These 40 'Today I Learned' Facts Will Surely Prove To You That There's Always Something New To Learn

The world is filled with lots of information that there are things we'll never know even if we learnt 10 new stuff everyday, and this post will prove it.

Elisha

• Published in Interesting
• January 6, 2022

While it's easy to binge watch Netflix series or keep tabs on our favorite celebrities, we need to constantly remind ourselves that we could spend some of that time wisely. We have to come to terms on how important it is to learn new stuff and hone our minds, luckily, we have all that's needed at our disposal.

In our honest opinion, the ability of the internet to entertain us and rightly position us to learn something entirely new are the internet's greatest upsides. We almost have whatever knowledge we seek at our fingertips, it's right to say the wealth of human wisdom is contained in the internet.

The ‘Today I Learned' community on Reddit epitomizes the vast amount of knowledge in our world and, briefly encapsulating how rich in information our world really is. It is an online group that celebrates learners, and encourages the habit of learning something new every single day.

So far, it has served as a home for 26.3M people who are ardent about learning, and gaining more knowledge on science and history. Being amongst the TIL audience would keep us yearning for knowingness.

Oh, wanna know the best part about these facts? They never grow old, we can always repeat them during lunch with loved ones and impress them with how clever we are. Who doesn't love listening to random yet interesting facts while having a sandwich and tea?

Keep scrolling for the newest TIL facts and trivia uploaded on the community, tell us which ones surprised you. Should you need more absorbing facts, you can always check out the TIL community.

Feel free to let us know in the comments about all the things that you recently learned.

1. Niccolo Tartaglia

2. Cinder-Ella

TIL that Cinderella isn't a real name but was just a nickname for Ella who would be covered in cinders due to having to sleep by the fireplace to keep warm or clean ashes. Most other versions have different variations on a name relating to ashes.

3. Underachieving, lol

TIL that an underachieving Princeton student wrote a term paper describing how to make a nuclear bomb. He got an A but his paper was taken away by the FBI.

4. Jim Crow Laws

TIL that during World War 1, the American Expeditionary Forces tried to make the French treat Black soldiers in accordance with Jim Crow laws ''due to concerns that black soldiers and officers working with the French were being treated with too much “familiarity and indulgence.”

5. All Hail The Queen!

TIL there are 17 monarchies in the world ruled by a Queen, 16 of those are Queen Elizabeth II

6. Seasons Greetings

TIL that in 1867, an American businessman attended a reading of A Christmas Carol and was so moved by it, that he closed his factory on Christmas Day and sent every employee a turkey.

7. Mirror Breeding

TIL that many birds do not breed very well in small flocks and that Zoos use mirrors to help increase reproduction

8. Domain Name

TIL in 1999, Microsoft wanted the domain www.Windows2000.com but it happened to be owned by a guy called Bob. Luckily, Microsoft happened to own the domain www.Bob.com. They made a swap, with Bob receiving some "other considerations" as well!

9. Conrad Veidt

TIL of Conrad Veidt, a top 1920s German actor whose wife was Jewish. He refused to renounce her and even claimed to be Jewish in solidarity. In Hollywood, his acting contract said if he played a Nazi, he must be a villain (like he was in Casablanca). He also gave his life savings to the war effort.

10. Identification

TIL until 1971, the Government of Canada assigned all Inuit people a number in lieu of a surname and issued each a leather disc with the number that had to be carried at all times or sewn into clothing

11. Adjustable

TIL in the 1950s, a researcher was designing army airplane seats for an 'average' pilot based on measurements from 1000s of airmen, only to discover this theoretical 'average' he'd derived wouldn't fit any of them. This realization led to adjustable seats, foot pedals, helmet straps, and flight suits

12. Apple

TIL: when St. Jerome translated the Bible to common Latin, he made the forbidden fruit an apple as a pun.

13. The Gift

TIL Queen Victoria personally admired Harriet Tubman and gifted her a silk lace & linen shawl in 1897. It is now on display at the national museum of African-American history & Culture

14. Enrico Pallazzo

TIL that when Leslie Nielsen died, ESPN published an obituary for Enrico Pallazzo, the umpire he played in The Naked Gun

15. Work Smarter, Not Harder

TIL that the reason many Hanna Barbera characters had collars and ties was to save money on animation. Separating the head and body allows the body to remain static while the head is animated. This made it so a seven-minute cartoon only required around 2,000 drawings, as opposed to the usual 14,000

16. Energy: Aurora Borealis

TIL that in 1859 a 2 hour telegraph conversation between Portland and Boston was able to be had without the use of any battery power. This was due to an aurora borealis generating enough electric current in the telegraph wires.

17. Corned Beef

TIL that corned beef is named for the large grains of rock salt (also called "corns" of salt) that are used to treat the meat.

18. Danish Vowels

TIL Danish has about 40 different vowel sounds and is so hard to learn that Danish children on average know 30% fewer words at 15 months than Norwegian children and take two years longer to learn the past tense

19. Stalin's Proposals

TIL that in 1952, Stalin proposed German reunification under a "neutral and democratic" government, but was turned down by the West. It is still debated whether the offer was a bluff, a trick, or a genuine missed opportunity for reunification.

20. Halloween

TIL that one town in Scotland celebrates Halloween on the last Friday of October instead of the 31st since there’s no school or work (for most) the next day.

21. Astronaut

TIL astronaut Bruce McCandless floated in space completely unattached to anything, 320 feet away from the space shuttle with only a nitrogen jetpack back in 1984.

22. Pharmaceuticals

TIL about the Edict of Salerno. In 1231 after noticing the rapidly rising cost of medicine, Emperor Friedrich II made it forbidden for doctors to double as pharmacists and the prices of various medicines were fixed so they could not rise further.

23. Cons Of Selective Breeding

TIL that Brussels Sprouts have been selectively bred over the last few decades to taste less bitter, indirectly lessening their anti-cancer properties.

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25. American Flowers

TIL in the midst of Greenland's pristine landscape lies a U.S. Air Force base which was abandoned in 1947 and everything was left behind; dilapidated vehicles, asbestos-laden structures, and 10,000 leaking fuel barrels. The Inuits who live in the region call the rusted remains "American Flowers".

26. Hold On

TIL that "No Country For Old Men" had to suspend production because the crew for "There Will Be Blood" was testing pyrotechnics in the same area and created too much smoke.

27. World's Oldest Wheel

TIL - The oldest wheel was discovered in Slovenia and is over 5,000 years old

28. Vikings

TIL Viking women’s faces were more masculine than today’s women, while Viking men's faces looked more feminine than today's men, with a less prominent jaw and brow ridges. The ambiguous facial features mean that it is difficult to decide upon a Viking skeleton’s sex based on the skull alone

29. Remembrance Of The Dead

TIL that in the Netherlands on May 4th 8 pm, no matter where you are, there is a 2-minute silence for the soldiers that died in WWII

30. Valhalla

TIL Vikings believed that there was a goat in Valhalla that supplied an endless supply of beer from it's udders

Steven Wooding is a member of the Institute of Physics in the UK and a part of the Omni Calculator Project. According to him, "The internet reflects the world around it, so everything you find in the world will also appear on the internet. I see it as a great shortcut to information (gone are the days of having to visit a library) that can speed up your learning and ability to do things."

These days, what comes to mind when we think of learning is teachers, tutors, classrooms, books and educational texts, in other words, formal education. It was never always like this, it's not like we always had school around or something, so how did man learn before the advent of educational structures?

Perhaps, the answer to this question would shed more light on what the most important factor in learning is, the internet, formal education, or life itself. It's safe to say the internet could be a force for education and a tool for distraction. Whichever you think it is, it largely depends on us as individuals.

31. Sirens

TIL that the sirens from Greek mythology were never said to be beautiful, or even mermaids. Instead, they were strange human-faced bird creatures who lured men to their deaths by promising them wisdom and knowledge of the future.

32. Dinosaurs

TIL that in 1992, six visitors to a dinosaur exhibition in the Memphis Zoo demanded a refund after discovering it did not contain living dinosaurs

33. Arthur Stillwell

TIL of Arthur Stillwell, a young Kansas City entrepreneur who built over 3000 miles of railroad, and founded over 40 towns, and developed a way to to ship live oysters by train, all because the voices in his head told him to.

34. Anti-Black Friday

TIL about Buy Nothing Day, established to counteract the consumeristic Black Friday

35. Not Too Intelligent

TIL according to the head of MI6, if James Bond was real, he would be unable to work for British intelligence because he lacks the required emotional intelligence, respect for the law and teamwork abilities.

36. Silica Gel

TIL that silica gel packets aren't poisonous. They are labeled "do not eat" because they are a choking hazard

37. Saving Coke

TIL that in No Time to Die, the cobbled streets of Matera, Italy did not have sufficient grip for the film's opening car chase. The crew got around this by pouring Coca-Cola all over the road, making it sticky, and allowing the drivers to perform the stunts.

38. Genius

TIL jazz guitarist Pat Martino suffered a near-fatal seizure in 1980 which left him with amnesia and no recollection or knowledge of how to play the guitar. He re-learned how to play the instrument, and resumed his performing and recording career in 1987 until his death in 2021.

39. Dr. Joyce Brothers

TIL when Dr. Joyce Brothers was a contestant on The $64,000 Question the show’s sponsor Revlon tried to get rid of her because she didn’t wear makeup on air. She was asked increasingly obscure questions but was able to answer them all correctly and became the show’s first woman to win the top prize.

40. David Niven

TIL at David Niven's funeral, the largest wreath was from the porters at Heathrow Airport with a card reading "To the finest gentleman who ever walked through these halls. He made a porter feel like a king."

We'll take a wild guess, you are probably just learning about one-third of what you've just read... you did not know them before! Thanks to the ‘Today I Learned' community, we can not agree more to the fact that we never stop learning.

Do not hesitate to share this post with your friends and family, they might share other interesting stuff they found with you too.

Elisha