If you've been visiting Reddit for a while, you know a single click in the wrong direction can lead you to a terrible place. But communities like braincels aside, the site has been offering awesome content too.
Take the subreddit Today I Learned (TIL) for example. It's a place where users submit surprising yet totally legit facts to broaden each other's knowledge of the world.
Whether it's the everyday life of former presidents or the recreational use of x-rays in the 1890s, these guys constantly unearth something interesting.
If you're done scrolling and the list leaves you thirsty for more trivia, check out Bored Panda's earlier pieces on Today I Learned here, here, and here.
#1
TIL Goku from DBZ in Japan is voiced by an 84 year old woman, who holds world records for her long-running voice acting career
Image credits: succulentknobgoblin
#2
TIL British banknotes increase in size as they increase in value to help blind people tell them apart
Image credits: gianthooverpig
#3
TIL a defibrillator doesn't restart a stopped heart. In fact quite the opposite, it actually stops a heart in the middle of a cardiac event, allowing the heart’s natural back-up system to take over and return it to normal sinus rhythm.
Image credits: smileylinzi
#4
TIL that in 1929, determined to prove his hypothesis, Werner Frossman tricked a nurse, inserted a catheter through his own arm, and walked with the inserted tube to an x-ray lab to photograph his discovery, thereby inventing cardiac catheterization and winning a Nobel Prize for it later.
Image credits: sophia_rodrigo
#5
TIL that FDR's White House served notoriously terrible meals. First Lady Eleanor wanted to set an example for the country during the Depression by serving economical meals made from scraps
Image credits: archfapper
#6
TIL that in 1524, a statue of the Virgin Mary at the Cathedral in Riga, Latvia, was accused of being a witch. They put it on trial by throwing it in the river. Since the wooden statue floated, they declared it guilty and burned it.
Image credits: ForgingIron
#7
TIL about the Tarantula Hawk, which has a sting that causes "...immediate, excruciating, unrelenting pain that simply shuts down one's ability to do anything, except scream."
Image credits: JohnnyRoyall
#8
TIL in 1948, Milwaukee burger chain George Webb’s said they would give free hamburgers if the local baseball team won 12 games in a row. Since then it’s only happened twice: in 1987, and 2018. They honored the promise and gave out hundreds of thousands of free burgers.
Image credits: 02K30C1
#9
TIL that in the 1890s, X-Rays were used extensively as entertainment. People could even buy or build their own X-ray apparatus for use at home. Many who popularized the technology developed cancer, suffered amputations, or died.
Image credits: CapnFancyPants
#10
TIL in the anatomy building at Dalian Medical University, where medical student can practice on cadavers, there's a sign with a quote from a donor that reads "I’d rather let students try something 20 times on me than see them make one mistake on a future patient.”
Image credits: shaka_sulu
#11
TIL that American surgeon William Beaumont, the "Father of Gastric Physiology", researched human digestion by putting pieces of food on a string and poking them through an old gunshot wound in his handyman's stomach. He pulled it out on regular intervals to check on how well it had been digested.
Image credits: Salsal_Azar
#12
TIL that some hikers and researchers have spotted wild birds swearing. It is belived that birds that escaped from captivity teach other wild birds how to speak and swear in English.
Image credits: AvocadoDemon
#13
TIL Graça Machel was married to the President of Mozambique until he died in a plane crash, she later married Nelson Mandela while he was President of South Africa. She is the only person in modern history to be First Lady of two different countries.
Image credits: rangatang
#14
TIL that energy consumption in the UK is around the same as the 1970s, due to more efficient appliances and domestic solar technology
Image credits: bigbrother2030
#15
TIL nearly all French wine grapes are grown on vines grafted to root stock from Missouri. in the 1860s, phylloxera bugs threatened to destroy the vineyards, but roots from the US were resistant. Hundreds of thousands were shipped in and used to save the French vines.
Image credits: 02K30C1
#16
TIL a legend goes that during the Thirty Years' War, a Catholic army wanted to destroy Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany for resisting the Count of Tilly. Tilly declared that if anyone could drink a 3.25 L drink of wine in one go, he would spare the town. The local mayor saved the town that day.
Image credits: spark8000
#17
TIL capybaras, the largest extant rodent, have adapted well to urbanization in South America, and they can be found in many urban parks and lakes. Capybaras are quite docile and often allow humans to pet them though it is discouraged as the mammals' ticks can carry the Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
Image credits: KimCureAll
#18
TIL Before elevators, the 2nd floor of buildings were the most sought after because you didn't have to walk up a lot of stairs and you were above the street level, avoiding all the noises and smells. It's why a lot of older buildings have larger/nicer rooms on the second floor.
#19
TIL of "Janet" Airlines, a secret, full-service airline that carries military and contractor employees to sites such as Area 51.
Image credits: coffeeinvenice
#20
TIL 30 years ago a tank crushed a small red car in Osijek, Croatia, as a show of force. In 2011 a monument was built: a tiny red car, crushing a tank.
Image credits: Uggamouse
#21
TIL It is quite common for older homes to have piles of razor blades in their walls.
Image credits: FDR-9000
#22
TIL Bears in Yellowstone can eat up to 40,000 moths a day
Image credits: ExtensionVisible
#23
TIL as a prank, a man once climbed Mount Hood in the middle of the night and surreptitiously left a morning newspaper and a quart of milk for his friends, who were spending the night on the summit
Image credits: filthy_lucre
#24
TIL that Muhammad Ali went to Iraq in 1990 against the then president George H.W. Bush's wishes and secured the release of 15 american citizen hostages held in Iraqi prisons, and brought them home.
Image credits: azahran1790
#25
TIL: Claiming his first belt at 20 years, four months, and 22 days old, Mike Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title.
Image credits: positiontrader2021
#26
TIL Marco Polo became Kublai Khan's diplomat at 21 years old. One of his journeys included 2-year voyage from China to the Persian Gulf where of 600 men, only 18 survived. Altogether, throughout his life he traveled almost 15,000 miles or 24,000 km.
Image credits: MarineKingPrime_
#27
TIL many whiskeys in the saloons of the Old West contained added Strychnine, a lethal poison. Diluted Strychnine was thought to have curative effects, a belief reinforced by the fact that in many towns the poisoned whiskey was still safer to drink than the local available water.
Image credits: sgtpepper_spray
#28
TIL the Pyramid of Giza was the world’s tallest building for over 3,800 years.
Image credits: KingReffots
#29
TIL the animatronic gopher in the 1980 film Caddyshack cost around $500,000 and was built and filmed after the movie had been completed. The first cut was a cocaine fueled mess and it was suggested in post-production that the gopher should be part of an expanded storyline to tie everything together.
Image credits: WhileFalseRepeat
#30
TIL about Acclimatisation Societies. Groups of people from the 19th century that would purposely introduce exotic species to new places. They are responsible for massive ecological disasters.
Image credits: lambofgun
#31
TIL the first Soviet citizen to visit the White House was a female WWII sniper with 309 confirmed kills, one of which was a sniper she dueled for 3 days.
Image credits: iLiekTaost
#32
TIL Denmark received a week's notice to get a team ready for Euro Cup in 1992, to replace Yugoslavia as it was disqualified due to the Yugoslav Wars. Less than a month later, the underdogs were champions.
Image credits: shashankgaur
#33
TIL that home teams in basketball wear white uniforms because the home team had access to laundry facilities. By wearing grey or another dark color the visiting team was better able to conceal the stains that had accumulated on their uniforms over the course of the series.
Image credits: waveofpbr
#34
TIL The Brothers Grimm, being from a lower class, were excluded from university admission & tuition aid due to being poor. But upon publishing their 1st volume of 86 folk tales, they received honorary doctorate degrees from universities in Berlin, Marburg, & Wrocław.
Image credits: MarineKingPrime_
#35
TIL when Stephen Colbert was younger he wanted to be a marine biologist, but surgery left him deaf in one ear and without a right eardrum. The removal of his eardrum meant he could no longer scuba dive without complications, thus ending pursuit of his dream and allowing his career in comedy instead.
Image credits: WhileFalseRepeat
#36
TIL about the hunter-gatherer practice of "Insulting the Meat." To keep the best hunters from thinking themselves above the rest of the tribe, Ju/’hoan people insult the quality of the meat and lightheartedly mock the hunter who brought the animal down. The bigger the kill, the greater the insults.
Image credits: Benny_and_the_Betts
#37
TIL that during the final months of World War II, Japan planned to use the Black Plague as a biological weapon against San Diego, California. It was scheduled for September 22, 1945, but Japan surrendered just five weeks before it could happen.
Image credits: ich_bin_groot_
#38
TIL Star Wars’ Porkins (William Hootkins) studied Astrophysics at Princeton, was fluent in Mandarin, was questioned by the FBI about JFK’s assassination, and went on to act in 50 films including Raiders of the Lost Arc, Flash Gordon, Batman, and Curse of the Pink Panther.
Image credits: blainequasar
#39
TIL In 1965, a Ukrainian farmer dug up the lower jawbone of a mammoth. Further excavations revealed the presence of 4 huts made up of a total of 149 mammoth bones. These 'Mammoth Bone Huts' dating back some 15,000 years were determined to have been some of the oldest shelters ever built by humans
Image credits: HydrolicKrane
#40
TIL that in 1923, a man petitioned to change his surname from Kabotchnik to Cabot. Several members of the Cabot family, one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Boston society, sued to stop him, but the judge ruled against them because there was “nothing in the law to prevent it.”
Image credits: escapesuburbia
#41
TIL the Crusaders planned to finance the Fourth Crusade by stopping first in Constantinople, to assist in a coup. When they were not fairly compensated by the new Byzantine Emporer, they seized control of the city and surrounding territory. Establishing the short-lived Latin Empire (1204-1261).
Image credits: DalaiMontana
#42
TIL: Outside the ring, Muhammad Ali attained success as a spoken word artist, where he received two Grammy nominations. He also featured as an actor and writer, releasing two autobiographies. Ali retired from boxing in 1981 and focused on religion, philanthropy and activism.
Image credits: positiontrader2021
#43
TIL that Bakersfield and Fresno were built on top of a former lake, Lake Tulare, that was the largest freshwater lake west of the Missisipi. It was drained for Agriculture after the Civil War, and was completely gone by WW1.
Image credits: ThatOneKrazyKaptain
#44
TIL that cicada's wings have an anti-bacterial surface that kills bacteria not by chemicals, but by using a nanopattern made of nano pillars that shreds the bacterial membrane.
Image credits: Eliasibnz
#45
TIL As a teenager Patrick Stewart worked as a newspaper reporter and obituary writer. However after a year his employer gave him an ultimatum to choose acting or journalism. Stewart had been attending rehearsals during work time and then inventing the stories he reported.
Image credits: freddyjohnson
#46
TIL of "Psychogenic death" - when a person gives up on life mentally and dies usually within days. The phenomenon occurs when someone experiences a trauma they feel they cannot escape, and the person views death as their only option.
Image credits: operator139
#47
TIL when the UN's Nordic Battalion was sent to Bosnia in 1993 it disobeyed orders, broke rules of engagement, faked loss of communication to HQ, and became known as one the most trigger-happy peacekeeper units. This enabled them to achieve their mission objective: to protect civilians at all cost.
Image credits: Brutal_Deluxe_
#48
TIL Jerry's apartment in 'Seinfeld' is a physically impossible structure. If someone attempted to build it in real life, the hallway would run directly through the kitchen.
Image credits: absurd_alligator
#49
TIL the reason the rainbow has indigo/violet and not just purple is because Sir Isaac Newton was obsessed with the number 7 for occult reasons, he had to have 7 colors
Image credits: rc_12
#50
TIL in 1947 a woman with hives went to Johns Hopkins to cure her hives. She received an experimental drug Compund 1694 and not only her hives cleared up she reported that her trolly rides were free from nausea. Doctors immediately test the drug for motion sickness and Compund 1694 became Dramamine.
Image credits: shaka_sulu
#51
TIL in 2010 a Woman Was Evicted From Her £3,000,000 Castle in Scotland After Refusing to Pay a £230 Bill For a Bridal-wear Rental.
Image credits: bigjuicy456
#52
TIL That Japan has so many "ghost houses" that they are commonly given away at low/no-cost
Image credits: burgerthrow1
#53
TIL Kurt Russell was a civilian pilot who reported a formation of lights over Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and yet didn't learn until years later that he had in fact witnessed one of the most famous UFO sightings in history, known as the Phoenix Lights
Image credits: sanityfordummy
#54
TIL that forest fires in Germany can detonate unexploded bombs left from WWII, putting firefighters at risk
Image credits: cw7585
#55
TIL that self-proclaimed earthquake expert Ibn Browning predicted a massive earthquake would strike New Madrid, Missouri on December 3rd, 1990. Schools in multiple states closed, and media organizations flooded the town. Browning had no seismology background, and nothing happened.
Image credits: ButtholeBanquets
#56
TIL that when a plane was hijacked over Switzerland in 2014, the neighboring countries of Italy and France had to send their own fighter jets to the scene because the incident happened outside of the Swiss Air Force's business hours, and even hijackings weren't important enough to pay for overtime.
Image credits: FiveMinFreedom
#57
TIL the US Navy conducted mock air attacks by aircraft carrier on Pearl Harbor in 1932 and 1938. In both exercises the attacks were successful, demonstrating the importance of air power over battleships. Both exercises were ignored by the US Navy but were studied carefully by the IJN.
Image credits: coffeeinvenice
#58
TIL that Alexender Graham Bell tried to eliminate American sign language and deaf schools in the U.S because he was afraid of a deaf race emerging from it.
Image credits: NaKeepFighting
#59
TIL that when a male fruit fly is sexually rejected by a female fruit fly, it will seek out more alcohol than those that have successfully mated.
Image credits: sharpshift
#60
TIL Disney's Fireworks use pneumatic launch technology, developed for Disneyland as required by CA's South Coast AQMD. This uses compressed air instead of gunpowder to launch shells into the air. This eliminates the trail of the igniting firework and permits tight control over height and timing.
Image credits: ocdumbos
#61
TIL in 2018, an electrical engineer on board the Bellingshausen Research station in Antartica stabbed a fellow coworker in the chest multiple times because the colleague had been giving away the endings of books available in the research station’s library.
Image credits: unnaturalorder
#62
TIL almost all of the fruit, vegetables, and animals we eat are domesticated and ARE NOT found in nature. A few foods like some berries, nuts, and mushrooms are consumed in the same form they grow in the wild. Humans are "selectively breeding" species for more then 12,000 years.
Image credits: AvocadoDemon
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