Today I Learned 🎓

26 December 2024 01:49

TIL that New York restaurants that opened between 2000 and 2014, and earned a Michelin star, were more likely to close than those that didn't earn one. By the end of 2019, 40% of the restaurants awarded Michelin stars had closed. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 21:49

TIL evolution isn’t always slow and continuous—sometimes it happens in rapid bursts (Punctuated Equilibrium), which explains why fossils often lack smooth transitions. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 19:49

TIL Ian McElhinney (Barristan Selmy) was "miffed" when he found out his character was being killed off in Game of Thrones via his season five shooting schedule instead of a sitdown or phone call. He was also "disappointed" because he was looking forward to an expanded role for Selmy in season six. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 17:49

TIL That Niko Bellic is only 30 years old in GTA 4. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 16:49

TIL Rowan Atkinson's role in Love Actually was originally meant to be an Angel, which explains his knowingly helpful appearances. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 15:49

TIL about “parasite singles,” a Japanese term for unmarried adults living with parents into their 30s for comfort. This trend contributes to delayed marriage and low birth rates. Similar terms exist globally, like Italy’s “bamboccioni” (“big spoiled babies”) or Brazil’s “Paitrocínio.” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 13:49

TIL Rudy Kurniawan sold an estimated $150 million worth of fraudulent wine between 2002-2012, which he produced himself in his California home. His scheme started to unravel when wine producer Domaine Ponsot caught him selling Ponsot wines that were never made. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 12:49

TIL James Madison wrote Washington’s 1st inaugural address, then he wrote Congress’s response to that address, and then he wrote Washington’s reply to the response. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 08:49

TIL the first ever text message in history is "Merry Christmas" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 03:49

TIL of Martin Pistorius, who was unable to move or communicate for several years, but was able to recover partially due to his hatred of Barney, reruns of which were shown in his room [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 01:49

TIL the Michelin Man is named Bibendum, or Bib for short. He even has a category for value-for-money restaurants in MICHELIN's guidebooks—the Bib Gourmand—named after him. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 01:49

TIL of room 641A- a secret room in an AT&T building that held secret equipment used to spy on citizens [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 December 2024 21:49

TIL that the Nebra Sky Disc, a 3,600-year-old bronze artifact discovered in Germany, is the world's oldest known physical depiction of the cosmos with gold symbols for the sun, moon, and stars, including the Pleiades. The disc encodes accurate, useful celestial observation in a portable object. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 December 2024 20:49

TIL The 1964 Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer TV special is in a grey area of copyright due to the fact that the studio mistakenly spelled out the copyright date as 1164 in roman numerals and haven't corrected it since [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 December 2024 17:49

TIL that in Japan, condoms were originally made from tortoise shells or animal horns and only covered the head of the penis. Dutch traders later introduced Japan to ones made out of “fine leather.” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 23:49

TIL the Permian–Triassic extinction event that occurred approximately 251.9 million years ago is considered Earth's most severe known extinction event. 57% of biological families, 83% of genera, 81% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species became extinct. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 20:49

TIL Cathode-ray tubes, the technology behind old TVs and monitors, were in fact particle accelerators that beamed electrons into screens to generate light and then images [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 18:49

TIL Japan’s “proof of parking” rule is a regulation requiring car owners to provide proof of a designated parking space before registering or purchasing a car. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 16:49

TIL that Yemenis spend an estimated 14.6 million man-hours per day chewing khat [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 16:49

TIL that in 1087 sailors from Bari (southern Italy) stole the body of Saint Nicholas from Myra (modern day Türkiye). Despite fears of the locals, newly converted Muslims who still worshiped the saint, and Saint Nicholas himself, they brought it home and still celebrate the theft each year on 6 Dec [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 14:49

TIL John C. Woods, the U.S. Army hangman at Nuremberg, lied about being an executioner and botched multiple hangings, leaving Nazis to die slow, agonizing deaths. He bragged about his work, survived alleged assassination attempts, and later died mysteriously by electrocution in the Marshall Islands. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 13:49

TIL a 2017 survey of 1,000 Americans regarding bacon found that 21% said that if they had a choice, they would eat it every day for the rest of their lives & 16% said they couldn't live without it. Only 4% said they did not like bacon. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 11:49

TIL that the Bald Eagle, long a symbol of the United States, was not officially proclaimed the National Bird until yesterday [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 05:49

Today I learned that U.S. Government currently stores 1.4 billion lbs of cheese in caves hundreds of feet below Missouri [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 02:49

TIL humans were thought to be the only host species susceptible to leprosy until cases were identified in nine-banded armadillos and now Eurasian red squirrels in the UK have been added as a reservoir. 200,000 new human cases of leprosy a year are still recorded but the exact mechanism is unknown. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 December 2024 01:49

TIL that in 1926, Nikola Tesla predicted modern cell phones. Tesla described a future "when wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth" in a way that allows humans "to communicate with one another instantly irrespective of distance" with the clarity of a face-to-face meeting using a device. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 December 2024 22:49

TIL in 2021, scientists discovered Eumillipes persephone, a millipede with as many as 1,306 legs, found deep underground in the Australian outback, which makes this species the animal with the most legs on Earth and the first millipede discovered to have 1,000 legs or more. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 December 2024 20:49

TIL that Christine Jorgensen, a former WWII GI, became the first American widely known to undergo gender-affirming surgery in the early 1950s, later becoming a public figure and advocate. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 December 2024 19:49

TIL that the PNG format was developed because the GIF compression algorithm (LZW) was patented by Unisys, which required a usage fee. The patent expired in 2003 in the USA and in 2004 in Europe [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 December 2024 16:50

TIL the literacy rate grew in India by 97% between 2001 and 2011. The literacy rate among women is 70% and 85% for men. [Source]