Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 10:49

TIL about “ telephoning for catfish” Southern fishers in the 1950s jury-rigged components of old crank-style telephones to send an electric current through the water and stun fish, and it only works on fish with no scales, like catfish. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 08:49

TIL that humans have been performing dentistry since 7000 BC, which makes dentistry one of the oldest professions. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 07:49

TIL that the last living person who was at the Alamo during the battle died less than a month before the end of World War 1. He was not even a year old when the battle occurred. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 04:49

TIL Chris Farley was the original Voice Actor for Shrek, but then died during production causing the Studio to call in Mike Myers to replace him [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 02:49

TIL that in 1933, U.S. Roosevelt ordered Americans to sell much of their gold to the government. While exceptions were made for jewelry, art & teeth, possessing more than $100 of gold coins, bars, or bullion was penalized by steep fines or up to 10 years imprisonment. The order lasted until 1974. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 01:49

TIL that the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was the most powerful eruption in human history, 4 to 10 times more powerful than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 23:49

TIL that when singer Janis Ian's non-sexual relationship with her female chaperone was misconstrued as sexual, a comedian made it his business to try to blacklist her from television due to her supposed sexuality. At the time she had only been kissed once, by a boy. That comedian? Bill Cosby. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 22:49

TIL there are plans for a "Titanic II," a modern-day replica of the RMS Titanic, with a maiden voyage scheduled for June 2027, spearheaded by Australian billionaire Clive Palmer and his Blue Star Line. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 20:49

TIL most caffeinated soft drinks use synthetic caffeine, which is now mostly produced in Chinese factories [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 19:49

TIL The average person is walking around with about a plastic spoon's worth of microplastics in just their brain [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 17:49

TIL that John Rae, aided by the inuit, discovered that Franklin's lost Arctic expedition had starved to death and committed cannibalism. When Rae reported this the British public refused to believe their sailors could resort to such acts, with Rae being condemn as a idiot for believing the inuit. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 15:49

TIL that an actor has played the same role since 1985. Adam Woodyatt has portrayed "Ian Beale" on 'Eastenders' since the show began. He left the UK soap opera in 2021 but came back in 2023. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 14:49

TIL Suriname, which has the highest percentage of Muslims in the Americas, has two different groups of Muslims from India and present-day Indonesia who preyed to Mecca in completely different directions as they entered and settled in Suriname via the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans respectively [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 12:49

TIL that Los Angeles is actually an active oil pumping field that at its height provided 25% of all the oil in the world. It's still pumping today, they just hide the many derricks in boxes and pretend they aren't really there. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 10:49

TIL that “The Lion Eating Poet in the Stone Den” is a Chinese poem in which every word is pronounced “shi.” It is readable in Chinese, but incomprehensible when spoken or when written in the Latin alphabet. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 10:49

TIL Mount Everest grows in height by 4mm (0.16in) every year [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 08:49

TIL that the first novel in the world ended mid-sentence. The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century, is the world’s oldest novel. Towards the end of 54 chapters, the story is stopped abruptly mid-sentence. Some translators believe the work is complete and intended to end tha [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 06:49

TIL about Manichaeism, which was once a major world religion. Beliefs included the idea that God is not actually omnipotent, harvesting is an act of murder against plants, and Adam and Eve were the children of demons. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 03:49

TIL in 2016 Italian sculptor Maurizio Cattelan created a fully-functional 18K-gold toilet titled "America" worth an estimated $6M. It was stolen in 2019 and the artist himself congratulated the thieves and praised their feat as performance art. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 апреля 2025 01:49

TIL Tony Dalton (Lalo on Better Call Saul) hosted a Jackass-esque Mexican reality show in the early 2000s, which was cancelled when a 19-year-old contestant died of alcohol poisoning after being made to drink 40 shots of tequila. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 23:49

TIL that when Amedeo Modigliani died of tuberculosis, his companion Jeanne Hébuterne threw herself out of the fifth-floor apartment window before dawn on the day of Modigliani’s funeral. She was 21 years old and eight months pregnant with their second child. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 23:49

TIL about Britain's White Feather Campaign, where women would shame men who refused (or were unable) to serve during WWI by gifting them white feathers. Despite an uptick in depression among young men and a number of suicides, the campaign was considered a success by the British government. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 21:49

TIL that actor Jeff Daniels had a newly-discovered worm named after him in honor of his role in the 1990 horror comedy, Arachnophobia. The worm, Tarantobelus jeffdanielsi, is one of only two known worms known to infect tarantulas. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 20:49

TIL during a scene in The Shawshank Redemption in which a crow was to be fed a maggot, the American Humane Society objected against the idea of a live animal being killed for the scene meaning the team had to find and use a maggot that had died of natural causes. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 17:49

TIL that in the 19th century people thought that the left side of the brain was masculine and the right side feminine. "The right side of the brain was seen as the inferior and thought to be prominent in women, savages, children, criminals, and the insane." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 15:50

TIL that tower PC cases became popular because of safety concerns. Apple worried that a new monitor in 1991 that weighs 80 pounds would crush computers under its weight. The Mac Quadra 700 and 900 announced at the same time thus have tower cases, to prevent users from putting the monitor on them. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 15:49

TIL that in 1933, U.S. President Roosevelt unilaterally ordered most gold in Americans' private hands to be transferred or sold to the government. Possessing more than 4 oz of gold was penalized by steep fines or up to 10 years imprisonment. Owning gold remained illegal in the U.S. until 1974. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 13:49

TIL that during WWI (and briefly WWII) the British would shame men into joining the military by recruiting young women to call them cowards on the streets of their hometowns. These women would also pin a white feather on them to symbolize their cowardice. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 11:49

TIL that the Cagots were a persecuted minority with unknown origins in France and Spain who had no genetic, language, or cultural differences to the overall population [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 апреля 2025 09:49

TIL in 456 BCE Aeschylus, the father of Greek tragedy, was killed after an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head. According to Pliny, Aeschylus had been avoiding a prophecy which foretold that one day a house would fall on him and take his life. [Source]