No matter what they say, there are some things you don’t learn in school. In fact, there are many, but let’s just all pretend that those volumes of school books devoured back in our childhood years did make a difference.
You see, learning facts is about being world-savvy. Like, when you’re out at the pub quiz competing for beers on the house, you may throw out some of the best Today I Learned’s for a killer checkmate. Formerly known as “Did you know that?” facts, Today I Learned has all their good qualities minus the annoying and needlessly pretentious vibe.
And thanks to the unofficial powerhouse of the knowledge-hungry ones among us, also known as the r/TodayILearned subreddit with 24.8 million members, we now have the most sought-after collection of randomly interesting facts out there. So take your notebooks out, kids, we’re gonna take those brain cells for a ride.
For those who believe that knowledge is power, more hand-picked facts from r/TodayILearned can be found here, here, and here.
#1 Today I Learned
Slaveholders in the US knew that enslaved people were escaping to Mexico, the U.S. tried to get Mexico to sign a fugitive slave treaty, but Mexico refused to sign such a treaty, insisting that all enslaved people were free once they set foot on Mexican soil.
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#2 Today I Learned
A school principal once made a student who’d gotten into trouble sit in the basement & read the U.S. Constitution as punishment. That student (who committed the Constitution to memory as a result) was Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first Black Supreme Court justice.
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#3 Today I Learned
Charles Lightoller the second officer on the Titanic stayed onboard untill the end. And got trapped underwater until a boiler explosion blew him free. He survived by clinging to a capsized collapsible B. Later he volunteered in WWII and helped evacuate over 120 men from Dunkirk.
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#4 Today I Learned
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has disdain for money and large wealth accumulation. In 2017 he said he didn’t want to be near money, because it could corrupt your values. When Apple went public, Wozniak offered $10 million of his stock to early Apple employees, something Jobs refused to do.
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#5 Today I Learned
There is an Australian pine growing out of an old railroad bridge in the Florida Keys named Fred the Tree. Fred survives with salt spray, lots of sunshine, and no apparent soil. Fred even withstood Hurricane Irma!
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#6 Today I Learned
In 1983 a Mexican pilot crashed landed in a small town in Ireland and the whole town came together to build a temporary runway for him to take off again and continue his flight.
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#7 Today I Learned
Mexico passed a law that requires food packages to display large black octagonal “warnings” if the product is high in sugar, sodium, calories, or unhealthy fats.
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#8 Today I Learned
Susan Travers, the only woman ever to serve in the French Foreign Legion, waited until she was 91 to write her autobiography so everyone mentioned had already died
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#9 Today I Learned
The California Genocide, an oft-forgotten event in U.S. history due to occurring at the same time at the California Gold Rush. The Native American population of California decreased from as many as 150,000 in 1848 to 30,000 in 1870. Tribes such as the Yahi were hunted to extinction.
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#10 Today I Learned
A pregnant mother with twins lost one fetus in the first trimester and the other developed a coccyx tumor the size of a fetus that was killing it. Doctors removed baby LynLee from the womb, cut off the tumor, then put her back in the womb and she was ‘born again’ healthy 12 weeks later.
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#11 Today I Learned
Vears at Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in Montana have jobs: try to open coolers/dumpsters/containers of treats. If bears can’t make more than a tiny hole, the item is certified bear-proof. The GWDC is the only place where products can earn a certificate from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.
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#12 Today I Learned
Vietnamese farmers after the war repurposed external fuel tanks jettisoned by American planes into river canoes, which have lasted for nearly 5 decades.
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#13 Today I Learned
In 2014, four tenants refused to move out of their homes when developers wanted to create one of the most exclusive residences in Manhattan. Eventually, they all received huge payouts. The last tenant was so savvy and stubborn he received $17 million, plus use of a $2 million residence for life.
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#14 Today I Learned
Ancient Egyptians would shave off their eyebrows when their cats died and shave off all body hair (including their head) when their dog died to mourn until it grew back.
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#15 Today I Learned
There is an area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in which scientists have discovered Great White Sharks congregate at every year. They have nicknamed this stretch of ocean “The White Shark Cafe”
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#16 Today I Learned
When Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was 15 years old, his family was going through a rough period. After losing their apartment, his mother Ata Johnson, stopped their car on a Nashville highway and tried to walk into oncoming traffic. The Rock grabbed her and pulled her back, saving her life.
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#17 Today I Learned
About brothel candles, which burned for precisely 7 minutes and were heavily used during Victorian times. The individual would pay the fee, light the candle, and when the candle burned out, the session was over.
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#18 Til Elizabeth Blackwell Became The First Woman To Be Accepted At A Medical School In The Us, Because The Students Thought Her Application Was A Prank From A Rival School And Voted To Let Her Attend
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#19 Today I Learned
In 2003 two men, who weren’t licensed to fly, stole a parked Boeing 727 from Luanda International Airport and neither the men or the plane have ever been found.
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#20 Today I Learned
Graffiti artist Banksy sought to trademark his image of a protester throwing flowers. The trademark office denied it on the grounds of him having no interest in selling his work. In the ruling they used a quote from one of Banksy’s books: “copyright is for losers”
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#21 Today I Learned
A man was killed when he tried to shoot down a 125-year old Saguaro cactus. The man blasted most the way through and poked at one of the plants arms. The 500lb arm then fell crushing him.
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#22 Today I Learned
Steve Jobs never coded for Apple. According to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, he didn’t do any original design and one of Apple’s earliest employees also stated that Woz was the inventor while Jobs was the marketing person.
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#23 Today I Learned
After the murder of his father, Genghis Khan went into poverty, even being enslaved at one point. It wasn’t until he was in his 50’s did he rise to power and become the Khan of Mongolia
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#24 Today I Learned
Min horses are used as blind guides. They have a very wide range of vision, with a range of nearly 350 degrees. Horses are the only guide animals capable of independent eye movement and they can track potential danger with each eye. Horses can see clearly in almost total darkness.
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#25 Til That Us President Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge Used To Buzz For His Secret Service And Then Would Hide Under His Desk While They Frantically Searched For Him
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#26 Til That Iceland Has Largest Banana Plantation In Europe. They Use Geothermal Energy To Heat Greenhouses, Allowing For The Production Of Tropical Fruits Like Bananas
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#27 Til Not Only Do Bats Make High-Pitched Sounds For Echolocation, Many Bat Species Also Sing. A Team Of Scientists That Analyzed One Species’ Song Translated It As A Sequence That Opens With A Hello, Then A Gender Identification, Then Some Geographic Information, & Then A “Let’s Talk” Section
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#28 Today I Learned
Ninjas would carry crickets or cicadas to disguise their sound when they needed.
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#29 Today I Learned
People who quit smoking before the age of 40 may live as long as people who never smoked at all. Researchers found a smoker loses roughly 10 years of life to the habit but regained most of that time if they quit before 40. The benefit is increased the sooner before 40 you quit.
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#30 Today I Learned
Irène Curie and her husband received a Nobel Prize for their discovery of artificial radioactivity, 30 years after Irène’s parents received their Nobel Prize. She died due to overexposure to radiation, also just like her parents. Her children are still alive and are also prominent scientists.
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#31 Today I Learned
When Prohibition was enacted in USA, it took less than an hour for the first documented violation of it to happen
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#32 Today I Learned
Wood ants practice chemistry, and will synthesize an antibiotic substance using tree resin and formic acid to protect the health of their colony. It is considered to be the most advanced act of evolutionary pharmacology seen in the animal kingdom
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#33 Til The People Of Africa Have More Genetic Diversity Than The Rest Of The World Combined
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#34 Today I Learned
Leif Erikson was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He is thought to have been the first known European to have set foot on continental North America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus.
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#35 Today I Learned
Sudan has more pyramids than any other country on earth – even more than Egypt. There are at least 223 pyramids in the Sudanese cities of Al Kurru, Nuri, Gebel Barkal and Meroë. They are generally 20 to 30 metres high and steep sided.
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#36 Today I Learned
A sports writer wrote a rude and snarky article about the WNBA even though he had never been to a game. He was confronted by a WNBA star who chided him and invited him to watch her play. Two years later they were married.
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#37 Til That In 1989, The Buffalo Sabres Goalie Had His Neck Sliced By Another Players Skate, Severing His Carotid Artery, Resulting In So Much Blood Loss That It Caused Eleven Fans To Faint, Two More To Have Heart Attacks, And Three Players To Vomit On The Ice. His Life Was Saved By The Team Trainer
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#38 Til: The Discoverer Of Neutron (James Chadwick) Was A Student Of Discoverer Of Proton (E. Rutherford) Which In Turn Was A Student Of Discoverer Of Electron (J.J. Thomson)
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#39 Til That After Landing On The Moon During Apollo 11, Buzz Aldrin Accidentally Damaged The Circuit Breaker That Would Arm The Ascent Engine That Would Get Them Off The Moon. The Astronauts Activated The Engine By Triggering The Circuit With A Felt-Tipped Pen
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#40 Til Nearly 8% Of The Human Genome Is Virus Dna. Meaning Some Of Our Ancestors Survived A Virus But Still Carry The Dna It Inserted
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#41 Til Eminem Broke The “Fastest Rap In A #1 Single” World Record Three Times In A Row – After Having Set The Record With 6.46 Words Per Second In “Rap God”, He Then Broke It In “Majesty” At 6.5 Wps And Later Broke It Once Again By Rapping At 7.5 Wps In “Godzilla”
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#42 Today I Learned
Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines.
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#43 Til The Danish Police Resisted Nazi Command So Fiercely That 1,960 Of Its 10,000 Police Members Were Arrested And Sent To Concentration Camps. Faced With Nazi Demands, The Danish Police Administration Was Inclined To Accepted Them, But The Police Organizations Refused, Leading To The Deportations
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#44 Til That “Shaun Of The Dead” Was Considering The Title “From Dusk Till Shaun.” And That “Into The Spider-Verse” Has A “From Dusk Till Shaun” Movie Poster In The Background- Suggesting It Exists In A Parallel Universe
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#45 Til That Despite Increases In Computer Power, Each Shrek Film Has Taken About Twice As Many Hours To Render As The One Before It. Dreamworks Calls This “Shrek’s Law”
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#46 Today I Learned
Edgar Allen Poe wrote “William Wilson”, a story where doppelgangers share a name and similar traits. In the 1980s, there were 2 switch hitter, center fielders, that shared similar traits and backgrounds, playing in the MLB. Their names were William Wilson.
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#47 Til Robert Frost Couldn’t Read The Poem He Wrote For John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration Due To The Glare On The Snow Being Too Strong. So He Instead Recited One He Knew From Memory
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#48 Til That A Woman Experienced A Brazil Nut Allergy After The Allergen Was Passed To Her From Her Partner’s Semen During Intercourse. The Researchers Believe This To Be The First Case Of A Sexually Transmitted Allergic Reaction
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#49 Til When The # And * Keys Were First Put On Phones They Had No Purpose Whatsoever And Were Only Included Because Touch Tone Phones Could Create Up To Twelve Tones
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#50 Today I Learned
In 1991, 60 Minutes suggested red wine was the answer to the “French Paradox” (France enjoys a low incidence of heart disease despite a diet high in saturated fats). Within a year, American consumption of wine increased 40% and some wine sellers began promoting their products as “health food”
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