Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 22:49

TIL Bloom Was a Secretary for 67 Years who had amassed a secret fortune of $9 Million By Copying Boss' Investments. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 21:49

TIL Jennifer Aniston had a strained relationship with her mother, who was a former model and very critical of her looks. She recalls not being the 'model child' her mother had wished for. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 19:49

TIL that a man broke into the Buckingham Palace twice in a month and the alarm was set off but dismissed as false alarm both times [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 15:49

TIL after being signed to a record label at the age of 12, Aaliyah's uncle introduced her to R. Kelly who ended up being lead songwriter and producer of her debut album; Age Ain't Nothing but a Number [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 12:49

TIL six out of the eight competitors in the 100-meter final in the Seoul 1988 Olympics were found to have taken performance enhancing drugs [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 07:49

TIL Tommy Davidson (comedian) was abandoned in the trash at 18 months old, before being rescued by a white woman who became his adoptive mother. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 05:49

TIL That two days before 9/11 Parade Magazine ran a blurb about the FBI trying to "smoke out" Osama Bin Laden and "see clearly through the smoke" with matchbook advertisements, just as they had done after the 1993 WTC bombing [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 02:49

TIL bagasse, the leftover material after sugarcane juice extraction, can produce enough electricity to sustain a sugar mill’s operations. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 01:49

TIL that actor Tom Baker landed the part of the Fourth Doctor after Barry Letts (a producer on "Doctor Who") was impressed by Baker's performance as the main villain in the 1973 Ray Harryhausen film "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 20:49

TIL that the first widely sold car rearview mirror wasn't a safety device. Instead, the 'Cop-Spotter' was intended to help you avoid the police. After the product launched in 1921, mirrors in cars grew increasingly popular, eventually being recognised as an essential safety feature. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 18:49

TIL In 1960, about 15 years after the atomic bombings, Oppenheimer embarked on a lecture tour across Japan, stopping in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 17:49

TIL that the 100th bomber group was so wild and undisciplined, that during a 1943 training flight from Kearney Field in Nebraska to Hamilton Field in California, 3 B-17s landed in Las Vegas and one pilot flew his B-17 to Tennessee to visit his wife! Their commander was subsequently fired. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 15:49

TIL when Julius Caesar died, he bequeathed his gardens "to the people as a place of recreation" and 75 Attic drachmas (roughly $350 in 2024) to every Roman living in the city. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 14:49

TIL about Geneva Steel paid bonuses to its workers with $2 bills, which then started to show up across many local businesses. This was done to show the importance of Geneva Steel to the local economy. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 08:49

TIL that Abraham Lincoln suffered from Major Depressive Disorder, was put on suicide watch multiple times, and was almost commited to a mental instituion. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 22:49

TIL Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, died in obscurity, was dug up by an admirer, shipped to England, then sold with a bankrupt man's house. His remains vanished and may have been turned into souvenirs. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 19:49

TIL That peanut-free schools don't decrease risk of allergic reactions. The only intervention which has been shown to decrease reactions across all ages is use of a peanut-free table. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 15:49

TIL that the courts found McDonald’s characters like Mayor McCheese and Grimace violated the copyrights covering the H.R. Pufnstuf characters [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 14:49

TIL in 2000, Tim Allen was to star in "The Cat in the Hat," and said, "My dream is to give it the edge that scared me. Like Alien, we’ll see very little of the cat. He’s a human being who turns into the cat, like a werewolf or vampire, as he gets more frustrated trying to deal with these children.” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 10:49

TIL scholars agree that the original ending of the Gospel of Mark was a cliffhanger in which Jesus disappeared from his grave. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 06:49

TIL a man escaped from a federal prison in Illinois after jumping over two 15 foot fences only to turn himself in to the FBI 4 days later to show them his desalination invention. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 05:49

TIL That Dolly Parton declined a proposal for a statue in her honor at the Tennessee state capitol. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

01 July 2025 02:49

TIL that at a 2004 horse race, over 13,000 fans placed bets totalling ¥121,751,200 on a first place victory for Haru Urara—a horse nicknamed the "shining star of losers everywhere." Haru Urara finished the race in 10th out of 11 spots, her 106th consecutive loss. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 21:49

TIL that SPF 30 sunscreen blocks 97% of UVB rays, SPF50 & SPF100 only increases by 1% [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 19:49

TIL in 2017 researchers hoping to study how various scavengers disrupt human remains set up a camera trap fully expecting to only see images of foxes, raccoons, coyotes, & various birds. However, they ended up capturing the first known photographic evidence of a deer gnawing on human remains. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 18:49

TIL "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy was one of Michael Jackson's favorite songs. When he met Shaggy, he told him it sounded like a song he would write, which prompted Shaggy to quip, "So you be bangin', huh?" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 16:49

TIL in 2016 the first adult great white shark (an 11.5-foot male) to ever be exhibited by an aquarium died after spending just 3 days in captivity. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 14:49

TIL The Great Male Renunciation is responsible for why male fashion is much less extravagant than female fashion in the western world. When during the enlightenment male clothing became utilitarian. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 14:49

TIL that the concept of Xenomorphs' second jaws - pharyngeal jaw - predates the discovery of the exceptional mobility of the moray's inner jaws [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

30 June 2025 05:49

TIL New York City used eminent domain to tear down a landlord's building but accidentally left his family with a small triangle of land. The city asked the family to donate the land, but the family instead made a small plaque to commemorate the tiny chunk of land they still owned, the Hess Triangle. [Source]