Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 08:49

TIL Victorians took photos of dead relatives—sometimes propping them up to look alive—for family albums. These "memento mori" photos were meant to honor and preserve their memory. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 05:49

TIL You’re supposed to fill your tires with the amount of air specified on the sticker in your door jamb, not the max pressure listed on the side wall. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 04:49

TIL The clitoris never stops growing. While the penis grows rapidly during puberty and plateaus, the clitoris continues to enlarge gradually for most of a woman’s life. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 02:49

TIL “Waka Waka,” a song by Shakira that topped charts worldwide, was originally performed by Golden Sounds, a Cameroonian band founded by members of Cameroon’s presidential guard. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 23:49

TIL that the belly button is an actual erogenous zone. For some people, it even has the potential to trigger a nerve that causes a tickling sensation in their genitals. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 22:49

TIL there’s a term for why people act wild in groups—Deindividuation. It’s when you lose your sense of self in a crowd and follow group behavior, ranging from harmless hype to risky or harmful actions. Feeling unidentifiable in a group reduces personal accountability. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 19:49

TIL that in 2005, Japanese investment bank Mizuho Securities lost the equivalent of $285 million in just a few minutes due to one typo. The firm tried to sell 1 share for 610,000 yen but ended up selling 610,000 shares for 1 yen each. Mizuho was almost bankrupted. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 15:49

TIL that Aruna Shanbaug, an Indian nurse spent 42 years in a vegetative state after a brutal assault in 1973. Shanbaug died of pneumonia on 18 May 2015, after being in a persistent vegetative state for nearly 42 years. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 14:49

TIL a python snake got addicted to meth fumes and was rehabilitated by Australian prisoners in a wildlife care program. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 09:49

TIL a woman secretly kept her lover hidden in her attic for over a decade; he emerged only to kill her husband [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 05:49

TIL that James Dean was most likely bisexual and had relations with several men and women throughout his career. When questioned on his orientation, he said "No, I am not a homosexual. But I'm also not going to go through life with one hand tied behind my back." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 04:49

TIL that the kid who voiced Arthur in Disney’s 1963 film “The Sword in the Stone” went through puberty in the middle of production. The director then used his two sons to finish recording Arthur’s lines. In some scenes, vocal clips from all three actors are interspersed. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 01:49

TIL that during the 1919 United States anarchist bombings almost half of the bombs were thwarted because they were mailed with insufficient postage. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 апреля 2025 22:49

TIL in 2013 a man taking shelter under a tree during a storm was struck by lightning, which knocked him off his feet. But before he hit ground, he was struck by a second bolt of lightning. However he never lost consciousness & escaped with only minor injuries. His doctors told him he was "a miracle" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 апреля 2025 21:49

TIL that modern smartphones have 5,000 times the processing power than the most powerful supercomputer in the world in the 1980s. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 07:49

Today I learned that every Sturgeon caught in British waters has to be offered to the reigning monarch. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 05:49

TIL Vince Gilligan described his pitch meeting with HBO for 'Breaking Bad' as the worst meeting he ever had. The exec he pitched to could not have been less interested, "Not even in my story, but about whether I actually lived or died." In the weeks after, HBO wouldn't even give him a courtesy 'no'. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 03:49

TIL there’s a condition called “autophony” where your own voice sounds like it’s screaming inside your head due to a defect in your inner ear. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 апреля 2025 01:49

TIL that since 1997, a group of craftsmen has been building a medieval-style castle in France from scratch, using only 13th-century techniques, tools, and materials, as part of an ongoing experimental archaeology project called “Guédelon.” The estimated completion date is 2030. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 22:49

TIL that Tudor England strictly regulated begging. Healthy beggars would be whipped or branded with a "V." Only the sick or weak were allowed to beg—and only in assigned areas. If caught begging elsewhere, they were punished. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 21:49

TIL that between 11am and 12pm on March 3, 1876, chunks of red meat feel from the sky for several minutes in a 90m x 45m area in Bath County, Kentucky. The cause of the Kentucky Meat Shower remains unknown. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 16:49

TIL Beethoven was challenged to a piano duel by pianist Daniel Steibelt, who tried to bend the rules by handing Beethoven a Cello and Piano piece instead of just a Piano piece. Unfazed, Beethoven turned the score upside down, played it, then improvised on the inversed themes for half an hour. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 15:49

TIL between 2001 and 2021, a stork named Klepetan would fly every year from South Africa to Croatia to mate with another stork, Malena. Malena couldn't fly due to a gunshot injury. Klepetan would hunt, build her nests, and feed her chicks. Malena died in 2021 of old age. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 14:49

TIL Hitler was never elected to rule Germany. The president appointed him as chancellor because of pressure from the political elites and corporations. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 06:49

TIL that Michael Böllner the German actor who played Augustus Gloop in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, became a tax accountant and had no idea how popular the movie was in America until he was invited to a fan convention decades later. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 05:49

TIL that Measles infection causes "immune amnesia" which causes your immune system to forget how to fight pathogens that you had previously obtained immunity to. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 апреля 2025 02:49

TIL James Cameron has directed "the most expensive movie ever made" five separate times [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 апреля 2025 23:49

TIL that Cliff Burton's parents donated his posthumous royalty payments to a scholarship fund for music students at his alma mater [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 апреля 2025 22:49

TIL Grant Imahara made a lifelike Baby Yoda robot to visit children in hospitals and cheer them up before he passed away [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 апреля 2025 20:49

TIL that the date of Easter used to be so complicated to calculate that church authorities would come up with algorithms to determine it years in advance. Disagreements over the proper algorithm led to Eastern Orthodox churches celebrating Easter on a different date than Western churches. [Source]