Today I Learned 🎓

08 February 2026 03:49

TIL Sean Astin's first acting role was in a 1981 television film titled “Please Don't Hit Me, Mom”, in which he played an eight-year-old child with an abusive mother (portrayed by his real-life mother Patty Duke). [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

08 February 2026 01:49

TIL Johnny Carson joked about an alleged shortage of toilet paper. Viewers believed the story and panic buying and hoarding ensued across the United States as consumers emptied stores, causing a real shortage that lasted for weeks. Stores and toilet paper manufacturers had to ration supplies. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 21:49

TIL On January 4, 1970, Keith Moon, the drummer for The Who, accidentally ran over and killed his driver and close friend, 24-year-old Neil Boland, while trying to escape a hostile crowd. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 20:49

TIL Nietzche's autobiography contained chapters such as "Why I Am So Clever", "Why I Am So Wise", and "Why I Write Such Excellent Books" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 19:49

TIL that in 1787 Thomas Jefferson, trying to prove American wildlife wasn’t inferior, had an entire moose carcass shipped across the Atlantic to France to impress European scientists. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 16:49

TIL Burt Reynolds was originally cast as George Spahn in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but he died shortly before filming began. However, he ended up contributing a memorable line to the movie when he told Tarantino to have someone tell Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth "You're kinda pretty for a stunt guy." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 15:49

TIL that Magnus Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players of all time, has never lost 3 or more classical chess games in a row in his adult professional career. The last time he lost 3 games in a row was in 2003, when he was 12. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 11:49

TIL about the trend Happy slapping (2005) where teenagers would randomly assault strangers and film it on mobile phones for entertainment. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 11:49

TIL that as a child, Charles Dickens worked 10-hour days in a London boot-blacking factory - a trauma he later called the deepest shame of his life, but one that forged his strict 9–2, five-hour writing discipline and his life-long refusal to let his own children work. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 07:49

TIL that 44% of the world's adult population has never consumed alcohol [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 06:49

TIL that, in video games, "ludonarrative dissonance" is the technical name for the conflict between the story told in the gameplay, and the story in the non-interactive scenes (for example, the way that Drake in "Uncharted" is a fun-loving rogue in the cutscenes but a killing machine in the game). [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 03:49

TIL Elijah Wood revealed in a 2021 interview that he still hadn't finished reading The Lord of the Rings [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 01:49

TIL that the great Maurice Ravel wrote his most famous piece, Boléro, while probably suffering from the first symptoms of a fatal neurodegenerative disease. Some researchers believe that the revolutionary repetitive structure and obsessive focus on timbre were a result of left hemisphere damage [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 February 2026 23:49

TIL Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis were honorary members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 February 2026 22:49

TIL Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongolian Empire [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

08 February 2026 02:49

TIL that "black boxes" on airplanes are legally required to be orange. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

08 February 2026 00:49

TIL "Want to come up and see my etchings?" was a popular euphemism for an invitation to sex in the early 20th century [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 21:49

TIL 7-year-old Bonnie Lohman went to the store with her stepdad & saw her own face on a milk carton. She asked to keep the image & was allowed to on the condition she kept it a secret. However after her neighbors saw the image & reported it, she learned that her mom had kidnapped her when she was 3. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 19:49

TIL that frequently using Afrin nasal spray (Oxymetazoline hydrochloride 0.05%) creates a dependence on it to keep your nose clear. While it shrinks blood vessels to relieve stuffiness, it causes them to swell when it wears off leading to more stuffiness. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 18:49

TIL that playing high-level chess causes players to burn calories at an athletic rate. For example, 21-year-old Grandmaster Mikhail Antipov was recorded burning 560 calories in just two hours of sitting—roughly what Roger Federer would burn in an hour of singles tennis. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 16:49

TIL about a soda machine offering 'mystery' drinks operated for nearly 20 years, but no one knew who operated it or kept it stocked. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 13:49

TIL the highest-grossing independent restaurant in the US in 2025 was MILA in Miami, which had an average check of $188 and generated over $51 million in annual sales. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 11:49

TIL that Christopher McDonald declined playing Shooter McGavin twice because he was tired of playing villains and he wanted to spend time with his family. He became interested in the role after winning a round of golf. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 07:49

TIL that the U.S. uses the 13th Amendment loophole to force incarcerated people into work, producing over $11 billion in goods & services while they earn pennies per hour and often lose most pay to fees. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 07:49

TIL a farmer cut off his own leg with a 4-inch pocket knife to free himself from a grain auger. After his leg got stuck, he kept getting pulled in deeper & deeper and with nobody around to help, he had to cut off his leg before time ran out. He then crawled 150 feet to a landline to call for help. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 05:49

TIL the founder of the Hells Angels was cast in FX’s hit series Sons of Anarchy and was a technical advisor for the show. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 02:49

TIL that there's a 25-year-long wait list to bring a car into Catalina Island. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

07 February 2026 00:49

TIL about the "McEmbassy." Every McDonald’s in Austria has a 24-hour hotline to the US Embassy to help American travellers who are in distress or have lost their passports. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 February 2026 23:49

TIL during the 1960s–70s “Secret War” in Laos, the US covertly trained and led the indigenous Hmong people to fight the communist Pathet Lao party and North Vietnamese troops. At its peak, around 30,000–40,000 Hmong fighters were involved. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

06 February 2026 20:49

TIL that former Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan, after retiring from figure skating started a career as a diplomat, becoming ambassador to Belize from 2022 to 2025. [Source]