Today I Learned 🎓

13 July 2025 06:49

TIL There has only been one instance of a submarine sinking another sub while both were underwater, in 1945 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

13 July 2025 03:49

TIL that Josephine Baker adopted 12 children of all skin colors, creating what she referred to as her “rainbow tribe” and her “experiment in brotherhood.” The children were all brought up in accordance with their heritage and the religions that Baker assigned to them. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 23:49

TIL that Thalidomide (morning sickness drug that caused birth defects) is a chiral molecule. The drug that was marketed was a 50/50 mixture of left and right-handed molecules. While the left-handed molecule was EFFECTIVE, the right-handed one was highly TOXIC [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 20:49

TIL of the 1,213 warships involved in D-Day, 892 were British & just 200 were American. Of the 4,126 landing craft involved, 3,261 were British & 805 were American. In addition, two-thirds of the 12,000 aircraft involved in D-Day were also British. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 19:49

TIL Einstein’s famous tongue-out photo was taken on his 72nd birthday, after a long day of smiling for photographers, when he was tired of posing, so he stuck out his tongue instead. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 18:49

TIL between 1999 and 2015, 736 UK Post Office workers were wrongly convicted for stealing money due to faulty accounting software. Workers were forced to pay back nonexistent losses with their own money and some were even sent to jail for a crime they did not commit. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 16:49

TIL there are over 8,330 different vehicle license plate choices in the US, with Maryland leading the most options at 989 plates. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 15:49

TIL in 1994 Jim Carrey became first actor to headline three number one movies at the box office in the same year with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 11:49

TIL Ben Affleck’s habit of ad-libbing annoyed Kevin Smith so much during Chasing Amy that Smith told him to write his own script. Affleck ending up co-writing Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon and won an Oscar. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 08:49

TIL England and Ireland had sumptuary laws preventing lower classes from eating, drinking and dressing like the typical elite class, after the economic boost to peasants post the black death plague. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 06:49

TIL that the world's oldest known prosthetic device is a 3,000-year-old wooden toe found on an Egyptian mummy. The "Cairo Toe" shows signs of wear, indicating it was actually used by its owner during their lifetime, not just attached for burial purposes [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 05:49

TIL that approximately 1 in every 5-6 million boys are born with two penises [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 01:49

TIL about ‘The 9 Nanas,’ a group of women who secretly met at 4am for 30 years to anonymously help people in need, sending care packages with pound cake and notes saying ‘Somebody loves you.’ [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 00:49

TIL about Tsunami stones. They are ancient markers in Japan, often inscribed with warnings about past tsunamis. Placed after disasters, they advise future generations to build homes on higher ground to avoid deadly waves. Some date back centuries. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 21:49

TIL that the city of Melbourne in Australia was briefly known as Batmania in 1835, named after one of its founders, John Batman. It was officially renamed Melbourne in 1837 after the British Prime Minister at the time, Lord Melbourne. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

13 July 2025 04:49

TIL Bigorexia is a condition where someone thinks that their body is puny or not muscular enough, even if objectively they would be considered fit or athletic by other people, the condition is also called Muscle Dysmorphia. About 10% of the men going to the gym suffers from it. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

13 July 2025 01:49

TIL the McRib is made from bits of pig shoulder which are reconstituted with a binding agent into a larger product. Meat restructuring was developed by the US Army to deliver low-cost meat to troops, and McDonald's took the process as the government doesn't patent their intellectual property. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 22:49

TIL in The Office the characters Toby, Ryan and Kelly were located in “the annex” because those actors were also head writers for the show. Not requiring them in the background for scenes that did not directly involve their characters allowed them to attend to other off-camera responsibilities. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 19:49

TIL the only Indian POW held in Colditz Castle during WWII, Birendra Nath Mazumdar, was shunned by his fellow inmates. To improve his odds of escaping, he staged a hunger strike to get transferred to an all-Indian camp. It worked & he escaped from the new camp & walked 900km to Switzerland & freedom [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 18:49

TIL a man with Alzheimer's forgot he was married — and then fell in love with his wife all over again. He proposed again, and they had a second wedding... [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 17:49

TIL that the final payment on German debts in regards to World War One reparations was made on October 3rd, 2010. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 16:49

TIL about banker's rounding, where a half-integer is rounded to the closest even integer. For example, 0.5 is rounded to 0, and 1.5 is rounded to 2. This is intended to remove the bias towards the larger number that comes with rounding 0.5 up during approximate calculations. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 13:49

TIL the largest sporting disaster in history was in Ancient Rome, where 50,000 people died after an amphitheatre collapsed in 27 CE [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 09:49

TIL that Saddam Hussein had a Blood Quran written with 27 liters of his own blood [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 08:49

TIL that Bryan Cranston's father, Joseph Cranston, abandoned the family during Bryan's youth after being unable to get enough acting jobs to support them. They would not meet for another 11 years. In 1988, Bryan would star in 'The Big Turnaround' which was directed by his very own father Joseph [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 06:49

TIL Sudden rodent die off can signal an incoming plague. Patient in AZ died today from bubonic plague. HHS in AZ are concerned about sudden prairie dogs deaths. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 03:49

TIL Muhammad Ali's daughter, Laila, is considered one of the greatest female professional boxers of all time. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

12 July 2025 01:49

TIL that Sweden required bars and clubs to get a dance permit for people to legally dance, permits were introduced as a way to prevent public disorder which led to riots. In 2016, Sweden voted to end the rule that made bars get a license for dancing a law that dated back to the 1970s. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 22:49

TIL that nearly 2 out of every 3 revolvers sold in the US are made by a Brazilian company.

Taurus, based in Brazil, dominates the American revolver market with a staggering 61% share [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 21:49

TIL that the invention of the bicycle was sparked by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. The resulting Year Without a Summer caused crop failures and horse die-offs, which pushed Karl Drais to create the first bicycle as an alternative to horse travel. [Source]