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. Keep reading to also find our in-depth interview about the benefits of learning with international educational consultant Marilee Sprenger. 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.
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#41
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
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78points
#42
TIL that official temperatures used in weather apps are taken in shade, not under sunlight
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74points
#43
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
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72points
#44
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
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71points
#45
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
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66points
#46
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
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66points
#47
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"
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63points
#48
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
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61points
#49
TIL male goats urinate on their heads to smell more attractive to females
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59points
#50
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
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54points