Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 11:49

TIL Sting got his name from wearing a yellow and black jumper while playing jazz with the Phoenix Jazzmen in the evenings after his teaching job in the early 70s. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 08:49

TIL about Turnspit dog, an extinct breed (now) which was used in the kitchen to help chefs and cooks. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 06:49

TIL that bees can recognize human faces using the same "configural processing" technique humans use — assembling parts into a whole. They were taught this in lab experiments despite having brains smaller than a sesame seed. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 05:49

TIL that the Antikythera Mechanism, a 2,000-year-old Greek device recovered from a shipwreck, was so mechanically sophisticated that nothing comparable appeared again in human history for roughly 1,400 years. It predicted eclipses and tracked the movements of the planets using a system of over 30 in [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 02:49

TIL there’s an Android game called “Send Me to Heaven” where the objective is to throw your phone as high as possible and catch it, with the app measuring height using the device’s accelerometer. Apple banned it from the App Store for encouraging users to damage their phones. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 01:49

TIL about the 1972 Iran Blizzard, the deadliest blizzard in history. Over the course of 9 days Iran received almost 26 feet of snow, and roughly 200 villages were erased from the map. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 00:49

TIL: being physically fit reduces anger [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 00:49

TIL of the Jim Twins. They were separated at birth and reunited at age 39, at which time they realized that they were both married to a woman named Linda, divorced, then married a woman named Betty, and each named their son's James Allan. They also both owned dogs named Toy and worked as Sherrifs [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 20:49

TIL that Earths closest planatary neighbor is, on average, Mercury. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 19:49

TIL that Switzerland’s sewage system contains millions of dollars worth of gold and silver every year from industrial waste but it can’t practically be reclaimed [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 16:49

TIL that the Andromeda Galaxy is about 2.5 million light‑years away, so when we see it in the night sky, we’re seeing it as it was 2.5 million years ago. If an observer in Andromeda could see Earth in detail right now, they would be watching our early human ancestors, not modern civilization. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 15:49

TIL that the Ancient Greece we commonly talk about, the Classical Greece, was a period that lasted only some 187 years, from 510 BCE to 323 BCE. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 13:49

TIL about the Virginia dynasty, a term sometimes used to describe the fact that four of the first five presidents of the United States were from Virginia. After the state contributed four of the first five presidents, four other natives of Virginia have so far served as president. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 10:49

TIL "John Bohannon sent out bogus papers about a fictitious cancer experiment, papers that should have raised red flags. But more than 150 journals offered to publish his work." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 05:49

TIL that famed sheriff Buford Pusser who lost his wife in a supposed retaliatory attack in 1967 and inspired the 1973 movie “Waling Tall” is now believed by investigators to be his wife’s murderer after an autopsy was finally performed on her in 2024. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 09:49

TIL Black Sabbath bassist Greezer Butler has been a vegetarian since he was a child. His childhood dog ‘Scamp’ had acid thrown on him and Geezer has been dedicated to helping animals ever since. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 06:49

TIL a Japanese company gave non-smokers 6 extra vacation days per year to compensate for time smokers spent during smoke breaks [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 05:49

TIL there will be three Friday the 13th in 2026 (February, March and November). This is the most you can have in a year and the rarest combination last occurring in 2015. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 04:49

TIL nearly 60% of Google searches end without the user clicking a link [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 02:49

TIL that during the English Siege of Rouen (1418-19), the city expelled around 12,000 impoverished citizens to conserve food. Once outside of the city, however, Henry V did not permit them to pass through the English lines. They were trapped between city walls and the English and eventually starved. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 01:49

TIL the cast of Das Boot (1981) were deprived of sunlight during the entire year of filming to realistically portray the unhealthy, pale skin of real sailors. I also learned 30000 of 40000 sailors never made it home. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

05 March 2026 00:49

TIL It is assumed that the word “bear” is a euphemism and derives from the Proto-Germanic word for “the brown one.” The actual name of the animal was probably “arctos.” [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 22:49

TIL Korean Air was known as "an industry pariah, notorious for fatal crashes" in the airline industry prior to 1999, resulting in hundreds of fatalities. South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung would call the airline's safety record "an embarrassment to the nation" & would fly rival airliner Asiana. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 20:49

TIL that cats sleep 12-16 hours per day and the sleep time even reaches up to 20 hours. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 18:49

TIL that while in the army C.S. Lewis made a pact with his roommate, Edward “Paddy” Moore, that if either died in combat the other would take care of both families. Moore was killed in 1918 and Lewis kept the pact, living with and caring for Moore’s mother until the 1940’s. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 16:49

TIL Fritz the Cat is the first animated film to receive an X rating. The plot follows a womanizing cat in New York City who smokes weed, accidentally starts a riot, and ends with him in the hospital having group sex with three women. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 15:49

TIL Ozempic (weight-loss medication) was developed based on a protein found in the venom of the Gila Monster. Researchers discovered this protein in the lizard's venom, exendin-4, regulates blood sugar and appetite [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 12:49

TIL the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog puppet was found in an assortment of animal puppets at a country furniture store by Robert Smigel and his wife. Smigel immediately used it to jokingly smell his wife's butt, so she bought seven of those puppets and later gave them to Smigel as a birthday gift [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 06:49

TIL: in the 1920s, composer Maurice Ravel wrote an experimental work consisting only of one very long, gradual crescendo. He was astonished and displeased that the work, "Boléro", became a massive success. When a listener shouted "Rubbish!" at the premiere, he said "That old lady got the message!" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

04 March 2026 04:49

TIL that, unlike his father Benjamin Franklin, William Franklin was a staunch British loyalist who went into exile after the Revolutionary War and died in London in 1813. [Source]