Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 19:49

TIL Hulk Hogan Helped Prevent Jesse Ventura From Starting A Wrestlers Union [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 16:49

TIL The corpse of Eva Peron was lost and re-discovered in a crypt in Milan under a fake name, then was moved inside Peron's house in Spain. After assassinating Pedro Aramburu, a group of rebels held his body hostage and tried to use it as bargain to negotiate the return of Eva's body to Argentina [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 14:49

TIL In 2018 a woman in South Africa was discovered alive inside her coffin at her own funeral – hours after being declared dead by paramedics. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 12:49

TIL after meeting William Woods in 1988, Matthew David Keirans went on to assume Woods's identity for over 30 yrs. Woods tried to reclaim his identity during this time, but was stopped by Keirans which led to him spending 428 days in jail & 147 days in a psychiatric hospital before being exonerated. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 09:49

TIL Christianity was the predominant religion on the island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen until the 16th century, a pre-Islamic tradition rumored to have been established by shipwrecked St. Thomas on his way to India who converted the native Soqotri in the 1st century [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 05:49

TIL that shortly after Bill Gates left Harvard to start Microsoft, one of his professors remarked, “He had moved to Albuquerque to run a small company writing code for microprocessors, of all things. I remember thinking, ‘Such a brilliant kid. What a waste.’” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 04:49

TIL an FAA audit of the 737 MAX assembly process found that mechanics at Spirit aerosystems (A Boeing supplier) were using hotel key cards to check the seal of emergency exits, and Dawn dish soap as a makeshift lubricant for door seals and wiped off the soap with a cheesecloth to make it look clean [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 02:49

TIL scurvy was so common during the Age of Sail that shipowners and governments assumed a 50% death rate from the disease for their sailors on any major voyage. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 01:49

TIL about Christiane F., a teen drug addict at the Bahnhof Zoo (Zoo Station), a hotspot for drug trafficking and underage sex work in West Berlin. Her book is widely read in German schools to warn about dangers of drug addiction. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 21:49

TIL that Irish Sign Language (ISL) is unique among sign languages for having different gendered versions, with men and women using different signs for the same words. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 16:49

TIL about Dale Schroeder, a man from Iowa who used his life savings to help send 33 kids to college. He never married, had no kids, grew up poor and worked at the same company for 67 years. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 16:49

TIL that FBI agents advised radio stations not to play "Sixteen Tons" in the late 1940s because they considered it subversive and accused Merle Travis of communist sympathies. Tennessee Ford's version later became one of the best selling singles in history. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 15:49

TIL A woman donated her kidney to her boss and got fired for taking too long to recover. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 13:49

TIL of the siege of Beitang cathedral during the Boxer rebellion, where 41 Italian and French marines managed to hold off thousands of Chinese troops for months until Japanese allies arrived to relieve the siege, saving the lives of 3,900 Christians who took refuge inside the cathedral. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 13:49

TIL Bill Gates paid a $28 fine every day for 13 years, from 1988 to 2001, to keep a Porsche 959 that was impounded by US Customs. By the time he got his hands on the car, he'd paid more than $133,000 in total from the fines. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 18:49

TIL in 1816, the United States built a fort to protect itself from invasion by Canada. There was only one small problem: due to a surveying error, it was built in Canada. It was later known as "Fort Blunder" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 16:49

TIL Sledge-O-Matic comedian, Leo Gallagher, sued his brother, Ron Gallagher, for false advertising and unfair competition after the younger brother toured as Gallagher Too. A court stopped him from using a "sledgehammer or other similar device to pulverize watermelons, fruits, food or other items." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 14:49

TIL In 2024, bots made up a bigger proportion of global internet traffic than humans for the first time [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 11:49

TIL that Giraffes are 30x more likely to get struck by lightning than humans [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 09:49

TIL that cyclist Mario Cipollini, widely regarded as one of best the sprinters of his generation, disliked mountain stages so much that he would sometimes skip them entirely, all while releasing photos of himself lounging at the beach while the others struggled in the mountains. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 05:49

TIL that Japan's Kansai International Airport has never lost a piece of luggage since it opened in 1994. In 2023, it handled baggage for over 14 million passengers. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 03:49

TIL that among their other duties, US Marshalls are, in essence, bailiffs for US federal courthouses. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 01:49

TIL Crosswalk "push to walk" buttons in cities like New York no longer control traffic lights, yet pedestrians keep pressing them because it feels like control [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

24 Jul 2025 00:49

TIL: AI fever turns Anguilla’s “.ai” domain into a digital gold mine. In 2024, 23% of Anguilla's entire yearly revenue consisted of selling its national domain name ".ai". [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 19:49

TIL that pet cats form attachments with their human owners that are similar to the bonds formed by children and dogs with their caretakers. It's the first time that researchers have empirically demonstrated that cats display the same main attachment styles as babies and dogs [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 16:49

TIL world-renowned herpetologist Karl Schmidt was fatally bitten by a boomslang (an arboreal African elapid). To get some data out of the situation, he described every symptom in detail almost until the point of death. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 15:49

TIL that the creator of VeggieTales mother forbade two things on the show 1. They could not display Jesus as a Vegetable 2. The Veggies can have no redemptive relationship with God [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 14:49

TIL That Benito Mussolini was given a ceremonial weapon called “Sword of Islam”, recieved the title “Protector of Islam” and saw himself as being a heir to the authority of Ottoman Caliphs since he took over Libya. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 13:49

TIL: Rather than fiddling while Rome Burned, Nero rushed to the city from his villa to organize the relief effort. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

23 Jul 2025 11:49

TIL 17 y.o Matthew Scheidt a billing clerk intern spent days posing as a physician's assistant at a Florida hospital. He performed CPR, and even examined undressed male patients without anyone questioning him for days after convincing the hospital badge office that he had recently been promoted. [Source]