42 “Today I Learned” Facts That Prove The Learning Never Ends

We think we know so much, but almost daily we realise that there is always some new knowledge to acquire. Especially now that the learning process has become so much easier thanks to the internet. 

#1 TIL Aretha Franklin required that she be paid in cash before any performance. The cash went into her handbag and the handbag either stayed with her security team or would rest on the piano during her onstage performance.

Image source: trifletruffles, 49metal

#2 TIL Terry Pratchett had all his unfinished works destroyed by steamroller after his death.

Image source: briskt

#3 TIL real doctors from USC Medical Center were recruited to play the doctors who try to save E.T. because Spielberg felt that actors talking about technical medical matters didn’t seem natural.

Image source: SingLikeTinaTurner

#4 TIL average onset of menstruation for girls in 1840 was age 17. In 2000 it was 12 years old.

Image source: u/jumpedoutoftheboat , Sora Shimazaki

#5 TIL that when Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes, he was working as a doctor in the NHS. On the day he broke the record, he had already worked a morning shift at St Mary’s hospital in London, and then caught the train to Oxford where he ran the race.

Image source: EssexGuyUpNorth

#6 TIL that the Guinness World Records no longer recognize the fattest animal as a record in order to prevent compulsive overeating.

Image source: WyenaTheGirl

#7 TIL that instead of using his Make-A-Wish for something for himself, 13-Year-old Abraham Olagbegi used his wish to feed the homeless in his neighborhood for a year.

Image source: RealTheAsh , Goodable

#8 TIL: In 1956, France banned the serving of alcohol to children under the age of 14 in the school canteens. Prior to that, school children had the right to drink half a litre of wine, cider or beer with their meals. In 1981 France implemented a total alcohol ban in the country’s schools.

Image source: diacewrb, Yan Krukau

#9 TIL a man found a winning lottery ticket worth $24 million in an old shirt just two days before it expires.

Jimmie Smith, a 68-year old New Jersey man who discovered a winning New York Lotto ticket in an old shirt hanging in his closet.

The ticket was purchased on May 25, 2016 and the winner had one year to claim the prize.

Smith checked his tickets in May 2017, after seeing a news story about the unclaimed jackpot.

He claimed his prize just two days before the deadline, on May 23, 2017.

Image source: Algrinder

#10 TIL A breakthrough in kidney stone treatment will allow them to be expelled without invasive surgery, using a handheld device. NASA has been funding the technology for 10 years, and it’s one of the last significant issues in greenlighting human travel to Mars.

Image source: Influence_X, RDNE Stock project

#11 TIL that Skoda test their car horns 150,000 times for the European car market. For the Indian market the horns are tested 500,000 times due to the increased use of car horns in India. One study carried out at major intersections in Indian cities found that a horn sounds every three seconds.

Image source: u/EssexGuyUpNorth, Carcomparing.eu

#12 TIL that, to avoid predators, when the glass frogs are asleep, they remove nearly 90% of their circulating blood cells, storing what is essentially their entire circulatory system in one organ and resulting almost transparent

Image source: giuliomagnifico

#13 TIL one of the co-creators of Keurig machines was diagnosed with caffeine poisoning due to his daily 30 to 40 cup coffee habit.

Image source: radarthreat, Joseph Francis

#14 TIL a sheepdog named Casper fought for over 30 minutes against 11 coyotes who were threatening his flock, killed 8 of them, and survived with a severe neck wound and a missing tail.

Image source: algrinder

#15 TIL Michael Schumacher donated $10 million to the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. It was the highest individual donation made in the disaster that killed more than 220,000 people. Schumacher’s bodyguard Burkhard Cramer, and Cramer’s two sons, were killed in the tsunami.

Image source: trifletruffles

#16 TIL that Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum awarded its 10th million visitor with the chance to spend one night in the museum alone. The winner slept underneath Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch”.

Image source: Specialist_Check

#17 TIL that in his final years as US president, Woodrow Wilson was too sick to govern. His wife Edith kept his sickness secret, taking over so many duties she was essentially president. She hid Wilson’s paralysis by covering his left side with a blanket.

Image source: RollingNightSky, loc

#18 TIL calories in food are measured by exploding a dehydrated food in an oxygen filled canister surrounded by water. The explosion of the food item gives off energy that heats the surrounding water. The increase in temperature of the water is how we calculate calories.

Image source: jellypalmbear, Marta Dzedyshko

#19 TIL An otter squeezed through gates into a classical Chinese garden at night in downtown Vancouver and ate 11 prized koi fish. Traps baited with raw chicken and salmon were set up but otter was never caught.

Image source: ubcstaffer123

#20 TIL The bronze doors of the Pantheon are the original doors from 2000 years ago.

Image source: BOQOR

#21 TIL the sun loses over 4 million tons of mass every second as energy.

Image source: Travellingjake, Sachin C Nair

#22 TIL in 1963, a 16-year-old sent a 4-question survey to 150 well-known authors (75 of which replied) in order to prove to his English tutor that writers don’t intentionally add symbolic content to their books.

Image source: Calendar8, theparisreview

#23 TIL Michelin started reviewing restaurants so people would travel farther and wear out their tires, increasing their sales.

Image source: julyninetyone, Yente Van Eynde

#24 TIL Rockstar hired real-life gang members and ex-convicts in GTA V to voice some of the characters. They also gave them the freedom to improvise the script and say what they would say in real life, to make the dialogue more realistic and authentic.

Image source: Algrinder, rockstargames

#25 TIL that an unplugged microwave carries enough residual current to kill you, even if it’s been unplugged for months. So never try to repair a broken microwave unless you know how to discharge the capacitor

Image source: mario_van_pooples

#26 TIL that women are traditionally prohibited from entering a sumo ring. This tradition is so strictly enforced that in 2018 two women were asked to leave the ring even though they were preforming CPR on a man who collapsed in one.

Image source: nickburrows8398, Jed Scattergood

#27 TIL in the 1980s, NASA had a 1-900 number which charged $2 for the first minute and $.45 for each additional minute. It allowed callers to listen in on a mission status report and mid-flight press conferences, and thousands of them heard the Challenger explosion in real-time.

Image source: Forward-Answer-4407 , Alena Shekhovtcova

#28 TIL that the majority of men in Germany sit down to urinate.

Image source: Poopfinger

#29 TIL that it is impossible to copy, scan, or Photoshop currency on most modern equipment. Modern copiers and scanners, as well as image processing programs, can identify patterns on the notes and will cease processing the image.

Image source: 99titan, John Guccione

#30 TIL: A woman born with birth defects caused by Chernobyl including 6 toes, webbed fingers, no thumbs, leg 15cm shorter than the other, and missing some organs, won a gold medal in the paralympics for cross-country skiiing.

Image source: CapitalManufacturer7, Yakudza

#31 TIL A hiker was lost on a mountain for 24 hours and ignored calls, texts, and voicemail messages from rescuer teams because he didn’t recognize the phone number.

Image source: Algrinder, Oziel Gómez

#32 TIL: Author Roald Dahl helped invent a new brain shunt that saved thousands of children after his own baby son suffered a brain injury.

Image source: KewpieCutie97

#33 TIL that John F. Kennedy’s patrol boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. After a 3-mile swim to an island, he and his crew survived on coconuts for 2 days. Rescued by two islanders, their message etched on a coconut shell became a paperweight on JFK’s desk.

Image source: NebulaNomad640

#34 TIL: North Korea shot down a US spy plane in April 1969, an enraged Nixon allegedly ordered a tactical nuclear strike and told the joint chiefs to recommend targets. Henry Kissinger spoke to military commanders on the phone and agreed not to do anything until Nixon sobered up in the morning.

Image source: u/diacewrb

#35 TIL that 80% of animals found in Madagascar exist nowhere else on earth.

Image source: mikeyv683

#36 TIL that philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once took mescaline and imagined himself attacked by sea creatures. For years afterward, he suffered from intrusive thoughts about crabs and persistently thought crabs were following him around.

Image source: dancingdivadrink

#37 TIL Tina Fey got her chin scar at age 5 when a stranger randomly entered her yard while she was playing and slashed her face.

Image source: SAT0725, David Shankbone

#38 TIL During the 1800s, Hawai‘i became one of the most literate nations in the world with over 90% of the population able to read and write. Even King Kamehameha III proudly declared, “He aupuni palapala ko‘u” (“I have a kingdom of education”)

Image source: colapepsikinnie

#39 TIL Ernie Hudson, who played Winston Zeddemore in the Ghostbusters movies, was rejected from a role in the Ghostbusters cartoons because they thought he didn’t sound like Winston Zeddemore.

Image source: Cyrus-114, sonypictures

#40 TIL you can die eating a diet of rabbits without another source of fat because they are so lean. It’s called protein poisoning, aka Rabbit Starvation.

Image source: Dongalor

#41 TIL there is a town in Alaska called Whittier where nearly the entire population lives in one building along with all of the town’s public facilities.

Image source: ComfortableShirt93

#42 TIL Winston Churchill had a doctor’s note to drink “unlimited” alcohol in prohibition America (1932).

Image source: CheesyDogPizza, BiblioArchives