Today I Learned 🎓

27 Sep 2025 04:49

TIL: There is a slightly smaller, almost identical penguin to the emperor penguin, called a king penguin [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

27 Sep 2025 01:49

TIL about "Mustache March," a USAF tradition of growing a spruce mustache in defiance of military grooming standards [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 23:49

TIL Texas Guinan was a stage and early film star, who became a famous figure during Prohibition. She publicly wagered $100,000 against the USAG to find anyone who could claim she had sold them a drink, or had seen her drink, despite running multiple speakeasies [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 21:49

TIL China has a 26-storey skyscraper pig farm [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 19:49

TIL a British man won £1.45m on a six-race rollover jackpot after placing a £2 bet. He correctly selected 6 winners including the final horse, Lupita, who hadn't won in 26 races & jockey, Jessica Lodge, who had not previously won. He picked them because "Lodge is just a name that sticks in my head." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 17:49

TIL that in 1910, Louis and Temple Abernathy crossed America by horseback without adult supervision, from Oklahoma to Manhattan. They were just 10 and 6 years old. To get back home, they bought a car and drove it while their horses returned by train. In 1913 they made the same trip on a motorcycle. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 16:49

TIL that the 1955 children's book "When the Robbers Came to Cardamom Town" is considered to have contributed significantly to criminology in Norway [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 14:49

TIL modern horseshoe crabs have been around for 250 million years, with little morphological change during this time. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 12:49

TIL it takes longer to grow a new toenail, than it does to grow a human being. A full human pregnancy lasts about 38-40 weeks (around 9-10 months), while a toenail can take up to 18 months to grow back completely after being lost or removed. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 07:49

TIL Beethoven’s relationship with his brother Johann was strained. He opposed Johann marrying his housekeeper so much he tried contacting the authorities to stop it. After buying an estate, Johann signed a letter “your brother Johann, landowner.” Beethoven replied: “your brother Ludwig, brain owner” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 04:49

TIL the only known uninterrupted audio of 9/11 is a conversation between a tax consultant and a tax assessor who was being investigated for taking bribes. The consultant, Stephen McArdle, was wearing a wiretap transmitting the conversation to the FBI from the Mariott World Trade Center's cafe. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 02:49

TIL that the Ancient Romans would mix water and wine vinegar to make a drink called posca. The drink back then was associated with the lower class, soldiers, and slaves. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 00:49

TIL August Engelhardt was a German author who promoted fruitarianism, specifically the consumption of coconuts and coconut products. He was also the founder of a sect of sun worshipers that was dubbed a “coconut cult” in German New Guinea [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 Sep 2025 23:49

TIL Dungeons & Dragons began with a five-hour road trip. In 1972, one hobbyist drove from Minnesota to Wisconsin to demo his homemade rules in a living room. Two years later the game hit shelves. Two years after that the partners split, lawsuits followed, and they never made peace. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 Sep 2025 21:49

TIL in 2007, a Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped a 12.5ft tall enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo, killing one visitor and injuring two others who were later accused of taunting her. The enclosure's wall was lower than the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' recommended minimum height of 16ft 4in. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

27 Sep 2025 04:49

TIL The U.S. has more lawyers per capita than any other country, yet 92% of low-income Americans get no legal help when they need it. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

27 Sep 2025 01:49

TIL whales can swallow birds in the middle of feeding, but since whales can’t digest the bird, they poop them out whole. Scientists call these bird bricks. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 22:49

TIL: The modern Japanese Akita dogs are descended from a handful of dogs that survived World War II [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 19:49

TIL in Sweden half brothers / sisters can get married if the county administrative board approves [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 17:49

TIL that coal stored at room temperature (but in large cuantities) can start a spontaneous combustion [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 17:49

TIL during the Constitutional Convention, John Rutledge—one time Governor of South Carolina—informed his fellow delegates that the three southernmost states would not join the Union if the Constitution immediately abolished the slave trade. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 16:49

TIL: Poor neighborhoods in US are up to 7°F hotter than rich ones. The main reasons being that poorer neighborhoods tend to have less trees, but more asphalt, buildings, and highways - all of which absorb the incoming Sun's energy and then radiate heat. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 13:49

TIL that the Sargasso Sea, located entirely within the Atlantic Ocean, is the only sea without a land boundary. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 08:49

Today I learned that American company, IBM, provided the technology which was used to help transport millions of people to their doom in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Treblinka [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 05:49

TIL about Operation Dragon Eye, a two week long child ecovery operation performed in Florida led by the U.S. Marshall Service. It resulted at least 60 children being recovered and 8 arrest making it the largest child recovery operation in U.S. history. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 03:49

TIL of Mbah Suro, a communist shaman and mystic who only consumed coffee and cigarettes, denied the existence of God, and claimed to give bulletproof powers. He had 500,000 followers at his peak before him and his followers were gunned down by the anti-communist Suharto regime in 1967. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

26 Sep 2025 02:49

TIL that voiceovers in movie trailers became rare in 2008 after the man who did the voiceovers, Don LaFontaine, died. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 Sep 2025 23:49

TIL that out of the roughly 40 countries that have used the RPG-7 rocket launcher, Lithuania is the only one that has stopped using it [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 Sep 2025 22:49

TIL: "The Uncensored Library" A Minecraft map where anyone can read censored journalism from countries without freedom of press. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

25 Sep 2025 20:49

TIL that Earth is the only planet that actually has fire in our Solar System. [Source]