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Whether people are setting up Trivial Pursuit at home or attending a pub trivia night, the basic premise remains the same: they're enjoying the thrill of providing correct answers to questions about lesser-known facts.
"You get a rush or a neuro-reward signal or a dopamine burst from winning," John Kounios, Ph.D., professor of psychology and director of the doctoral program in applied cognitive and brain sciences at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, told Healthline. "I think whenever you’re challenged with a trivia question and you happen to know it, you get a rush. It's sort of like gambling."
Only it doesn't really have any downsides.
To prepare you for these battles (or at least to make your Friday more interesting), Bored Panda snuck inside the 'Today I Learned' (TIL) subreddit and hand-picked some of the most interesting tidbits of information that people have shared there.
Oh, and if you want more, fire up our earlier TIL lists here, here, and here.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
TIL a woman quit her job to search for her border collie who escaped from a hotel room during a thunderstorm while on vacation in Kalispell, Montana. After 57 days of searching and posting hundreds of flyers around town, she finally found ‘Katie’ who was starving, but otherwise OK.
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#2
TIL an Austrian man left $2.4 million to the French village that hid him from the Nazis
#3
TIL there is a group of wolves in British Columbia known as "sea wolves" and 90% of their food comes from the sea. They have distinct DNA that sets them apart from interior wolves and they're entirely dedicated to the sea swimming several miles everyday in search of food.
#4
TIL of Vince Coleman, a train dispatcher who sacrificed his life to save hundreds, warning of a massive boat explosion nearby. The message: "Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbour making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye, boys."
#5
TIL That elephants stay cancer free as they have 20 copies of a key tumor-fighting gene; humans have just one.
#6
TIL In 2012 a British man named Wesley Carrington bought a metal detector and within 20 minutes found gold from the Roman Age worth £100,000.
#7
TIL that Apples are not ‘true to seed’, so the seeds from any particular variety apple will not grow to be the same variety as the apple tree they came from. E.g. If you planted seeds of Granny Smith it likely will produce a wide variety of different and unknown apple tree types.
Norart 3 years ago
People still tripping about GMO foods. Learn the very basics of genetics and you will know what our agrarian ancestors have known for thousands of years. Yes modifying genetics of plants and hybridizing for positive traits is not only desirable, it's how we've managed to feed the world effectively.
#8
TIL that in 2006, a couple lost for three nights in the San Jacinto Mountains of CA were rescued because they were able to light a signal fire from matches they found in the abandoned camp of a lost hiker who vanished exactly One year before their incident.
Son of Philosoraptor 3 years ago
Three of anything is the universal emergency signal. You can make three big circles in snow to alert a plane, three fires is obviously best. Or spell out SOS in a field anyway you can, with branches, with scraped lines in dirt, whatever.
#9
TIL that the details of the Manhattan Project were so secret that many workers had no idea why they did their jobs. A laundrywoman had a dedicated duty to "hold up an instrument and listen for a clicking noise" without knowing why. It was a Geiger counter testing the radiation levels of uniforms.
#10
TIL when Steve Buscemi was 4-years-old he was hit by a bus and managed to survive with a fractured skull. He received a $6,000 settlement from the city that was to be collected from a trust fund when he turned 18. When Buscemi turned 18, he used part of the money to pay for full-time acting classes.
Jayne Kyra 3 years ago
He was also an NYC firefighter from 1980 to 1984 and later volunteered during the 9/11 attacks.
#11
TIL: Cats rival dogs on many tests of social smarts, but very few scientists have the patience to try and study them
#12
TIL that in his acceptance speech for the 1976 Best Album Grammy, Paul Simon jokingly thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album that year. Stevie Wonder had won Best Album in the previous two years and would go on to win again in 1977 for Songs in the Key of Life.
#13
TIL that in 1982, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was rushed to hospital when a fish bone became stuck in her throat, and she ended up having an operation to remove it. Being a keen fisher, she calmly joked when it was done: "The salmon have got their own back".
#14
TIL A bank robber in France made a fictitious, coded document which he claimed as evidence during his trial. While the judge was distracted by the document, Albert Spaggiari jumped out of a window, landing safely on a parked car and escaped on a waiting motorcycle. He was never seen again.
Jean Lancelin 3 years ago
Ruined, Albert Spaggiari died, 12 years after his escape, from a throat cancer.
#15
TIL that Albert I of Belgium is called the "Knight King" because he personally led his army in combat for all of WWI; also his wife, Elizabeth of Bavaria, served as a nurse in front-line field hospitals.
#16
TIL President Lincoln’s blockade of Confederate cotton caused famine in English mill towns. Suffering Manchester workers nevertheless sent a letter of support to Lincoln and he responded with thanks and a gift of food. A statue of Lincoln in Manchester displays excerpts from both letters.
Seán Baron 3 years ago
I've been past that statue many times. I was very surprised when I first saw it. But it's on a nice quiet side street.
#17
TIL we use 100% of our brain. It is a myth we only use a small portion of our brain, and no scientific evidence supports such a hypothesis as a valid theory.
#18
TIL that the world record for the most passengers on an aircraft was set during Israel's evacuation of Jews from Ethiopia in 1991, when a single 747 carried at least 1,088 people, including two babies who were born on the flight.
#19
TIL the Dr. Heimlich fought against the Red Cross for 20 years over the practice of giving "5 back slaps" being a better alternative to the Heimlich Maneuver.
Gin. No tonic 3 years ago
I was in lifeguard training, and we were taught the 5 back slap move, which seems to be better for choking on liquids (eg. some water in the lungs), and in helping babies and toddlers. Heimlich maneuver is painful, but is great when an adult is choking on hard items (eg. pieces of food).
#20
TIL Otis Redding's widow, Zelma Redding, wrote a letter to Michael Bolton saying his cover of "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" was her favorite. She remarked that it brought tears to her eyes as it reminded her so much of her husband. Bolton had the letter framed and it hangs on his office wall.
Donkey boi 3 years ago
I genuinely don't think I've ever heard a cover of it. Gonna have to check that out!
#21
TIL that after the Black Plague, depopulation in Europe caused a shortage of laborers, who then were able to demand higher wages for work. Some estimates state that the typical worker's wages had increased by 50 percent
#22
TIL According to the convention of Geneva an ejected pilot in the air is not a combatant and therefore attacking him is a war crime.
#23
TIL about "lonely negatives". These are words with common prefixes or suffixes such as "dis-", "in-", "un-", "-less" but they don't have positive counterparts such as the words "disgust", "disappoint", "reckless" - they don't have "gust", "appoint", or "reckful" as their opposites.
#24
TIL the last French soldier to die in WW1 was killed 15 minutes before the ceasefire. He was delivering a message to his unit that soup would be served for lunch.
#25
TIL that in USA, parents are 12.7% less likely to be happy than childless people.
#26
TIL that the North America — and the USA in particular, has the world's most extreme weather, averaging more than 10,000 severe thunderstorm events per year, with more than 1,000 tornadoes.
#27
TIL the U.S. military has used superstition and pretended to be vampires and ghosts to scare enemies away. They dispersed scary horoscopes in Germany, staged vampire attacks in the Philippines, and in Vietnam blasted ghost tapes which consisted of spooky music and eerie voices. Only vampires worked.
Adonimar Pugales 3 years ago
not surprised the vampire attack worked in the philippines, we filipinos tend to believe in supernatural and superstitious solely to our culture.
#28
TIL there were no tomatoes, potatoes, blueberries, peanuts, corn, beans, chocolate, vanilla, or tobacco in the old world until about the year 1500, as they are native to the Americas. This was part of the Columbian Exchange which also included many other plants, animals, fungi and diseases.
Kari Panda 3 years ago
Tomatos were also used as decorative plants in some European countries at first rather than as food sources.
#29
TIL in WWII, Germany carried out only one land operation in north America, the installation of a secret weather station in Newfoundland. They scattered American cigarette packets and planted a sign saying "Canadian Meteor Service" in case anyone found it, and the site wasn't rediscovered until 1977.
Dave P 3 years ago
Not true, in 1943 the Germans landed teams of over 50 commandos, all Germans who spoke perfect English to sabatoge. One member who was US born, had a change of heart and ratted out the rest, who were rounded up. But for 2 months the Germans had a full blown commando team on US soil
#30
TIL Hitler planned to replace Berlin with a megacity, Germania, to showcase Nazi power. The plan was a metropolis of madness, with wide thoroughfares only for military parades, car and foot traffic directed to underground tunnels, and no traffic lights anywhere.
What do you think ?
Dorothy Cloud 2 years ago
Thank you, thank you. I was going to go back to the top to see if it was explained!!!!!!
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BastWren 3 years ago
A very interesting article, to me at least. When the information is accurate, as it seems to be this time, it is great reading for trivia buffs like me. Thanks, BP.
Wandaluzt 3 years ago
BP didn't write it. They copy and pasted the posts off a Reddit thread where users there post stuff. BP don't do original content, they rip everyone else's off.
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Dorothy Cloud 2 years ago
Thank you, thank you. I was going to go back to the top to see if it was explained!!!!!!
Load More Replies... BastWren 3 years ago
A very interesting article, to me at least. When the information is accurate, as it seems to be this time, it is great reading for trivia buffs like me. Thanks, BP.
Wandaluzt 3 years ago
BP didn't write it. They copy and pasted the posts off a Reddit thread where users there post stuff. BP don't do original content, they rip everyone else's off.
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