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Grab your thinking caps, dear Pandas, it’s time to expand our minds! It’s time for another loving rendition of ‘Today I Learned,’ a list of all the cool and interesting (and really surprising!) things that the people of the internet learned about the world recently.

From science to history to everything and anything in between and more, the TIL community over on Reddit has got it all. And with so many curious people in the world, the subreddit keeps on expanding, now closing on a whopping 26 million members. Need some more yummy facts about everything and anything? Check out Bored Panda’s latest lovingly-crafted TIL articles here and here, as well as here. Got some cool trivia tidbits to share with the rest of the class? You can tell us all about them in the comment section.

Learning new things isn’t as easy as we’d like as we grow up. But it’s far from impossible! All it takes a spark of curiosity and the willingness to be open-minded and humble.

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL about BACA, a biker gang that will defend kids who were abused or bullied, give them their own vest, take them the school, and will even guard a house 24/7 to make sure the kid can sleep

Met76 , Vanessa Serpas Report

Final score:
781points
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#2

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL a bus driver in Paris kicked all the passengers out when they refused to make space for a wheelchair bound man

__aks , moovitapp Report

Final score:
712points
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#3

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Queen Elizabeth once hid in a bush with her corgis to avoid talking to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife.

Fun_Wonder_4114 , Bill Ingalls Report

Final score:
620points
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Here’s the thing about knowledge—if our metaphorical cup is full, if we always want to prove others wrong, and if we get overly defensive whenever a factoid threatens our worldview, then we’ll only ever live in our own private echo chamber.

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Sure, it’s comfy and cozy in this homogenous bubble of views, but it doesn’t help us grow and evolve as human beings much. We have to be willing to question everything. And even if we turn out to be right about something… well, there’s a lot to be said for being graceful and diplomatic with our words if we want to teach others, not just create an argument out of thin air.
#4

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Gorillas hum happy songs when they eat. “And if it’s their favourite food, they sing louder.”

onlyupliftingcomment , Mad Ball Report

Final score:
575points
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#5

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Stephen King sells the rights to some of his short stories for just $1, allowing aspiring filmmakers and students to adapt them into movies. This arrangement is known as the Dollar Baby.

killHACKS , Stephanie Lawton Report

Final score:
562points
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#6

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL a woman named Frances Perkins was outside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory during the fire and saw dozens of people jump to their deaths due to unsafe work conditions. She went on to become the first female Secretary of Labor and founded the Factory Investigating Commission to improve work safety

PM_me_no_clothes_pic , Library of Congress Report

Final score:
555points
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Lenore Skenazy, the president of Let Grow and the founder of the Free-Range Kids movement told me during an earlier interview that we should try and learn something from authority figures who are clearly wrong about something, instead of being overly combative.

“The key is to discover things together. If something sounds strange or unlikely, respond with curiosity—ask the person to tell you more, and how they found this information out, and where you should go if you want to delve into it further,” the expert said.
#7

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Gillian Lynne did so badly in school teachers thought she had a learning disorder & her mom took her to a doctor. Lynne began dancing to his radio; the doctor said: She’s not disordered, she’s a dancer; put her in dance school. Lynne became a world-renowned dancer & music theater choreographer.

TheRealLuckyBlackCat , ItzKingFran123 Report

Final score:
486points
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#8

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL before any details of Pixar’s ‘Soul’ were public, a Black chauffeur told Kemp Powers (the film’s co-writer & co-director) that he knew Pixar was making a Black movie because he had never driven so many Black people to Pixar before.

CocaTrooper42 , pixar Report

Final score:
459points
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#9

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that Utah’s Great Salt Lake used to be the home of a single flamingo named Pink Floyd, who escaped from the zoo and would be seen wintering in Utah socializing with seagulls

TheSpecksynder , Manuel Ramos Inostroza Report

Final score:
446points
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“Then if the sources they give you seem dubious—well, probably so is whatever they gleaned from them. But if the sources seem legit, read them with an open mind. They may be right after all!” Lenore told Bored Panda earlier.

Even if somebody gets their facts wrong, we shouldn’t get angry at them… well, unless they’ve been deliberately misleading us. “Ever since the Age of Enlightenment, humans have realized that the best way to get closer to the truth is by saying something out loud and seeing if it stands up to scrutiny. If not—hooray. We are one step closer to the truth because we've just jettisoned a misconception.”
#10

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Pope Benedict XVI resigned in 2013, but announced it in Latin. One reporter got the scoop and broke the story because she understood Latin. Most other reporters waited for official translations.

amansaggu26 , Mangouste35 Report

Final score:
412points
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#11

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that the Quran references Jesus's mother Mary 70 times and holds her in very high regard, identifying her as the greatest of all women

a2soup , Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato Report

Final score:
408points
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#12

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that three german students got sued by their alma mater for 10,000€ because they graduated "too fast". They completed their bachelors and masters degree within 4 instead of 11 semesters by attending different lectures and sharing notes. Then they founded a ghostwriting agency!

Markusdo , Pixabay Report

Final score:
387points
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Instead of being confrontational when we learn that an authority figure in our lives has been wrong about something, we should look at the situation as a great learning opportunity.

“If it turns out that you do find some information that contradicts what the other person—your teacher or boss or anyone—has stated as true, again, the best approach is not confrontation. It's assuming that the other person didn't mean to steer you wrong,” Lenore said.
#13

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL That rats can be trained to detect a chemical compound within explosives, meaning they ignore scrap metal and can search for mines more quickly. Also, an African giant pouched rat named Magawa has been awarded a prestigious gold medal for his work detecting land mines.

Hebdomero , pete beard Report

Final score:
383points
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#14

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that when you eat pineapple and your tongue begins to hurt it is due to the fact that the pineapple is eating you back thanks to bromelain.

heyysooos , Gabriel Yuji Report

Final score:
373points
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#15

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL on several late 60's recordings, prominent jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman used his 10-year-old son to play drums, though he could have employed high-profile adult jazz drummers. He prized the child's joyful child musical curiosity over a more technically skilled adult

GregJamesDahlen , Frank Schindelbeck Report

Final score:
370points
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“So if you bring in information that contradicts the person, don't say, ‘SEE??? YOU WERE WRONG!' Say something more like, ‘I was so interested in what you were talking about that I did some research and now I'm a little confused. Can we look at this together?'"

People tend to get defensive if we throw accusations their way and that’s not good for anybody. “So don't be rude, be engaged. This works in the classroom, in the office, and pretty much everywhere.”

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#16

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL in 2018 a French historical theme park named Puy du Fou trained six Rooks, a member of the crow family, to pick up cigarette butts and trash. When one of them takes a piece of trash to a special box the device dispenses bird food

f_GOD , Andreas Trepte Report

Final score:
350points
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#17

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL That in the late 1780's, an Irishman met an impressive performing bear while travelling France. When the bears owner prodded him with a stick, the bear shouted something in Irish, which led to the discovery that the performing bear was actually another Irishman who had been sown into the suit.

CooKeeeeeeee , Sharon Mollerus Report

Final score:
339points
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#18

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that rats left unaided in water will drown in a few minutes because they feel hopeless, but if they know there is hope of being rescued they will last for days.

grpagrati , Tambako The Jaguar Report

Final score:
293points
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#19

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL an Intern at NASA once stole a safe full of moon rocks, sprinkled them on a hotel bed, and had sex with his girlfriend on top of them. He was sentenced to 8 years

geek_fest , Wknight94 Report

Final score:
288points
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#20

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that veterinarians kill themselves at rates 2.5 to 3.5 times the general population, due in part to online trolling and threats from pet owners who blame them for the death of a pet, and easy access to lethal medicines

geekteam6 , Tima Miroshnichenko Report

Final score:
275points
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#21

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that barns are red because farmers made their own sealant using linseed oil and rust. The rust protects the wood from algae and fungal growth but also colors the mixture red.

EtOHMartini , Sonja Report

Final score:
275points
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#22

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL For millennia, Europeans did not know where birds went in Winter time. The mystery was partly solved in 1822, when a German hunter shot down a stork. The stork had a 80cm long Central African spear impaled in its neck. This provided the first evidence that they migrated to Africa.

amansaggu26 , Thomas Bresson Report

Final score:
270points
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#23

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that Thomas Edison proposed to his future wife in morse code, she accepted in the same way

FnordDesiato , Louis Bachrach Report

Final score:
265points
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#24

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) Today I learned IKEA is an acronym which stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd, which is the founder’s name, farm where he grew up, and hometown.

URLcrazy , Kgbo Report

Final score:
249points
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#25

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL about the mysterious worldwide epidemic of Encephalitis lethargica. The disease attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless. Between 1915 and 1926, 500,000 dead or incapacitated from it. It disappeared as mysteriously as it came in to the world.

Shibuya-Overlord , Wellcome Library Report

Final score:
243points
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#26

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL just before lethal hypothermia, a person will undress themselves because they perceive themselves to be burning up when indeed they're freezing (paradoxical undressing). Consequently people frozen to death are often found naked and misidentified as a victim of a violent crime.

clingyfungus , Fort Drum & 10th Mountain Division (LI) Report

Final score:
241points
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#27

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL the term "crimes against humanity" was first used to describe the atrocities committed by Leopold the 2nd of Belgium in the Congo Free State, a regime so brutal that the mercenaries hired by Leopold had to show a human hand for every bullet they used to prove the bullet wasnt used for hunting.

adr826 , Wikimedia Commons Report

Final score:
232points
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#28

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that the Venus flytrap naturally grows in very few areas in the Carolinas, so park rangers have to keep most of their grow sites a secret to keep them safe from poachers.

Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder , Blondinrikard Fröberg Report

Final score:
226points
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#29

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL In 1980 a dingo ate an Australian couple's baby while camping, causing the mother to sentenced to life in prison for murder. Three years later, the babies clothes were found near a dingo lair.

Longboarding-Is-Life , Peripitus Report

Final score:
225points
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#30

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL in 1998, a married couple was left behind during a diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Two days passed before anyone realized what had happened. Despite a 5-day search, the couple was never found. A dive slate was later recovered which read "... rescue us before we die..."

fleece_pants , Jan Report

Final score:
221points
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#31

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL the Adamites were a 2nd century Christian sect that sought to re-create the innocence of the Garden of Eden. To this end they called their church “Paradise”, practiced nudism, rejected marriage and claimed they could do whatever they wanted because they had no knowledge of good/evil.

Ok-Needleworker-8876 , Wikimedia Commons Report

Final score:
221points
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#32

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL despite modern connotations of death as evil, the Greek god Hades was actually more altruistically inclined. Very few individual aspects of his personality were recorded, as Greeks refrained from giving him much thought to avoid attracting his attention.

Myrandall , Carole Raddato Report

Final score:
215points
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#33

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that "Jazz" is statistically the hardest word to guess in hangman. It has to do with it being a short word, having only one vowel, and using "j" and "z"---letters that people rarely guess in hangman.

whisk_of_power , McGeddon Report

Final score:
214points
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#34

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that "ringworm" is a fungal infection and no actual worms are involved

huxley75 , Gzzz Report

Final score:
209points
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#35

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that the Bermuda triangle isn't statistically more dangerous than almost any other place on the world's oceans per capita, the traffic there is just much higher.

SnooPaintings4445 , Chris F Report

Final score:
196points
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#36

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL after their characters unsuccessfully flirted in Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern actually dated and got engaged

GirthWindNFire , Georges Biard Report

Final score:
194points
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#37

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL In 2019, Pope Francis approved changing the lord's prayer. The phrase “lead us not into temptation” changed to “do not let us fall into temptation”. He said the original was a bad translation because it suggested God caused the temptation.

amansaggu26 , Jeffrey Bruno Report

Final score:
183points
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#38

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that Michael Jackson suffered from severe insomnia and did not get any real sleep for 60 days prior to his death. Instead, his personal doctor had been putting him under general anestheisa every night.

a2soup , Constru-centro Report

Final score:
178points
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#39

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe nearly died of scarlet fever in 1962, of hypothermia in 1974, and of a lightning strike in 1986.

electricmaster23 , kris krüg Report

Final score:
177points
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#40

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that Sid Meier (of Sid Meier's Civilization and Sid Meier's Pirates!) began placing his name in the title of his games because of a suggestion made by Robin Williams in the 1980's

Hammy_Sagar , Official GDC Report

Final score:
167points
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#41

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL about "mad honey": it's honey collected from bees that have fed on rhododendron flowers, and it causes hallucinations and intoxication

woodchuckgym , Monfocus Report

Final score:
56points
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#42

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Camels can be larger than moose, run up to 40mph, live close to 40 years in the wild, and are more intelligent/emotional than horses.

waxymcrivers , Becker1999 Report

Final score:
51points
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#43

TIL more than half of the oxygen you breathe comes from marine photosynthesizers, like phytoplankton and seaweed.

Elder-The-Wise Report

Final score:
50points
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#44

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that there's a rare turtle in Australia that was discovered in 1990, when Steve Irwin found it in a crocodile catching trip. It was named after him.

Tirfing88 , Ian Sutton Report

Final score:
48points
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#45

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL the first doughnut machine was made in 1920 to meet the demand for doughnuts as a breakfast food item following WW 1. Adolph Levitt, a Jewish refugee who came to America fleeing czarist Russia, designed the machine and began selling fried doughnuts from his Harlem bakery in NYC.

KimCureAll , Alexander C. Kafka Report

Final score:
48points
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#46

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL of Henry de Bohun, a brave knight who thought he could kill Robert the Bruce on the open field because the King of Scots was armed only with an axe. Robert regretted the incident because he broke his favorite axe splitting Henry's head.

LeahTheKnown , Massam Report

Final score:
48points
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#47

TIL An Elephant’s penis is prehensile. It can be used as a tripod for stability when standing on two legs, swat away flies, and scratch itches on their stomach.

LillyPip Report

Final score:
47points
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#48

TIL that in 1984, British new wave pop group Thompson Twins released a video game on a vinyl record. Players had to copy the game from the vinyl disc to a cassette tape, which could then be played on a ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 computer.

BuridansAscot Report

Final score:
46points
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#49

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Michael Burry's autism (Aspergers) enabled him to see patterns in the 2007 housing market data that helped him predict the coming crash. As the data worsened, Burry found that heavy metal music calmed his nerves, something research has more recently shown is ideal for his "Brain Type S."

drbobintexas , Paramount Pictures Report

Final score:
45points
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#50

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that the raccoon life expectancy in the wild is only 1.8 to 3.1 years, depending on the local conditions such as traffic volume, hunting, and weather severity. Captive raccoons have been known to live for more than 20 years.

flyart , David Menke Report

Final score:
43points
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#51

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL A man was forced to tweet for help when he got locked in a department store after falling asleep on a massage chair. The man awoke to a deserted shop floor after dozing off in an electronics store in Japan.

SeizeOpportunity , Maryland GovPics Report

Final score:
42points
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#52

TIL Pom-Pom Crabs, small crabs that hold anemones in their small pinchers, will replace lost anemones by splitting the one left in two. This is the first known case of one animal stimulating another animal to reproduce asexually.

HeliumCurious Report

Final score:
42points
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#53

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that the last surviving Woolly Mammoths lived on an isolated island in the Arctic Ocean until just 2000 BC, not long after the construction of the Giza Pyramids

as1r0_ , Thomas Quine Report

Final score:
41points
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#54

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that a hairless cyclops deformed piglet was stillborn in 1642 and it looked so much like a local man, George Spencer, that he was brought before a magistrate on suspicion of unnatural relations. He confessed and recanted, but ultimately Spencer was hanged and the mother pig put to the sword.

LiveFreeDieRepeat , pxhere Report

Final score:
40points
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#55

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Amazon Web Services offers a service called Snowmobile, where they will bring you a truck with 100 Petabytes worth of hard drives, copy your data, then drive it to its destination, bypassing the internet entirely. Transferring this much data over a 1Gbps line would take 20 years.

Immediate-Silver9242 , Amazon Web Services Report

Final score:
40points
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#56

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL (Memorial day) 61% of U.S troops killed in Vietnam were younger than 21 years old. Many had been drafted

Vista_Seagrape , manhhai Report

Final score:
39points
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#57

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Shrek was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"

anh65498 , Dreamworks Animation Report

Final score:
38points
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#58

TIL of Flossie Wong-Staal, a pioneering HIV/AIDS researcher who performed nucleotide sequencing on HIV to map its entire genetic makeup and to elucidate its many variations. Such research helped improve the medical outlook for millions of HIV/AIDS patients around the world.

sundog925 Report

Final score:
38points
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#59

TIL some of the slaves freed from Charleston SC during the civil war organized a March at a race track where union soldiers had died in what is known as the first memorial day observance (a year before other states, and 3 years prior to the first national observance).

MarineKingPrime_ Report

Final score:
38points
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#60

TIL that the Goodyear Tire company was not founded by Charles Goodyear, the inventor of the rubber vulcanizing. Charles had died penniless trying in vain to protect his patents. Brothers Frank and Charles Seiberling started the rubber company in 1898 and named it in honor of Goodyear.

p38-lightning Report

Final score:
38points
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#61

TIL Dmitry Glukhovsky wrote the novel 'Metro 2033' when he was 18. He published the novel on his website available for free. This eventually led to a video game deal with 4A Games & a comic deal with Dark Horse comics.

MarineKingPrime_ Report

Final score:
37points
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#62

TIL That the province of Ontario in Canada has 250,000 lakes that contain around one-fifth of the world's fresh water.

DystopianAdvocate Report

Final score:
37points
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#63

TIL chimps have a closely related counterpart called bonobos. While chimps are violent and cannibalistic, bonobos are very passive and often appease each other with sex.

KNOXCRYPTO Report

Final score:
37points
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#64

TIL Chinese restaurants in California helped punk rock and punk rock bands by allowing the bands to play in the restaurants

GregJamesDahlen Report

Final score:
37points
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#65

TIL Juno Beach was originally going to named Jelly Beach, but Churchill disapproved of the name, finding it to be undignified "for a beach on which so many men might die"

SaveThePatrat Report

Final score:
36points
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#66

TIL William Shatner filmed Leonard Nimoy secretly during a convention appearance to include as footage in his film without Nimoy’s permission, prompting Nimoy's refusal to ever speak to him again. Shatner never understood why

SingLikeTinaTurner Report

Final score:
35points
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#67

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL the person who graduates last in his class during the United States Military Academy at West Point graduation ceremony each year is called "the goat" joining an exclusive club which includes Civil War hero General George Custer.

KimCureAll , West Point - The U.S. Military Academy Report

Final score:
34points
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#68

TIL in 1888, an Egyptian farmer discovered a cavern packed with tens of thousands of mummified cats dating to ancient Egyptian times. They were sold to British merchants by the ton, and were mainly used in Liverpool as fertilizer.

atomicbolt Report

Final score:
34points
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#69

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL unlike in the movie Die Hard, the escape hatch on an elevator can't be opened from the inside; by law, it's bolted shut from the outside. It’s there so that emergency personnel can get in, not so passengers can get out. If an elevator is in trouble, the safest place to be is inside the elevator.

WouldbeWanderer , Michael Morse Report

Final score:
33points
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#70

TIL that Dark Energy is calculated to make up 67% of the known universe, while Dark Matter makes up a further 27%, while what we can actually see and measure, conventional matter, makes up less than 5% of our universe. "Dark Energy" is really a placeholder for "we don't know what this is."

Polar_Roid Report

Final score:
32points
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#71

TIL the Eiffel Tower was originally intended to stand from 1889 to 1909, but was saved due to its use as an army radio transmitter. Its concession was extended for the next 70 years, to 1980, lasting beyond as a tourist attraction and receiving regular modifications such as television broadcasting.

electricmastro Report

Final score:
32points
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#72

TIL Tondrakians were members of an anti-feudal, heretical Christian sect that flourished in Armenia who advocated abolition of the Church, denied the immortality of the soul, afterlife, the church and its feudal rights. They supported property rights for peasants, and equality between men and women.

HatefulAbandon Report

Final score:
32points
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#73

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL A psychologist adopted a Chimpanzee and raised it alongside their own human baby boy, to see if the Chimp could grow up to behave/think like a human. Eventually the Chimp hit a cognitive wall and no amount of training or nurturing could overcome the fact that he was a Chimpanzee.

amansaggu26 , Tambako The Jaguar Report

Final score:
31points
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#74

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that Jared Hess had a $400,000 budget for 'Napoleon Dynamite, relying on the generosity of the locals of Preston, Idaho, to provide housing and food for crew members. Jon Heder was initially paid $1000 for starring as Napoleon.

johnlen1n , Paramount Pictures Report

Final score:
31points
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#75

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that the body of Alexander the Great has been lost over time. It was well-known to be in Alexandria, Egypt for centuries, and was even worshipped for a while, but its exact location has apparently been forgotten.

a2soup , Richard Mortel Report

Final score:
31points
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#76

TIL - Japanese Beer maker Asahi makes elderly friendly beer cans that are smaller, with braille, a larger fingerhole and a pressurized can to have the tab elevated from the top. They're also left at shrines to friends and family that have passed.

AndrewV Report

Final score:
31points
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#77

TIL when the Red Cross got suspicious and demanded to see what's happening inside Nazi camps, the Nazis created a 'model' camp. They planted gardens, repainted buildings, and prisoners were forced to play “happy” workers. The two delegates were successfully tricked in their 1944 visit.

iajzz Report

Final score:
30points
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#78

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL rust can kill you. Rusting metal consumes oxygen and can lead to death especially in confined spaces like holds of ships. In 2007, three people suffocated one after the other in the anchor locker of a vessel because rust had consume all the oxygen.

Bellringer00 , BsxXde-foTo Report

Final score:
29points
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#79

TIL that raccoons have extremely sensitive front paws, and often moisten objects to "see" them better with their paws (largely to determine if they are food).

mysterious_jedi Report

Final score:
29points
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#80

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that foil seals on over-the-counter medicine only became an industry standard after the Tylenol murders of 1982

Hii-AL , Mrbeastmodeallday Report

Final score:
25points
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#81

TIL During the May 1968 protests in France, the government came so close to collapsing that Charles de Gaulle fled the country while officials began burning documents, obtaining fake IDs, and planning their escapes. The prime minister was offered a gun with the advice, "You will need it."

lordpond Report

Final score:
25points
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#82

TIL That a female signal crayfish will lure her potential mates with her urine. Then, she makes them prove their mettle by beating her in a test of strengh before she allows them to mate with her.

DystopianAdvocate Report

Final score:
25points
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#83

TIL that Thomas Selfridge was the first person to be killed in an airplane crash in 1908. The propeller shattered in mid-flight and the plane nose-dived into the ground. Selfridge hit his head on the framework and died from a skull fracture. The pilot was Orville Wright.

kliuedin Report

Final score:
24points
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#84

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL that men wearing wedding rings was not common until World War 2, when soldiers would wear a ring to remind them of their love back home. After WW2, it became mainstream for men to wear a wedding ring.

WhatsATrouserSnake , Irina Iriser Report

Final score:
23points
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#85

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL in 1995 civil engineers warned the Sampoong Department Store in Seoul, S. Korea that structural failure was inevitable and it needed to be evacuated. They didn't close because it was so busy and it collapsed that day with 500+ people inside. One director left without warning his daughter in law.

f_GOD , 최광모 Report

Final score:
23points
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#86

TIL Elle Woods commits a huge ethical violation in "Legally Blonde" and, in real life, would've been barred from practicing law, & maybe subject to fines or prison time after she posed as a lawyer in attempts to get Paulette Bonafonté custody over her dog despite only being a first year law student

bjorktothefuture Report

Final score:
23points
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#87

TIL Joe Theismann and Alex Smith both suffered gruesome injuries to their right leg. The injuries occurred on the same date 33 years apart, on the same team, in the same city and on nearly identical parts of the field. The final score of both games was 23-21.

wxmanify Report

Final score:
23points
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#88

TIL of Owney, a mascot of the USPS. He was considered to be good luck by postal railway clerks, since no train he rode on was ever in a wreck.

SineOfOh Report

Final score:
22points
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#89

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL Chinese Mythology also has a Great Flood Myth. Unlike the Biblical story, humans fought the flood, led by the mythical heroes Prince Gun and his son, Yu the Engineer, who battled evil demons & solicited the aid of gods & dragons to build massive drainage basins & mighty dams to end the flooding.

Khysamgathys , Francis Danby Report

Final score:
21points
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#90

TIL Australians developed Vegemite because they couldn't wait for Marmite supplies to resume after World War I.

More-Can8714 Report

Final score:
21points
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#91

TIL that Julius Caesar outlawed private vehicle use during the first 10 hours of daytime to combat traffic.

vd772 Report

Final score:
20points
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#92

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL, actor Hugh Laurie was one of the highest-paid actors in television drama, earning £250,000 ($409,000) per episode of televison series House.

vaish7848 , NBC Report

Final score:
19points
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#93

TIL of "floating armories". Private military companies providing security against Somali pirates will station ships full of weapons in international waters. Other ships pick up and drop off weapons in the middle of the ocean, to avoid illegally bringing weapons into anyone's territorial waters.

should-stop-posting Report

Final score:
19points
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#94

TIL in the 90s Arnold Schwarzenegger pitched a medieval epic but when the studio wanted budget guarantees the director responded, “guarantees don’t happen and if anyone promises guarantees they’re lying!” So, the studio opted for a "cheaper" action movie...which became expensive and bankrupted them.

WhileFalseRepeat Report

Final score:
18points
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#95

TIL 1.9 million Americans work for either Walmart or Amazon.

iajzz Report

Final score:
18points
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#96

TIL the earliest known version of the Coca-Cola recipe was developed out of a cocktail of morphine and toxins being used by a wounded former Confederate soldier who had become addicted to painkillers

HagbardCelineHere Report

Final score:
17points
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#97

TIL the average human gut naturally produces 3 grams of alcohol a day through fermentation. Over the course of a year this is the equivalent alcohol of about 2 full bottles of whiskey.

PokesPenguin Report

Final score:
17points
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#98

TIL Stieg Larsson, author of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' part of the Millennium trilogy, died in 2004 due to a heart attack. The Milennium trilogy was published posthumously & has sold over 80 million copies today.

MarineKingPrime_ Report

Final score:
17points
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#99

TIL that when Leonid Brezhnev was the head of government of the Soviet Union, he awarded himself the Hero of the Soviet Union for his birthday in 1966, 1976, 1978 and 1981

Ryan_Holman Report

Final score:
17points
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#100

TIL of the "cargo cult" belief, in which pre-industrial societies mimic western activities, such as the building of mock airstrips, and performing daily rituals such as dressing as parading soldiers, which they believe will cause spiritual agents to deliver highly desired cargo such as in WW2 arenas

redleaderthisisgold Report

Final score:
16points
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#101

TIL: When public health officials first began banning the dumping of feces in the street, they were still working under miasma theory, that bad smells were what caused diseases like cholera. The germ theory of disease wasn’t developed until 1880.

should-stop-posting Report

Final score:
16points
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#102

TIL that L Ron Hubbard believed that tomatoes feel pain and that - if it is quiet enough - you can hear them scream when they are sliced

Esist1996 Report

Final score:
16points
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#103

TIL in the United States, direct manufacturer auto sales are prohibited in almost every state by franchise laws requiring that new cars be sold only by dealers.

stlsmoke52 Report

Final score:
15points
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#104

40 Interesting Things People Didn’t Learn At School And Decided To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics) TIL model Jennifer O'Neill was cast to star in the Disneys The Black Hole but was told she needed to cut her hair as it would be easier for scenes set in zero-g. She gave in, drinking wine during the haircut and leaving noticeably impaired. She lost the part after a serious car crash on the way home

f_GOD , Wikimedia Commons Report

Final score:
14points
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#105

TIL the boxer who beat Roy Jones Jr. at the 1988 Olympics in a controversial split decision wishes he had lost. Park Si-Hun was so traumatized by his contentious victory that he retired from boxing after the end of the games.

The_Ry_Ry Report

Final score:
14points
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#106

TIL A fault with the automation system on Australian Qantas Flight 72 (2008) caused the jet to violently pitch down so steeply, several passengers were thrown up from their seats and their heads smashed through ceiling panels. Some sustained long term permanent head, back, bone, and joint injuries.

Destination_Centauri Report

Final score:
14points
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#107

TIL during the Roman era. Pero, who secretly breastfeeds her father, Cimon, after he is incarcerated and sentenced to death by starvation. Her act of selflessness impresses officials and wins her fathers freedom

Doggylover124 Report

Final score:
14points
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#108

TIL that a car decal that was stuck for 10 years to the bottom of a park bench ended up being worth $10,000 as part of a nationwide scavenger hunt

am_reddit Report

Final score:
14points
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#109

TIL that rats live pretty much everywhere in the world (in habitable land) except in Alberta, Canada.

FatMountainGoat Report

Final score:
13points
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#110

TIL about Gladys Bentley, a lesbian blues singer who wore men's clothing and added dirty lyrics to songs

Snowbank_Lake Report

Final score:
13points
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#111

TIL the Pizza saver, the little plastic tripod that stops pizza toppings from sticking to the box, was patented in 1974, but the patent wasn't renewed. It was reinvented in 1985 by Carmela Vitale

StippleFX Report

Final score:
13points
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