Today I Learned (TIL)

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TIL that a 30-year boycott of 'The Sun' newspaper in Merseyside UK resulted in a substantial rise in EU support, as shown in a 2021 research paper on public opinions & media

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TIL about the 'River' effect in typography

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TIL that lettuce can grow with artificial sunlight (specifically red/blue LED lights)

by Potatos_are_not_friends

TIL: Eating pine nuts can occasionally cause some people to experience a bitter or metallic taste lasting from a few days up to 2 weeks

by zero_gravitas

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TIL Pope Leo XIII awarded a Vatican gold medal to the creator of his favourite brand of cocaine-infused wine and also appeared on a poster endorsing it.

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TIL Roald Dahl wrote a sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where Willy Wonka goes to space, fights aliens, and overdoses Charlie's parents on age rejuvenation pills

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TIL MSNBC host Alicia Menendez is Senator Bob Menendezes daughter

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TIL David Bowie was so unconvinced of the commercial viability of his album "Low" that after its release, he toured as Iggy Pop's keyboardist instead of promoting the new record.

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TIL - Investors are buying up properties as investments in resort towns and they can be rented as high as 45k per week

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TIL that Ben and Jerry's has a graveyard for discontinued ice cream flavors.

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TIL a guide dog named Roselle led a group of people including her blind owner down 78 flights of stairs before the North Tower collapsed on 9/11.

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TIL Banksy snuck "cave art" into the British Museum as a hoax in 2005 and then they put it on display for real in 2018.

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TIL the first CEO of Apple was not Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak, but Michael Scott

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TIL that humans are the only animals that have chins

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TIL Czechia remains the leader in per capita beer drinking for the 29th year. In 2021, the average Czech drank more than 184 l of beer, Europe counting 9 out of 10 countries in beer per capita

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TIL the middle finger was used offensively from 423 BC

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TIL about the existence of Wikipedia's Nearby page, a list of pages tagged with coordinates nearby where you are

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TIL that horses went extinct in North America about 10,000 years ago. They were then reintroduced to the continent by the Spanish as early as the 1550s.

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TIL that the largest ape species to ever have existed, Gigantopithecus blacki, a relative to orangutan, was discovered in a Hong Kong drugstore that sold molar teeth from it.

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TIL The first man to finish the 1904 Olympic marathon rode in a car half the race. The actual winner had to be carried across the finish line after his coaches gave him a mix of brandy, eggs (...)

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TIL: There is a breed of goat that is half black and half white -- The Valais Blackneck goat

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TIL about Tetrachromacy, a condition which lets you see more colors. Normal people can see about 1 million colors, while tetrachromats may see up to 100 million. Up to 12% of women may have it.

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TIL Einstein compared Israel to Nazis in 1948 (NYT)

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TIL that in 1848 a railroad worker survived an accident where an iron bar pierced through his head, destroying most of his left frontal lobe. However, his personality and behavior changed considerably

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TIL about the Hairy frog, remarkable not only for its hairlike structures, but also for intentionally breaking its bones of the toe and use the sharpened bones as claws.

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TIL about the Tree That Owns Itself, a white oak in Georgia, USA, that, according to legend, has legal ownership of itself and of all land within eight feet (2.4 m) of its base

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TIL that in 1968, Liechtenstein held a referendum on women's suffrage where both men and women were allowed to vote. Despite this, the No-side won with 56.3% of the total and 49.5% of the women vote

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TIL that to promote potatoes, French agronomist Parmentier put guards around his potato fields, making them seem valuable. At night, they were left unguarded, so peasants could steal potatoes and grow

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TIL about the Garamantes, an advanced civilization in the Sahara desert, based on irrigation from aquifers. Its disappearance was possibly caused by the depletion of the fossil water it relied on.

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TIL that in 1961, the only doctor at a Soviet research station in Antarctica got appendicitis, and had to performed surgery on himself to remove his appendix. Two weeks later he resumed regular duties

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TIL that teabags were invented by accident. In 1908, a New York tea merchant sent tea samples to customers in small silk bags. The customers put the bags directly in hot water, and the teabag was born

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TIL about the Mammoth Site in SD. it has 65+ intact mammoth skeletons

by Track_Shovel

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TIL that a French and British submarine collided in 2009. They both moved so quietly that they could not detect each other and accidentally happened to run into each other.

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TIL that there is a successful Vienna orchestra playing solely with instruments made out of vegetables.

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TIL that in 2012 a large solar storm nearly missed Earth by a margin of nine days. If it hit, it could have caused damages to a cost of around $2.6 trillion.

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TIL the original word for "wolf" in Swedish was "ulv." Superstition lead to people adopting the word "varg," which originally meant "stranger." They believed that saying "ulv" would summon a wolf

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TIL that Waffen-SS had a primarily Muslim division. Most members were Bosnian Muslims. The Nazis used the Mufti of Jerusalem to promote the division and bolster recruitment.

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TIL about the unfinished skyscraper Goldin Finance 117 in Tianjin, China. Reaching 597 m high, it's the world's sixth tallest building, but construction stopped in 2015 and it now stands abandoned

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TIL You can emulate in your browser retro programs and games in the Internet Archive.

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TIL Hector (aka "Hector the Convector") is a large cumulonimbus cloud that forms regularly every afternoon at the Tiwi Islands of Australia from March to September. It can be seen from the mainland.

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TIL that the world's largest pyramid by volume is not in Egypt, but in Mexico. The Great Pyramid of Cholula has twice the volume. It is 450 m long, but only 66 m tall.

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TIL that in order to avoid having to surrender to the Soviets, the German commander of Bornholm tried to get a single British soldier transferred to the island to surrender to

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Hubi

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TIL that the small Pacific island country Nauru once was among the richest countries in the world, thanks to its phosphate mines. But when the mines were depleted, the country descended into poverty

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TIL about extreme ironing, a sport centered around ironing clothes on challenging locations. It has its own international governing organization and a World Championship has been held.

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TIL the applause in Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" was taken from a Jimi Hendrix performance and "fake-lived" by the audio engineers.

by itsnicodegallo

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TIL the common earthworm mates once a year and can live 4-8 years

by

NataliePortland

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TIL of David Hunt, a British gangster who was described as "too big to bring down" by the Met Police and has largely escaped justice as a result. He once paid £1mill to assassinate 3 police officers

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TIL that African wild dogs have been observed "voting" to decide if the group should go on a hunt. To "vote" for a hunt, the dogs sneeze.

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TIL That "The Brain" from Arthur was voiced by right-wing personality Steven Crowder from 2000-2001.

by Timecircleline

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TIL that the Aztecs had mandatory education for children of all classes and genders (although the schools and curriculum differed for nobility and commoners as well as boys and girls).

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TIL although Hebrew script has no upper and lowercase there is a print and cursive version

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TIL when lightning rods were first introduced in the 18th century, people found them so fascinating that wearable lightning rods become fashionable, e.g. a lightning rod in your hat or umbrella.

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TIL your skin health can actually impact your overall health including heart and neurological conditions

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TIL that on pre-colonial Easter Island there existed an undeciphered system of writing or proto-writing, called Rongorongo, which would be one of few independent inventions of writing.

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TIL that on the isolated Pacific Pitcairn Island, six men, including the mayor, out of a total population of just 47, were in 2004 found guilty of rape and sexual assault against children.

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Today I learned that in 1942, the Canadian military simulated a Nazi invasion and "took over" Winnipeg

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