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giuliomagnifico , Miguel Á. Padriñán Report

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool During the siege of Leningrad during World War II, 28 scientists chose to die of hunger while protecting the seed vault at the Vavilov Institute rather than eating the seeds.

100points

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Ellinor 6 days ago (edited)

They could have eaten the first man to fall...

30points

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool 2024 is the year the US Dept of Health and Human Services banned hospitals from performing non-consensual breast, pelvic, prostate, and rectal exams for “educational and training purposes” by medical students and practitioners on patients under anesthesia.

emath113 , Online Marketing Report

95points

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ZuriLovesYou 6 days ago

It took them that long?

62points

“I think it goes without saying for most people that learning is a vital part to being human, whether we call it formal education, ‘life lessons’, gaining experience, acquiring wisdom, or anything else,” Assoc. Prof. of history at Southern Utah University Dave Lunt said, discussing the importance of learning with Bored Panda.

“From the time we are babies, people are learning about their world. And I believe that we never stop learning, although we often go from formal learning to informal learning when we leave school (at whatever age, at whatever level). I would like to think that people remain hungry to learn throughout their lives, but—of course—this is not always the case. Sometimes, as we get older, we grow complacent in our conclusions and our beliefs, but I think one of the goals of formal education is to inspire students to remain ‘lifelong learners’ after they complete formal studies.”

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool The sound a whip makes when you crack it is caused by a sonic boom created when the tip of a whip moves faster than the speed of sound. The whip was also the first man made object to break the sound barrier.

DarthDiggler501 , Cord Allman Report

94points

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Apatheist Account2 6 days ago

Crusty bread and biscuits also break the sound barrier. I don't know if they pre-date the whip or not.

18points

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool In 200 CE, Roman Emperor Septimius Severus banned all female gladiatorial combat, reportedly after hearing such lewd jokes directed at women in an athletic contest that he feared the sport bred disrespect for all women.

tyrion2024 , antmoose Report

89points

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B.M. 6 days ago

A Classic even now. The men get excited, so the women have to stop doing things men are allowed to do.

142points

Cowws 6 days ago

Yes, but then again, fewer gladiators is almost always a good thing

8points

Heffalump 6 days ago

I'm not sure that no longer being forced (they were slaves) to fight, and sometimes die, for the amusement of the mob was a great step back for women's rights.

5points

Steve Sharpe 4 days ago

@B.M. Yep, that misogynistic bastard Severus taking away the rights of women to be held in slave pits, beaten, starved, sodomised, then thrown in to an enclosed area just to be beaten with war hammers until what was left wasn't recognisable as human, have the flesh carved from their living bones, be torn limb from limb by professional killers who are vastly bigger, stronger, better fed, trained, and equipped, gored by enraged wild animals, have their throats slit on the whim of a visiting dignitary, for no better reason than the entertain the crowd (wait, are we talking about gladiators or Celtic supporters at Ibrox?). Fortunately we can see how his attempt to ensure equal respect for all women in 200AD was clearly meant to oppress all women 2,000 years later, and we all know who the real victims are here.

1point

Sunny Day 6 days ago

See, he should have just sent those audience members into the arena to fight the women. I don't think lack of respect would be an issue after they got their asses kicked.

13points

QueerAxolotls 3 days ago

Honestly, bad response, but classic issue. Still happens today. Female athletes are sexualized at the cost of their sport. Just look at mens vs womens uniforms.

1point

Joshua David 5 days ago

Men harassing women each generation has continued and probably started long before that.

1point

Pyla 5 days ago

Biggus Dıckus would concur

0points

Eduardo 5 days ago

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Aroace tiger (she/they/he) 5 days ago

Said that twice babes, calm down, so excited over the transes

0points

Eduardo 5 days ago

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FluffyDreg 4 days ago

I would imagine by how they presented. As it was non of his buisness what was between their legs.

1point

Mental Liberals 6 days ago

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Jill Rhodry 6 days ago

Go donate your hard earned income to the billionaire

6points

Lunt noted that there are lots of different ideas about what the goal of education should be, from securing a good job, to inspiring responsible citizenship or living a “good" life. “One of my favorite characters from history is Socrates; at least the version of Socrates that we learn about from his student, Plato. Socrates is a good example to me of what a ‘lifelong learner’ might look like,” he shared.

“In 399 BCE, Socrates was put on trial in ancient Athens, and Socrates's speech at that trial is called his Apology. Socrates's Apology—as told by Plato—is not him saying ‘I'm sorry’, but the word refers to Socrates's defense for his actions. Socrates annoyed a lot of people, I'm sure, by constantly asking questions and poking holes in people's assumptions, but at his trial he offered one of the best justifications for learning that I know of. Socrates made no apology for his curiosity. He told the jury of Athenians that ‘the unexamined life is not a life worth living’.

“The word usually translated as ‘unexamined’ is ἀνεξέταστος, and it means something like ‘not looked into’ or ‘not inquired into’. It may not be exactly what Socrates meant, but I like to think of this sentence as a reminder to always be examining my own life, my beliefs, what I know, and what I'm learning,” Lunt explained, adding another interesting fact to our ‘Today I Learned’ list.

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool During WW2 the Nazis spent the modern day equivalent of 100 million usd to make a underground base in Poland which saw little to no use. Soon after building it they lost the war, and it is now one of the largest bat habitats in Europe.

DoggoDoesASad , Jeffrey Hamilton Report

86points

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Beak Hookage 6 days ago

Well at least there was a happy ending.

81points

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool The loudest shout ever recorded was by a primary school teacher who yelled ‘quiet!’ It was clocked at 121.7 decibels and the record has stood for 30 years.

Brendawg324 Report

84points

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SirWriteALot 6 days ago

I wasn't aware they had sound meters installed in every school.

45points

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool Dana Carvey underwent heart bypass surgery for a blocked coronary artery, but the surgeon operated on the wrong artery. Eventually he won a lawsuit against the hospital and won 7.5 million dollars, all of which was donated to charity.

walnutstampede , TAS-C Report

81points

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Emma S 6 days ago

We are not worthy! We are not worthy!

44points

As Assoc. Prof. Lunt mentioned, quite often learning extends way beyond graduating school or university. Some people are so curious, they never stop learning, and Socrates was seemingly one of such people.

“Of course there are more ways to learn than merely sitting in a classroom or listening to a teacher. Going back to Socrates, he very famously was not a paid teacher. He didn't work in a school. But he was extremely curious and always hungry to learn. In one of Plato's dialogues, Socrates asks another philosopher named Phaedrus to forgive him for his many questions, since he (Socrates) is ‘φιλομαθὴς’ (philomathes), which translates more-or-less to ‘a lover-of-learning’ [or ‘fond of learning’],” the expert noted.

“If someone like Socrates, who was so smart and had many people looking to him as a teacher, was eager to learn, that drives home to me the importance of curiosity and inquiry. The world is a big place, with a lot of knowledge in it. We would all do well to learn as much as we can, whether it is in school, on-the-job, or ‘life lessons.’ There is always something out there for a curious person to learn.”

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool In the Movie "Scream" (1996) there is a section in the credits saying "No Thanks whatsoever to the Santa Rosa city school district governing board" Santa Rosa revoked permissions to film there last minute and cost the production 350,000$.

Super_Goomba64 , Dimension Films Report

80points

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General Anaesthesia 6 days ago

The Santa Rosa city school district thought like P.T. Barnum, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,”

16points

preflex , National Archives and Records Administration Report

#10

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool The "S" in "Harry S. Truman" wasn't an abbreviation. The dude's middle name was literally just the letter S.

79points

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Liz Reid 6 days ago

Homer J Simpson

33points

#11

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool A 2022 California Supreme Court decision allowed bumble bees to be considered a protected species because they met the state’s legal definition of a “fish”.

HauntedHippie , Ivan Evans Report

75points

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Tucker Cahooter 6 days ago

The mind boggles at how broad the definition of a fish must be, obviously living in water isn't one of the requirements

57points

Frisk-256 , U.S. Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation Report

Discussing the internet’s influence on people’s willingness to or interest in learning nowadays, Lunt pointed out that it sure makes it easier to find information. “I am Generation X, so firmly in middle age, and I remember life before the internet pretty well. Even today, I am consistently amazed at how easy it is to find basic information on the internet – trivia, names, dates, things like that. I spent a lot of hours in college digging through books, flipping through pages, trying to remember where I had read or seen some fact or idea. Now all of that is readily available with a few keystrokes and a search engine.”

#12

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool In world war 2, English soldiers would use passwords that had sounds that the language of the people they where fighting against did not have, so that they could tell if an unidentified person was an enemy soldier tying to infiltrate them by if they said these sounds correctly.

70points

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Frank 6 days ago

Nothing unique. We have a similar story in Flanders, for 1302. The sentence was "schild en vriend", as the prononciation of the "sch" in Dutch is difficult to master for "outsiders" and is even different in different regions and dialects. Just look up the word "Shibboleth" in Wikipedia. That's about this is age old language trick.

38points

SpecialNeedsBurrito , Håkan Svensson Xauxa Report

#13

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool A clown saved 300 children during the deadliest avalanche in history. Only 400 people survived out of around 18,000 in the town of Yungay, Peru. The children were attending a circus and a clown led them to higher ground moments before the avalanche destroyed the entire town.

70points

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LakotaWolf (she/her) 6 days ago

I can only assume this means that an incredibly high number of those children were made into orphans during that avalanche :( It is wonderful that they survived, but how bittersweet their survival must have been for them.

40points

#14

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool US president Benjamin Harrison was widowed while in office in 1892. Four years later, Harrison married his dead wife's niece and had a daughter with her. His adult children who were around 40 years old, were horrified that their father married their cousin and didn't attend the wedding.

Fishblaster69 , Kurz & Allison. Report

64points

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CanadianDimes 6 days ago

That's understandable; I'm horrified by this too!

32points

JoudiniJoker , A.F. Bradley, New York Report

“I suppose that psychologists and educators and lots of other smart people are studying the effects of the internet on human learning, education, memory, and other fields,” the historian continued. “But for me, the advent of the internet has made it easier to find facts and yet made it more difficult to think originally and creatively. Curating a limitless trove of information, some of it accurate, some of it inaccurate, is an impossible task and so, with the internet, ‘learning’ (for me) has shifted to interpretation of sources, understanding cause-and-effect, assessing reliability, and similar processes.

“So, of course, the internet has made it so very easy to learn something new each day; especially via curated and interesting outlets. However, by the same token, the internet has made it easy for inaccurate or incomplete information to spread.

“Internet sites often offer interpretations that deserve more scrutiny, or opinions disguised as facts. This, I think, makes it all the more important for us to remain ‘lifelong learners’ in order to interpret information and assess reliability, and to be willing to update our conclusions when new information emerges. The internet is an enormously consequential and important tool for learning, but we shouldn't let it do our thinking for us,” Lunt emphasized.

#15

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool Tom Sawyer author Mark Twain invented the clasps commonly used on women’s bras.

61points

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realenancy170 6 days ago

He brought adventure and wonder to teenagers with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, then he left them in total frustration with a simple fastener!

32points

#16

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool Pirates and buccaneers sometimes engaged in "matelotage", a practice in which male couples would agree to share their incomes and inherit their partner's property in the case of their death.

Kurma-the-Turtle , Alonso Reyes Report

57points

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Bex 6 days ago

Or, you know, they were actually gay and just had lifelong relationships.

19points

#17

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool Dictator Muammar Gaddafi had a strange obsession with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He had Libya's most famous composer write her a song called "Black Flower in the White House." A photo album full of pictures of her was also found next to his bed by opposition fighters.

PinheadLarry2323 Report

56points

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ZuriLovesYou 6 days ago

I would be scared for my life if I were her.

36points

Summing it up, Assoc. Prof. Lunt suggested that having a learning mindset is one of the most important assets that people can have today, especially younger people who are looking for careers and starting out on their paths in life. “Being a learner shows humility – nobody knows all of the answers but we don't always like to admit it. Even Socrates famously announced at his trial that the only thing he really knew was that he didn't know anything.”

#18

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool The native language of the volcanic island Manam Motu has no words for cardinal directions (North, East, West, South). Instead, it uses polar coördinates—with words meaning “towards the volcano”, ”towards the sea”, “clockwise around the volcano”, and “counterclockwise around the volcano”.

kmatt17 , Ása Steinarsdóttir Report

55points

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Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 6 days ago

Sounds like a mini version of the Discworld.

45points

#19

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool During World War II, US comedian Redd Foxx dodged the draft by eating half a bar of soap before his physical, a trick that resulted in heart palpitations.

gullydon , Coast Artists Inc. Report

53points

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Tucker Cahooter 6 days ago

I thought it would have led to him foaming at the mouth

37points

#20

“2,055 Brown Recluse Spiders Were Collected”: 30 “Today I Learned” Facts, From Shocking To Cool Four of the last 7 Illinois Govenors have been jailed.

FrontRowKate , Donald Tong Report

53points

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Khavrinen 6 days ago

The other three got away with it.

76points