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 🎓

11 July 2025 21:49

TIL while suffering dementia near the end of her life, Harriet Beecher Stowe re-wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin nearly word-for-word believing it was a new book. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 20:49

TIL that in 2013, 15 Australian miners were fired for performing the 'Harlem Shake' in a gold mine [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 20:49

TIL the F.B.I finds it hard to hire hackers because you can't have smoked weed in the last 3 years [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 17:49

TIL the Corona Muralis was a golden battlement-shaped crown awarded to the first Roman soldier or centurion who climbed the wall of a besieged city and to successfully place the standard of the attacking army upon it. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 16:49

TIL: Enrique Iglesias's grandfather conceived a child who was born 7 months after he died, at age 90 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 11:49

TIL that one U.S. county alone (San Bernardino) is larger than the states of New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island combined [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 08:49

TIL: CERN still uses tape drives to store data, as only tape drives can store the massive amounts of data generated by the Large Hadron Collider. Each tape contains 8.5 terabytes of data and can be bought as a gift from their giftshop. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 05:49

TIL the Daily Mail used to be openly pro-fascist, with editorials expressing support of Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and British fascist movements during the 1930s. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 04:49

TIL that Curious George was originally supposed to appear in Forrest Gump (1994) until Robert Zemeckis cut him: 'That monkey's gotta go' [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 July 2025 23:49

TIL that of all 17,576 possible 3 letter acronyms, 94% were used at least once in a dataset of 18 million scientific articles [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 July 2025 21:49

TIL that because people with epilepsy are rarely schizophrenic and vice-versa, Ladislas J. von Meduna started inducing epileptic seizures in schizophrenic people to treat the disease. His first tests of convulsive therapy resulted in the first cure for catatonia and led to the development of ECT. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 July 2025 20:49

TIL of Fordlândia, Henry Ford's failed rubber utopia in the Amazon jungle. In the 1920s, the colony was home to hundreds of workers living a mandatory alcohol-free "healthy lifestyle," including square-dances, poetry readings, and golf, but ended up totally abandoned after riots and crop failure. [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]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 21:49

TIL Craigslist generated $302 million of revenue in 2024 with no spending on marketing or advertising and no sales team. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 20:49

TIL your eyes rotate torsionally in their sockets durring head tilt and its not just post processing by our brain! [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 19:49

TIL skydiving instructor Devrey LaRiccia & her student Kayla Black both died during a tandem jump after they encountered 2 dust devils (rapid rotating whirlwinds) at about 40 feet. LaRiccia managed to avoid one, but got caught in the other, which sent them in an uncontrolled spin to the ground. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 17:49

TIL that in 1783, two French scientists became the first humans to ascend nearly 10,000 feet using a hydrogen balloon over Paris just 10 days after the first ever manned balloon flight. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 15:49

TIL during Leon Trotskys assisination he fought back fiercely, breaking the assasins hand. But was struck in the head with an ice axe. When guards rushed in, they nearly killed the assasin, but Trotsky insisted he be interrogated. Despite emergency surgery, Trotsky died the next day from blood loss. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 10:49

TIL about the Lombard queen Rosamund. Taken as a prisoner after her father, last king of the Gepids, lost a war to the Lombardic king Alboin who took her as his wife. He was notably cruel to her, making her drink from her fathers skull at a banquet and she later instigated his assassination. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 06:49

TIL that medical students dissected the donated body of a 78-year-old man only to discover that he had three penises. The two extra penises were small, nonfunctional, and completely concealed within his scrotum, so it’s possible he lived his entire life without knowing his anatomy was different. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 04:49

TIL after the Crimean War, Queen Victoria praised soldiers’ facial hair as the mark of "real fighting men". Mustaches became mandatory until 1916, mainly because gas masks required a proper seal, prompting the army to drop the almost 60 year old rule and made them optional. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

11 July 2025 02:49

TIL Antonio Salazar, the authoritarian leader of Portugal, suffered hemorrhage after falling either from a chair or in a bath and died 2 years later due to not recovering. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 July 2025 22:49

TIL that Nvidia founder Jensen Huang's parents sold nearly everything they owned to send him to what they thought was a prestigious boarding school but which was in fact a reformatory for troubled kids. He taught his 17 year old roommate how to read in exchange for help working out. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 July 2025 21:49

TIL that since the 19th century the average human body temperature has decreased by as much as 1 degree F° [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 July 2025 20:49

TIL about Sargeant Gander, a Newfoundland dog that fought alongside Canadian troops in the Battle of Hong Kong. He saved several wounded soldiers when he grabbed grenade thrown into their midst and ran towards the enemy with it. He was awarded the doggy equivalent of the Victoria Cross. [Source]