Today is an excellent day to discover something new. After all, few things are as enjoyable as learning and expanding your intelligence. And thanks to the internet — the endless stream of information that is literally at our fingertips — it has never been easier. You can constantly keep your brain busy with new things to think about and pump up that trivia muscle by adding new interesting facts to your arsenal of knowledge.

Whether it’s to improve your water-cooler talk skills or challenge your perspectives about the world, the ‘Today I Learned’ (TIL) subreddit is the perfect place to start. For years, the adventurous 28.4 million members of this community have been sparking our curiosity by sharing nuggets of wisdom they recently found themselves. So let’s take a look at what they have to teach, shall we?

Below, we wrapped up the newest batch of intriguing tidbits to get something useful out of our feeds. So grab your notebooks, put your thinking caps on, and enjoy scrolling through this list. Then upvote the facts you may not have known about, and be sure to pass on even more knowledge to us in the comments.

Psst! If you feel the urge to broaden your mental horizons even further, check out some more TIL goodness in our earlier pieces here, here, and right here.

#1

TIL Andromachi Papanicolaou, the wife of the man who invented the Pap smear volunteered to have her cervix sampled every day for 21 years to help with his research. Their findings went on to save the lives of millions of women by preventing the development of cervical cancer through early detection

Image credits: nekkototoro

#2

TIL The Python programming language was named after Monty Python, not a snake

Image credits: HouseofKannan

#3

TIL that Billie Joe Armstrong once dropkicked a guy in the middle of a Green Day concert after he saw him roughing up a young girl. He stopped the show and challenged him to a fight before jumping into the crowd

Image credits: derstherower

#4

TIL Eleanor Roosevelt held her own press conferences where only female journalists were allowed. This ensured they kept their jobs during Depression-era layoffs, earning a steady income & professional status

Image credits: Pfeffer_Prinz

#5

TIL landlords in Glasgow, Scotland tried to increase rent by 25% on women whose husbands were fighting in World War 1. The women organised a rent strike and stopped bailiffs entering their buildings by throwing flour bombs at them and pulling down their trousers

Image credits: joe-dirt

#6

TIL that New Zealand author Janet Frame was falsely diagnosed as schizophrenic and was scheduled to be lobotomised. Several days before the operation, she won New Zealand’s most prestigious literary prize, convincing doctors to cancel the procedure

Image credits: BringsHomeBones

#7

TIL Salivating before vomiting is a way for your body to protect your teeth from the incoming stomach acid

Image credits: NeroJ_

#8

TIL Charles Darwin’s personal pet tortoise (Harriet) didn’t die until recently at an estimated age of 175 years

Image credits: AffectionateWillow57

#9

TIL that the ‘inner-voice’ of most life-long & completely deaf people is seeing/feeling themselves acting out sign language

Image credits: Rattiom32

#10

TIL John Steinbeck spent two months rewriting ‘Of Mice and Men’ after his dog ate the only copy of the original manuscript

Image credits: Lupercali

#11

TIL upon request, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his copy of the “I have a dream” speech he had just delivered to the then security guard George Raveling. Raveling has been offered as much as $3 million for the original copy but he has refused all offers

Image credits: ChronosBlitz

#12

TIL There was so much [poop] in the streets of 14th century Paris that multiple roads had names which originated from the french word for [poop], “merde”: rue Merdeux, rue Merdelet, rue Merdusson, rue des Merdons, and rue Merdiere. There was also a rue de Pipi, or “Urine Street”

Image credits: JosephScarington

#13

TIL about Janet Stephens, a hair stylist turned hairstyle archeologist. She visited a museum in 2001 and realized historians were wrong about hairstyles on Greek and Roman statues being wigs. She recreated the styles and published her findings in The Journal of Roman Archaeology

Image credits: ladyem8

#14

TIL in 2013 a surgeon in the UK was struck off and convicted of assault after branding his initials into two patients livers. It was only discovered when 1.6-inch (4cm) initials were discovered by another doctor on an organ that he had transplanted failed

Image credits: Status-Victory

#15

TIL that Nike created a pair of shoes that were so advanced, they were banned from the Olympics because they were considered as technological doping.The Alphaflys, or “the shoe that broke running”, as sports scientist Dr Ross Tuckercalled them, contain tech designed to deliver greater energy return

Image credits: Arpith2019

#16

TIL – According to a 2009 Sports Illustrated article, 60 percent of former NBA players are broke within five years of retirement. By the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress

Image credits: edfitz83

#17

TIL about a woman named Iva Toguri (Tokyo Rose) an American woman who used her position to undermine Japanese propaganda during WW2. She was named a traitor to the USA , and arrested for treason,it took her 30 years to prove her innocence

Image credits: Honest_Resort_2498

#18

TIL Microsoft held a mock funeral for iPhone because they thought the windows phone 7 was going to smash apple in sales

Image credits: TurtleBoy29

#19

TIL: In the 25 years since Ron Goldman’s family won a $33,500,000 civil judgement against OJ Simpson for wrongful death, he has only paid the family about $133,000

Image credits: joecooool418

#20

TIL The Parthenon in Athens was largely intact for over 2000 years. The heavily damaged ruins we see today are not due to natural forces or the passage of time but rather a massive explosion in 1687

Image credits: HucklecatDontCare

#21

TIL that In 2018, Pope Francis married two flight attendants in an impromptu mid-air wedding on a plane during a trip to Chile. The couple had gotten married in a civil ceremony in 2010 but weren’t able to follow it up with a church service because of the earthquake in Chile that year

Image credits: CaliforniaAudman13

#22

TIL Ostrich farms routinely have difficulties getting male ostriches to breed, because they often find their human caretakers more attractive than female ostriches

Image credits: ProfitInitial3041

#23

TIL that a trio of drunken boys decided to sail out to sea looking for a girl they saw at a sports competition event. They ended up sailing for more than seven weeks and drifted 1300 km off course before being rescued by a tuna boat. They all survived by drinking beer, eating coconuts and a bird

Image credits: cv990

#24

TIL that in 2017 an 8 year old learned how to drive on YouTube and successfully drove to McDonalds while following traffic laws

Image credits: MegaZeroX7

#25

TIL that dogs and cats have special taste buds geared specifically for water

Image credits: Buck_Thorn

#26

TIL Onions have sucrose, a natural sugar, trapped in their cells. The longer you cook an onion the more sucrose is released and the heat converts the sucrose into glucose and fructose which are sweeter sugars. This process is called caramelization and it creates very sweet tasting onions

#27

TIL in 1977 Indian painter, PK Mahanandia, sold his belongings and cycled 4,000 miles from India to Sweden to visit his love, Charlotte von Schedvin because he couldn’t afford a plane ticket. They got married in 1979

#28

TIL Julius Chambers of the New-York Tribune had himself committed to an asylum in 1872, and his account led to the release of 12 patients who were not mentally ill, a reorganization of the staff, and a change in the lunacy laws

#29

TIL male goats urinate on their heads to smell more attractive to females

Image credits: sillyibistt

#30

TIL the average Mexican is genetically 50% indigenous with evidence of native ancestry being significantly higher on the X chromosome

Image credits: untipoquenojuega

#31

TIL that in 2017 a sailor was stranded and alone on a cargo ship near the Suez Canal for almost 4 years. Since the owner was having financial difficulties and the captain had gone ashore, the local court declared the sailor the legal guardian

Image credits: rigorousthinker

#32

TIL that the religious group known as the Shakers are completely celibate and cannot have children, so they can only gain new members by converting outsiders. As a result, there were only two people in the last existing Shaker community as of 2020, although they gained a single new member in 2021

Image credits: IHad360K_KarmaDammit

#33

TIL: The World’s Littlest Skyscraper in Wichita Falls was built in 1919. Remote investors were swindled by intentionally not indicating the units on the planned blueprints were in inches, not feet

Image credits: Fuzzie8

#34

TIL that The British Pound is the oldest currency in the world, it has been used for over 1,200 years and dated back to Anglo-Saxon era. Back then it equivalent to 1 pound of silver. One pound back then could buy you 15 cows

Image credits: NPT1506

#35

TIL that in 1988 the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) did a psychological profile of Jack the Ripper in time for the 100 years anniversary of the White Chapel murders. The FBI profiled Jack as male, 28-36 years old, most likely a butcher, mortician, or medical orderly

Image credits: saddetective87

#36

TIL Gloria Williams, who pleaded guilty to posing as a hospital employee and abducting Kamiyah Mobley from her mother’s arms in the maternity ward, was sentenced to 18 years, which was the length of time Mobley was separated from her birth family

#37

TIL that humans have the highest daytime visual acuity of any mammal, and among the highest of any animal (some birds of prey have much better). However, we have relatively poor night vision

Image credits: a2soup

#38

TIL coding RollerCoaster Tycoon in the late 1990s required significant optimization of PC power and memory constraints at the time. Per designer Chris Sawyer, letting guests drown was simply easier than programming the alternative of allowing them to swim to shore

Image credits: blueberrisorbet

#39

TIL that a single engineer in the control room of NASA prevented the astronauts of Apollo 12 from aborting the mission seconds after launch. “Set SCE to AUX”, said John Aaron which saved the entire mission

#40

TIL that production on “No Country For Old Men” was shut down for a day due to a large black cloud of smoke drifting into view. The smoke was coming from a pyrotechnics test on the set of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood”, which was simultaneously filming in the same town of Marfa, TX

Image credits: gayspeedracer

#41

TIL that Christian Bale had dental work done to make his teeth more perfect for American Psycho (2000) to match the superficial appearance of his character Patrick Bateman

#42

TIL only 5% of residential homes in the UK are thought to have air conditioning and many buildings are designed in a way to keep heat in

#43

TIL of Sonya Thomas, a competitive eater. In 2005, she held 22 world titles at a bodyweight of 99 lbs. and defeated elite male and female competitors twice her size or more

Image credits: JOWWLLL

#44

TIL in 2006, a mother and son were convicted of trying to extort money from Cracker Barrel by claiming they found a dead mouse in her soup. Charges were filed after a necropsy showed the mouse had no soup in its lungs and had not been cooked, signs that it was dropped into the soup after its death

Image credits: Str33twise84

#45

TIL in 2009 an American tourist was almost left behind by his transcontinental Australian train. He clung to the outside for two hours and 124 miles in only a t-shirt and jeans while the temperature dropped below freezing

Image credits: kwykwy

#46

TIL the BBC initially refused to publish Richard Dimbleby’s eye witness account of Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, they didn’t believe it was as terrible as he described. It’s estimated 70,000 people died at Belsen. The BBC only agreed to broadcast after Dimbleby threatened to resign

Image credits: Pukit

#47

TIL Mount Thor in Canada has the world’s longest vertical drop. If you fell off it, you would fall for over a kilometer before you hit anything

Image credits: sisyphushaditsoeasy

#48

TIL when a pilot ejects from their plane, the ejection seat manufacturer gives them a tie. The Ejection Tie Club is confined solely to those who have emergency ejected from an aircraft using a Martin-Baker ejection seat. There are over 6,000 members

#49

TIL the reason why Wine Coolers dropped in popularity in the USA after the 80s was because in 1991, the US excise tax on wine was raised from $0.17 per gallon to a $1.07, making it uneconomical for Wine Cooler makers to produce at a palatable price for buyers

#50

TIL that after the Portuguese dictator Salazar went into coma, he was dismissed as Prime Minister. When he emerged from it and recovered lucidity, no one wanted to tell him he had been removed from power, instead he was allowed to “rule” in privacy until his death 2 years later

#51

TIL of Tonda Dickerson, a waitress who was tipped a lottery ticket that won. The jackpot was $10M. She was sued by her co-workers who demanded a share and the person who tipped her, who demanded a truck, and was pursued by the IRS, who demanded a gift tax

#52

TIL in the movie Arachnophobia, the largest spider was a bird-eating spider they named Big Bob, after Robert Zemekis. Big Bob was adopted by a crew member named Jamie Hyneman, who went on to host Mythbusters. The little ones were controlled using a hairdryer and lemon pledge spray

#53

TIL that a robot fish invented to mimic the natural predator of the ‘mosquitofish’ was so effective that it altered their behaviour, physiology and fertility, effectively “scaring them to death”

#54

TIL that official temperatures used in weather apps are taken in shade, not under sunlight
Source: boredpanda.com