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35 New ‘Today I Learned’ Facts That Prove It’s Never Too Late To Learn Something New
With New Year’s resolutions up and rolling, many of us are bringing on gym memberships, improving language skills, taking up new hobbies, getting into self-care and mindfulness, spending more time with family members, and basically, trying hard to be a better version of ourselves.
Meanwhile, our mental muscle is often forgotten and just as we give our bodies nutrients, so do we need to feed our brains with good stuff. So please, dear readers, stop whatever you’re doing. This is an invitation to a workout for your brain cells.
Today, we have a heavyweight treat for them, a brand new collection of incredible Today I Learned facts that range from miscellaneous ones perfect for trivia and mind-bending ones that may totally change your perspective of things. Scroll down below, upvote your favorite facts and be sure to check out our previous posts with Today I Learned goodness here, here and here.
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#1
TIL about Mary Ellen Pleasant, a black woman in the 1800s who amassed a fortune by eavesdropping on investors while working as a domestic
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#2
TIL a bridge in Ireland that was designed to swing open for ships couldn't be opened for four years because someone lost the remote control
#3
TIL outraged Egyptians had once lynched a Roman for killing a cat.
#4
TIL that Betty White holds the Guinness World Record for longest TV career by an entertainer, with credits spanning 80 years (1939 to 2019)
#5
TIL: Carrie, Stephen King's first novel that launched his career, was rescued from the trash can after his wife Tabatha removed the crumpled up pages, read them and told her husband she wanted to know the rest of the story
#6
TIL In 1993 a French man driving a Citroen car in a remote area of the Moroccan desert had a breakdown and became stranded. To survive he tore down the car, built a motorcycle from the parts, and rode it back to civilization. When he arrived he was ticketed for operating an illegal vehicle.
Laura Jackson 2 years ago
I would have immediately then been arrested for assault on an officer.
#7
TIL Queen Elizabeth II has reigned longer than her father, uncle, grandfather and great-grandfather combined
#8
TIL the British Hedgehog Preservation Society won a campaign in 2006 to force McDonalds to redesign their McFlurry cups due to hedgehogs repeatedly getting stuck in them and dying.
#9
TIL that owls cannot move their eyes. This is because their eyes are not balls, but cylinders that are held in place by bones called sclerotic rings. This is also the reason that owls have evolved to be able to rotate their head 270 degrees left and right, and 90 degrees up and down.
#10
TIL that in 1945, General George S Patton, upon the liberation of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany, forced 1,000 local citizens to tour the camp to witness firsthand the atrocities that had taken place within.
Caro Caro 2 years ago (edited)
After Patton toured the camp, he ordered the mayor of Weimar to bring 1,000 citizens to Buchenwald; these were to be predominantly men of military age from the middle and upper classes. The Germans had to walk 25 kilometres (16 mi) roundtrip under armed American guard and were shown the crematorium and other evidence of Nazi atrocities. The Americans wanted to ensure that the German people would take responsibility for Nazi crimes, instead of dismissing them as atrocity propaganda. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower also invited two groups of Americans to tour the camp in mid-April 1945; journalists and editors from some of the principal U.S. publications, and then a dozen members of the Congress from both the House and the Senate, led by Senate Majority Leader Alben W. Barkley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchenwald_concentration_camp
#11
TIL that in Churchill, Canada, locals keep their car doors unlocked in order to provide other residents a quick escape, should they encounter a polar bear
Alicia Miller 2 years ago (edited)
Reminds me of the bear attack safety rhyme: If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down. If it's white, say goodnight.
#12
TIL in the mid 1890s, Mary Whiton Caulkins completed all requirements towards a PhD in Psychology, but Harvard University refused to award her that degree because she was a woman.
#13
TIL that according to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.
#14
TIL: The inventor of shopping carts, Sylvan Goldman, had to hire "decoy shoppers" to wheel the carts around stores and demonstrate their convenience, due to not catching on initially.
#15
TIL that octopuses have copper-based blood rather than iron-based blood…which makes their blood blue in color. (Incidentally, they also have three hearts to pump that blood.)
#16
TIL dolphins sleep with one eye open. Because they have to periodically go up for air and also be aware of predators, they are able to rest only half of their brain at a time and stay always somewhat conscious.
#17
TIL About the "murder bottle". Many Victorian mothers would use a self feeding bottle to give their babies milk instead of breastfeeding. These bottles were made of earthenware & glass & were incredibly hard to clean which caused severe bacteria build up & caused the deaths of thousands of babies.
#18
TIL of the Lodz Ghetto, where at one point 20000 'useless eaters', mainly children under 10, were rounded up and taken away from their families to be exterminated. Many parents committed suicide.
Caro Caro 2 years ago (edited)
This is so sad an depressing. The ghetto in Lodz, Poland’s second largest city and major industrial center, was established on April 30, 1940. It was the second largest ghetto in the German-occupied areas and the one that was most severely insulated from its surroundings and from other ghettos. Some 164,000 Jews were interned there, to whom were added tens of thousands of Jews from the district, other Jews from the Reich, and also Sinti and Roma. The ghetto, although intended to be a temporary transit facility, lasted for more than four years after the interests of local Nazis led to a decision to exploit the Jewish labor force. In the spring of 1940, the Lodz ghetto was sealed from the rest of the world by a wooden fence surrounded by additional barbed-wire fences. The Jews were packed into the ghetto with no electricity or water. Disease and starvation rapidly diminished their numbers. https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/ghettos/lodz.html
#19
TIL of Titanic survivor Frankie Goldsmith. His father died during the sinking, and when he and his mother arrived in America they settled in Detroit near Navin Field (Tiger Stadium). He never attended a game due to the cheers of the crowd reminding him of the cries of the dying people in the water.
#20
TIL about Ismail al-jazari wrote the “Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices” where he described 50 mechanical devices along with instructions on creating them. He has been described as the father of robotics and modern day engineering.
#21
TIL about Project 100k, where LBJ and Sec of Def Robert MacNamara decided to lower the mental and medical standards to recruit more soldiers to fight in Vietnam. These soldiers died at ~3x the normal rate.
#22
TIL that in 1670, against a judge's instructions, a jury refused to find two men guilty. The judge held the jury in contempt; locked them up overnight without food, water or heat; and fined them. On appeal, the Chief Justice ruled that a jury could not be punished for returning the wrong verdict.
#23
TIL In 1941, almost 10% of all recruits for the US military were rejected because they did not have 6 opposing teeth on their upper and lower jaws. US dental health was so poor before WWII that it was the leading cause of rejection.
MyOpinionHasBeenServed 2 years ago
Apparently you have to be in perfect health. No genetic conditions, chronic conditions, disorders, missing any body parts. Nada.
#24
TIL Leonardo Da Vinci saved 13,000+ pages of notes and drawings on anatomy, physiology, engineering, mechanics, geometry, mathematics, bird flight, flying machines, botany, proportions, topology, weaponry, musical instruments, art, and more, all in mirrored shorthand written from right to left.
Mazer 2 years ago (edited)
My auntie was a total genius (too bad I did not inherit any of those genes. The closest I can come is being a wise ass). She could write backwards snd forwards at the same time on two different pieces of paper. She would send my sister and I letters written entirely backwards and alternating words between each paper. Sooooo creative, caring and beautiful. She taught me how to shop to save money, spent countless hours volunteering for the disabled and less fortunate. RIP Aunty Ev.
#25
TIL that in Norse mythology, Loki got pregnant by a horse, he would then later give birth to the eight-legged horse Sleipner which would become Odin's horse
Luther von Wolfen 2 years ago
Loki was a shapeshifter who also changed genders when it suited him.
#26
TIL Keanu Reeves was offered the lead role in The Matrix after 5 leading actors in 1990s turned it down.
#27
TIL the Great cheese riot of 1766 was a reaction to inflated cheese prices. The mayor tried to restore order but was knocked down by a cheese. The military were called & shots were fired, killing one man. He'd been guarding his cheeses
Caro Caro 2 years ago
HEY, hands off my cheese. The Nottingham cheese riot (also known as The Great Cheese Riot)[1] started on 2 October 1766 at the city's Goose Fair. The riot came at a time of food shortages and rising prices in England. Violence broke out when local citizens intervened to prevent Lincolnshire merchants taking away Nottinghamshire cheeses they had bought at the fair. A warehouse, shops and a cargo boat were looted; and hundreds of cheese wheels were rolled through the streets. The army was deployed when the mayor was unable to restore control. One man was killed and others wounded as soldiers opened fire on the crowds. Order was eventually restored after some days of unrest.
#28
TIL in order to rescue the kids out of the flooded Thailand cave in 2018, rescuers drugged the kids unconscious then cave dove the the unconscious kids over 1km underwater
#29
TIL English words of Hindi or Urdu origin include bandana, bangle, bungalow, cheetah, cushy, dinghy, juggernaut, jungle, khaki, loot, punch (the drink), pundit, pyjamas, shampoo, thug, and typhoon
Mohammad Ammar 2 years ago
Wow I thought we took all those words from English! I did recently learn however that khaki comes from the Urdu word khaak, meaning dust or earth. But what's up with cheetah, we don't even have them here. We call leopards cheetah lol.
#30
TIL Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein, was named Chairmain of the Iraqi Olympic Committee in 1984. Athletes who disappointed him were subject to torture and imprisonment
#31
TIL the movie Gremlins was so intense that it was responsible for the movie rating of PG-13.
Marnie 2 years ago
I remember seeing this for the first time in a non-chain movie theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. People were super reactive during the move, it was great. Sounds of cringing, yelps, oh-my-goshes, etc. At one point, the Mom is in the kitchen and hears scary noises upstairs. We all know what that means. The scary thing comes down and attacks the Mom while she cowers in fright. So, we were all so surprised when she looked up at the ceiling, then at the knife block, then PICKED UP THE KNIFE. And headed UPSTAIRS. The entire theater erupted with encouraging sounds and "Yes!" and the like. It was so awesome. First time I ever saw a woman plan to fight back in a movie in my life. I will never forget it. Best in-theater movie experience of my life.
#32
TIL The mongols had a superstition that said that spilling royal blood would lead to great disaster. So instead they had other creative ways of executing such people. Including sewing up your orifices, drown you in molten metal or have horses trample you.
#33
TIL that a modern highway now runs through the site of the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans held back a massive Persian army for three days. A statue of the Spartan leader, Leonidas, stands just a few feet from the road.
King Kashue 2 years ago
Also, the coastline - which played such a major part in the battle (helping to create the chokepoint that allowed the Greek force - which was 7000 from multiple Poleis, not just 300 from Sparta - to hold off the much larger Persian force) has also moved over the past 2500 years. It's now almost 6 miles from it's ancient location.
#34
TIL of Adolf Hitler’s Madagascar Plan. The plan was to relocate all the Jews to Madagascar. This idea later was shelved in favor for the mass genocide of the population.
#35
TIL that a middle school football coach in Oregon was fired for trying to take his team to Hooters to celebrate the end of the season.
What do you think ?
Hanni 2 years ago
Agreed, there are way too many stories about people being insufferable idiots. We come here to relax, not to decide who is to blame in a bad story.
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Troux 2 years ago (edited)
For at least 2000 years, Polynesian sea-based people of the modern Marshall Islands navigated the vast expanse of sea using rebbelib, or stick charts. Tiny seashells represented the island locations, but most unique about these maps was that the ocean swells or currents provided the main navigation, as were drawn by the sticks of the framework. The maps were memorized before the journey, and the people in the canoes would have to listen closely to the water against the boat in order to "feel" the swell and determine where they were. gallery-14...-chart.jpg 
Immortal Emperor Paradox 2 years ago
Does that also include making more than $12,000 a month online? LOL
Load More Replies...
Stephanie Chapman 2 years ago
The first escalator was introduced as a novelty ride at Coney Island in 1896. In 1898 one was installed in Harrod's department store. Smelling salts and cognac were offered at the top for those traumatized by the ride. In 1911 an escalator was installed in the London Underground subway. A one-legged man named Bumper Harris was employed to ride the escalator to show everyone it was safe to ride.
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Who say you can't be home schooled by computer - I learn so much and probably ask a bunch of stupid questions! But I usually can find the answers in my computer. I think if I was educated by computer I would not be as dumb as I am!
Joanna Werman 2 years ago
Wish some of these facts would come with a warning. I have new nightmares
Hanni 2 years ago
Agreed, there are way too many stories about people being insufferable idiots. We come here to relax, not to decide who is to blame in a bad story.
Load More Replies... Troux 2 years ago (edited)
For at least 2000 years, Polynesian sea-based people of the modern Marshall Islands navigated the vast expanse of sea using rebbelib, or stick charts. Tiny seashells represented the island locations, but most unique about these maps was that the ocean swells or currents provided the main navigation, as were drawn by the sticks of the framework. The maps were memorized before the journey, and the people in the canoes would have to listen closely to the water against the boat in order to "feel" the swell and determine where they were. gallery-14...-chart.jpg
Immortal Emperor Paradox 2 years ago
Does that also include making more than $12,000 a month online? LOL
Load More Replies... Stephanie Chapman 2 years ago
The first escalator was introduced as a novelty ride at Coney Island in 1896. In 1898 one was installed in Harrod's department store. Smelling salts and cognac were offered at the top for those traumatized by the ride. In 1911 an escalator was installed in the London Underground subway. A one-legged man named Bumper Harris was employed to ride the escalator to show everyone it was safe to ride.
Brian Bennett 2 years ago
Who say you can't be home schooled by computer - I learn so much and probably ask a bunch of stupid questions! But I usually can find the answers in my computer. I think if I was educated by computer I would not be as dumb as I am!
Joanna Werman 2 years ago
Wish some of these facts would come with a warning. I have new nightmares
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