Between carving pumpkins, buying Halloween decorations, and dressing up for trick-or-treating, it seems people still had time to learn loads of new things over the past few weeks. Sometimes, purely by chance…
Many of us have been there. One minute you’re looking up a recipe, the next you’re going down a rabbit hole after discovering that 75% of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and 5 animal species. Or, you’re casually watching an army movie when you learn that military dogs outrank their handlers. (More on that further down.)
The world is indeed filled with an endless amount of interesting facts about everything under the sun. And for some people, many of them only came to light for the first time last month.
Bored Panda has gathered our favorite mix of recent Today I Learned posts from an online community that refuses to gatekeep fascinating facts. Whether you’re a trivia fan or just someone who likes to sound impressive during awkward small talk, there should be something here for you… So sit back, keep scrolling, and don't forget to upvote the ones that had you saying, “Wait, what?!?”
#21
TIL that Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an Edict on Maximum Prices where prices and wages were capped. Profiteers and speculators who fail to follow were sentenced to [demise].
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#22
TIL the Romans had so many different gods that in later antiquity one theologian noted that there were at least three different gods just dealing with doorways, including a specific god for the door's hinge.
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#23
TIL The owner of the world's oldest cat (Creme Puff, 38, 1967 - 2005) also owned the world's sixth-oldest cat (Granpa Rexs Allen, 34, 1964-1998).
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#24
TIL that during the Sylvester Stallone & Arnold Schwarzenegger rivalry in the 1980s, Schwarzenegger once tricked Stallone into doing the critically panned 1992 film "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" by pretending that it was a brilliant movie and and that he was thinking of doing it himself.
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#25
TIL the busiest pharmacy in the world is the Vatican Pharmacy, owned and operated by the Vatican City State. It is open to the public and is very popular among Roman residents because it stocks hard-to-find medicines and is much cheaper (purchases aren't subject to Italian taxes).
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#26
TIL the three actors in The Blair Witch Project signed a contract with a clause that allowed the studio to use their real names "for the purpose of this film". So when their identities were used again in the sequel without their permission, they sued the studio and won a settlement of $300,000 each.
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#27
TIL Central African Republic leader, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, spent years looking for his long-lost daughter Martine, whom he fathered while serving in Vietnam. The first "Martine” was exposed as a fraud when the real Martine was found. Bokassa accepted both as his daughters and adopted the fake Martine.
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#28
TIL that Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, with over 2 million people.
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#29
TIL a British man won £1.45m on a six-race rollover jackpot after placing a £2 bet. He correctly selected 6 winners including the final horse, Lupita, who hadn't won in 26 races & jockey, Jessica Lodge, who had not previously won. He picked them because "Lodge is just a name that sticks in my head."
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#30
TIL the most complex word in the English language is "run", with 645 possible different meanings.
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#31
TIL that Oskar Speck paddled a folding kayak from Germany to Australia over seven years. He arrived in 1939, unaware World War II had begun, and was arrested as an enemy spy upon landing, spending the war interned in Australia before later becoming an opal trader.
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#32
TIL that in 1999, a 15-year-old named Jonathan James hacked into NASA’s computers, accessed source code used for the International Space Station, and forced NASA to shut down parts of its systems for 21 days.
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#33
TIL In 2006, Midas ran an "America's Longest Commute" award, won by electrical engineer Dave Givens. His commute was 186 miles each way, and he'd drink 30 cups of coffee per day. He was willing to make this long commute so that he could live in a scenic horse ranch.
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#34
TIL that most people only use about 1,500 to 3,000 words regularly in everyday conversation, a range known as the surface lexicon.
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