Today I Learned 🎓

20 February 2026 07:49

TIL an audit at the University of North Carolina found that one of its most reliable servers had been walled off for 4+ years without anyone even noticing [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 February 2026 02:49

TIL that the first baby born in the White House was born into slavery [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 February 2026 00:49

TIL Ossi Ketola, CEO of controversial Counter-Strike skin gambling site “CSGOEmpire” is actually the biggest losing player of all time in televised poker; losing over $20 million in just two months of live-streamed cash games [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 23:49

TIL that in 1827, the Ottoman Sultan sent a giraffe to King Charles X of France. Since there were no trucks or large carriages, they walked the giraffe 900 km (560 miles) from Marseille to Paris. It caused a national obsession called 'Giraffomania,' where people styled their hair and clothes to look [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 23:49

TIL that the 1988 Franklin child prostitution ring allegations accused powerful Nebraska figures of running a child sex trafficking network, and a key investigator died in a plane crash while returning from collecting evidence, before state grand juries later ruled the claims a “hoax”. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 20:49

TIL Ottoman Sultans were legally allowed to execute their brothers, however the practice ended after 1595, when Mehmet III killed 19 of his brothers in the same evening, the youngest being 11 years old. After this incident, they switched to keeping their male relatives locked in the harem for life [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 18:49

TIL the 1904 Olympic Marathon in St. Louis was a disaster: The first "winner" hitched a car ride for 11 miles, the actual gold medalist was revived with rat poison and brandy, and another runner was chased a mile off-course by wild dogs. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 17:49

TIL: Allspice is from the dried berries of an allspice tree (Pimenta dioica). It is not a combination of the spices that it's thought to taste like (cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves). [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 16:49

TIL that the term “knots” for nautical speed comes from the 1600s, when sailors measured ship speed by casting a weighted rope with knots tied equal distance apart off the stern of the ship. The number of knots that passed in 30 seconds was how many knots the ship was traveling at. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 14:49

TIL the “Invisible Gorilla” experiment which fooled most people. In a famous 1999 study, participants watched a video of people passing a basketball and were asked to count passes. Midway through, a person in a gorilla suit walked through the scene and half of participants didn’t notice the gorilla. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 09:49

TIL about Brendon Grimshaw, who bought Moyenne Island in 1962 for £8,000. He spent 40 years planting 16,000 trees and bringing back wildlife, eventually turning down a $50M offer to ensure it became the world's smallest National Park. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 07:49

TIL about Eddie Eagan, the only person in history to win an Olympic gold medal in both the winter and summer games [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 05:49

TIL of the first king of Tibet, Nyatri Tsenpo (literally "Neck-Enthroned King"), an outsider who the Tibetans enthroned and carried on their necks because they believed his strength and physical deformities, which included webbed hands and eyelids closing from the bottom, were signs of his divinity. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 00:49

TIL David Bowie declined a knighthood because he didn’t understand what the honor was for and said it wasn’t something he had ever worked toward achieving [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

18 February 2026 20:49

TIL about the concept of "gardening" in the field of cryptography: acting in such a way as to induce your enemy to send messages containing a known string, to assist in decryption. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 February 2026 03:49

TIL that social rejection activates the same brain region as physical pain. As a result, researchers found that taking acetaminophen can actually reduce the "pain" felt from being rejected or excluded. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 February 2026 01:49

TIL that there's a deep sea creature that's called the flying spaghetti monster due to its resemblance of the satirical deity [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

20 February 2026 00:49

TIL German Shepherds used to be extremely common as seeing eye dog but because they are “too” intelligent and and “too” loyal (get attached to one person, their first trainer) they were eventually superseded. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 23:49

TIL Vincent Gigante, boss of the Genovese mafia family, pretended to be insane for almost 30 years to avoid prosecution. He would often walk the streets of New York City's Greenwich Village "in his bathrobe and slippers, mumbling incoherently to himself". [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 21:49

TIL that Money Laundering wasn't a federal offense in the United States until 1986 [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 19:49

TIL about "Pink certificate" in Turkey. Homosexual men are exempted from serving mandatory military service, but "Conscripts who declare their homosexuality have to provide photographic proof (a photograph of the person on the receiving end of anal intercourse)." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 18:49

TIL about “the red zone” the time between Orientation Week & Halloween when students, especially first years, are more likely to experience sexual violence on campus [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 16:49

TIL about a 2005 TV special named Who’s Your Daddy that featured actress T.J Myers and eight men competing for a 100k prize. Meyers was adopted and the man that would win the prize is the man who convinced her that he was their biological father. However, one contestant was her actual biological dad [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 14:49

TIL there was a giant underground mall complex at the World Trade Center with a floor area of 365,000 square feet (33,900 square meters), which opened 1975 and was destroyed during the 9/11 attacks as well. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 13:49

TIL our galaxy, in part, is flavoured like raspberries and scented of rum. In 2009 scientist performed telescopic spectroscopy on the Sagittarius B cloud at the centre of our Milky Way and found Ethyl Formate - which gives raspberries their distinct flavour and has a faint rum scent. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 08:49

TIL A LOT of items people think are non-recyclable - like brita filters, toothpaste tubes, toothbrushes, and razors - can actually be easily recycled for free [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 06:49

TIL that there is a dish in Japan called “chicken sashimi” that is prepared raw [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

19 February 2026 01:49

TIL The longest running Manga still in production is Golgo 13. The Manga about a professional assassin has been in production since October 1968 and had it's first hiatus in 52 years in May 2020 due to the pandemic. It resumed publication in July 2020. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

18 February 2026 22:50

TIL one of the tools used to break the Enigma cipher was a catalogue of every way to encrypt the word "eins" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

18 February 2026 20:49

TIL that the conqueror Timur and his rival Bayezid were not just enemies on the battlefield, but they also spent years sending each other letters simply insulting each other. In one letter Timur even called Bayezid a "pismire ant". [Source]