Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 11:49

TIL that shinobi were more spies and saboteurs than assassins and often wore plain disguises than all black as seen in popular media. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 10:49

TIL Mariah Carey started out as a background singer. She landed her first gig singing backup for freestyle singer Brenda K. Starr. Previously, she worked part-time jobs to pay the rent and completed 500 hours of beauty school. She shared a one-bedroom apartment with 4 other women. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 05:49

TIL that Tom Lehrer - MIT mathematician, satirist, and the guy who wrote both the Harvard fight song and a song teaching kids the periodic table - invented the Jell-O shot in the 1950s to sneak booze into a government Christmas party. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 03:49

TIL despite having no permanent residents, Palmyra Atoll is the only incorporated territory of the United States, which means the Constitution fully applies to it. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 00:49

TIL about The Coelacanth. An ancient fish species that was believed by scientists to have gone extinct 66 million years ago during the same mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs until one was caught in a fishing net in 1938. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 22:49

TIL Genetically mutated fruit flies which cannot fly are freely available online for easy feeding of pets [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 21:49

TIL Gene Simmons of KISS once sent a cease and desist letter to King Diamond on the Grounds of him having copied Genes signature face paint [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 19:49

TIL that during most kidney transplants damaged kidneys aren't removed meaning the recipient has three kidneys albeit two barely functioning. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 18:49

TIL that the Funk Brothers, a little-recognized motown band, played on more #1 hits than The Beatles, Elvis Prelsley, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys... combined. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 16:49

TIL that French newborns cry with a rising melody while German newborns cry with a falling melody, matching the intonation of their native language. Babies begin imitating their mother's speech patterns during the last trimester of pregnancy. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 15:49

TIL researchers documented 34 cases of wild orcas offering food to humans, including fish, birds and stingrays. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 14:49

TIL that after WWII, hay fever became common in Japan due to reforestation policies. The types of trees planted produced a lot of pollen while they were mature. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 11:49

TIL Several Mayan skeletons have been discovered with jade or turquoise stones embedded in their teeth! The practice appears to have been common between 250 BC and 900 AD and must certainly have had some ritual or cultural significance. These inlays may also have had an effect on dental health. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 07:49

TIL that sleeping in space can be deadly without good ventilation. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 05:49

til that in 1999 nasa lost a 125 million dollar mars climate orbiter because one engineering team used metric units while another used imperial units causing the spacecraft to enter the wrong trajectory and burn up [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 11:49

TIL that in 2024 a PhD student "accidently" discovered Valeriana - a Edinburgh sized hidden Mayan city in Mexico while browsing for data on the internet. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 09:49

TIL about Liver-Eating Johnson who killed over 300 Crow braves, eating their livers raw, in revenge for killing his wife and newborn child. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 04:49

TIL that televangelist Jimmy Swaggart responded to his first prostitution scandal with a tearful "I have sinned" speech to his congregation, but after his second prostitution scandal he told them, "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

21 May 2026 01:49

TIL of Nakahama "John" Manjirou, the first Japanese to visit the US. Saved from a shipwreck at 14 by a US whaling ship, the young fisherman joined the crew, and later took part in the California gold rush. He went home after 10 years, where he was made samurai and official interpreter. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 23:49

TIL about a highly mysterious company called JCM Farming, which owns an unusually fortified 80-acre "olive farm" in California protected by massive walls and armed guards and successfully sued several ballooners and ballooning companies out of business back in 2011 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 22:49

TIL that First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital by her only surviving son. She snuck letters out to her lawyers and sympathizers who helped get her released three months later. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 20:49

TIL in 2010 the son of a sitting judge in Las Vegas stole $1.5M in chips from the Bellagio casino at gunpoint, then stayed at the very hotel he robbed for a week, receiving free rooms and drinks as a high roller. He was later arrested in the hotel after trying to sell the stolen chips online. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 19:49

TIL During the Black Death in England, there was a practice to reduce swellings with pigeons. If the swelling from the buboes was not reduced, in a last effort, the physician would cut the pigeon from breast to back and apply the pigeon (while still alive) over the cold swelling. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 16:49

TIL when bilinguals combine words from two languages mid-sentence, the brain treats it identically to a single-language sentence. NYU brain-scan research found no separate "switching" signal in the word-combination mechanism. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 15:49

TIL A Japanese man survived the Hiroshima bombing, traveled to Nagasaki afterward for work, and survived the second atomic bombing too. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 14:49

TIL that a single lightning strike can heat the air around it to about 30,000°C, hotter than the surface of the sun [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 13:49

TIL that many provinces in Canada now have Argricultural Gag laws intended to prosecute whistleblowers speaking out against animal cruelty [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 08:49

TIL the fastest ocean liner ever built was the SS United States, which operated from 1952 to 1969. Its first voyage from New York City to the UK took three days, averaging 41 mph (66 km/h), and the record has not been broken since. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 06:49

TIL Biddy Mason (1818-1891) came to California as a slave in 1851. She won her freedom in court and became one of the first black women to own land in Los Angeles. As the city grew the value of her land skyrocketed and Biddy became a very wealthy woman and prominent philanthropist. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 May 2026 04:49

TIL 19th-century British table sets feature a third condiment shaker, and nobody in modern times seems to know for sure what it held. [Source]