including sponges, a species of seal and fish with traits usually seen only in the deep ocean. [Source]