Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 12:49

TIL The tea ruined at the Boston Tea Party had a value in 1773 equivalent to $2.3 Million USD in today's money. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 09:49

TIL puppeteer Frank Oz hasn’t worked with the Muppets since 2007 not because he wanna retire. In 2021, he stated: “I’d love to do the Muppets again but Disney doesn’t want me. They don’t want me because I won’t follow orders and I won’t do the kind of Muppets they believe in, The soul’s not there". [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 06:49

TIL there is an old handwriting system that is faster than typing. Masters have reached up to 280 Words per minute! [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 03:49

TIL about war pigs: swine set on fire to repel enemy elephants [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 03:49

TIL Mars has five mountains taller than mount Everest [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 01:49

TIL In medieval times the Byzantines used a giant chain to prevent enemy ships from crossing the Golden Horn, the natural estuary leading into Constantinople's harbor. Failing to break it, some invaders, including the ottomans in 1453, decided to carry their ships on land and circumvent it [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 00:49

TIL that in the late 1800s clam chowder was introduced in New Zealand as an "American" dish and has become integral to New Zealand cuisine [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 22:49

TIL the first case of nonischemic priapism (an unwanted persistent erection) following penile tattooing was reported in 2012. A man got a tattoo on his penis which caused a permanent semi-erection. After an unsuccessful surgery to fix it, he decided to live with it since it was painless & functional [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 20:49

TIL about Georg Gaertner, a POW who escaped a camp in New Mexico in 1945, lived as a fugitive for 40 years and eventually got citizenship. Because he had been brought to the US involuntarily and escaped the camp after the war, he was not charged with a crime and lived in the US until he died. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 19:49

TIL about Rahma Haruna, a girl whose body stopped growing at 6 months old. Her family carried her in a plastic bucket. The specific illness that caused her condition was never diagnosed. She died at age 19. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 17:49

TIL about the Detroux Affair in Belgium. Marc Dutroux sold children to prominent figures for abuse, and the botched investigation made people ask whether there was a cover up. Belgian people marched on the streets, and those in power feared a full rebellion. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 16:49

TIL that Mark Hamill stated that he would never voice the Joker again because "Without Kevin (Conroy) [the voice actor for the animated version of Batman when Hamill voiced the animated version of the Joker] there, there doesn't seem to be a Batman for me." [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 13:49

TIL cleaner wrasse fish willingly enter and clean the mouths of larger, often predatory fish. Larger fish gather at cleaner wrasse "stations" and open their mouths. Cleaner fish enter their mouths and eat parasites; they get a meal, and the larger fish get cleaned of parasites. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 12:49

TIL that people who do small acts of kindness for strangers often experience a measurable boost in happiness that can last for several hours. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 09:49

TIL Ethiopia uses its own calendar, which is about 7–8 years behind the Gregorian calendar used by most of the world. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 12:49

TIL that Ioannis Ikonomou is the Chief Translator of the European Commision, speaking 21 of the 24 Official Languages. He is also the only Translator trusted with classified Chinese documents, which he considers his favorite Language, but also the most Complicated. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 08:49

TIL Thomas Jefferson's tombstone lists what he considers his three greatest accomplishments ... none of which are being President of the United States. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 05:49

TIL that philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe believed that human consciousness is an evolutionary overextension, unnecessary for survival. He believed that humans developed four common coping mechanisms to dull our self-reflection and soothe our anxiety regarding our mortality. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 03:49

TIL that about 30% of people with depression have treatment resistant depression (TRD), which means they have failed at least 2 different types of treatment modalities. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 03:49

TIL about Michel Siffre, who spend over two months in a cave (on more than one occasion) with no timekeeping devices of any kind in order to study how the human brain perceives time. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

10 March 2026 00:49

TIL that John Lennon came back from a 5 year recording hiatus in 1980 after hearing the B-52’s Rock Lobster. In his words, "[Rock Lobster] sounds just like Ono's music, so I said to meself, 'it's time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up!'" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 23:49

TIL that a Los Angeles woman was once involuntarily committed after she insisted that the boy that she was reunited with was not her missing child. The story later inspired the 2008 movie “Changeling”. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 21:49

TIL "The Ashes",an England–Australia cricket series since 1883,got its name from a satirical obituary written after England lost to Australia in 1882: "English cricket is dead.The body will be cremated & the ashes taken to Australia".The name stuck when England’s captain vowed to“regain those Ashes" [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 19:49

Today I learned that basketballs used to always be brown, but in the 1950s an orange basketball was invented so it would be easier to see against the floor of the court. This is now the standard colour for basketballs. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 19:49

TIL that people can often recognize a familiar song in as little as a few hundred milliseconds after it starts playing [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 17:49

TIL an elderly woman in China unknowingly used an old hand grenade, that never exploded, as a hammer for 20 years. She had risked her life every time she used it. Its metallic head was full of dents and it had become so damaged that part of its fuse was exposed, however somehow it withstood it all. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 14:49

TIL an embryo frozen in 1994 was successfully implanted 30 years later, resulting in a live birth in 2025 — the longest frozen embryo ever to result in a live birth, certified by Guinness World Records. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 12:49

TIL that only two women have attempted to assassinate a US President - Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the Manson family, and Sara Jane Moore, an FBI informant. Both attempts were against Gerald Ford in California within three weeks of each other. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 11:49

TIL that around 2400 BCE, migrants linked to the Bell Beaker culture arrived in Britain and largely replaced the earlier Neolithic farmers. Ancient DNA shows about 90% of the population’s ancestry changed within a few centuries, bringing high levels of steppe DNA to the islands. [Source]

Today I Learned 🎓

09 March 2026 07:49

TIL in ‘76 a movie came out about a company that made an advanced AI, collects data on every person, and has to make data centers to store it. Governments then resort to espionage to try and control it, while the company uses it for political influence. That movie is called Deep Throat Part II. [Source]