Today I Learned 🎓

20 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 2025 02:49

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

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 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 April 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 April 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]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 18:49

TIL Robin Williams improvised so much during the recording of Aladdin that the Disney team had over 16 hours of material, and his performance was deemed ineligible for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 17:49

TIL that 18 y/o J.S. Bach taught rowdy older students and often clashed with them. After calling one a "nanny goat bassoonist," the student responded by calling him a "dirty dog" and hit him with a stick. Bach drew his sword and pierced the student's jacket, only stopping when passers-by rushed in [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 15:49

TIL in 2014 a man who survived a motorcycle accident left his doctors shocked when they found his heart had turned 90 degrees to the right & was no longer on his left side. His injuries caused a buildup of air pressure in his chest & once it was removed his heart returned to its original position. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 14:49

TIL Portuguese is most spoken language in the southern hemisphere [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 08:49

TIL that Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the respected commander of German forces in East Africa during WW1 was offered a job by Hitler in 1935. He told Hitler to "go fuck himself" though other reports say he didn't "put it that politely." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 April 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 🎓

19 April 2025 19:49

TIL that 99 year old Dick Van Dyke had to be rescued by three neighbors after he was found crawling to his vehicle trying to evacuate a California wildfire last December [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 17:49

TIL that Apollo astronauts' footprints on the Moon may last for millions of years. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 16:49

TIL the shrimp industry removes the eyes of female shrimp to increase reproduction, calling it "eyestalk ablation." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 15:49

TIL Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz negotiated an upfront payment of $10 million each for voicing the sequel to Shrek (2001). This was an increase from the $350,000 each received for the first film. Also, the three actors were expected to each work between 15-18 hours in total on Shrek 2. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 12:49

TIL of Michele Mouton, the last women to compete in high level rallying. She won 4 races in the 1982 season and nearly won the 1982 World Rally Championship season, eventually finishing runner up, as a factory driver for Audi. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 April 2025 08:49

TIL During the filming of The Godfather, Marlon Brando refused to memorize his lines, and would read them off cards attached anywhere from trees in the background to fellow actors. [Source]