There's always something new you can learn. Something that can broaden your horizons. You just have to know where to look.
One of the places that offer a never-ending flow of knowledge is the subreddit 'Today I Learned' (or TIL for short). People go there to share all the interesting stuff they discover, and the fact that its members are the ones who produce its content is what makes TIL such an enjoyable encyclopedia. It's legit. It's unpredictable. And it's constantly getting new submissions. What more could one ask for?
#21
TIL The actor who played Boss Hogg on Dukes of Hazard went to Columbia and Yale, spoke 5 languages, and was a counterintelligence officer during the Korean War
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266points
#22
TIL that each year, 22,000 pounds of dust from the Sahara Desert is carried by air currents to the Amazon Rainforest where it is an important source of phosphorus for tropical plants
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263points
#23
TIL Jack Black desperately wanted to use a Led Zeppelin song in School Of Rock but the band was notoriously reluctant to let their music be used in films. The director suggested having Black record a personal plea to the band members, in front of a crowd of 1,000 extras. It worked
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262points
#24
TIL when, in 1993, the US postal service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Elvis Presley's 58th birthday, fans mailed envelopes with first-day issues of the stamp to fictitious addresses so that they would receive their letters back, marked with the words "return to sender".
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260points
#25
TIL when a chimpanzee that learns an effective method to crack nuts open is placed into a new group that uses a less effective strategy, it will eventually stop using the superior method just to blend in with the rest of the chimps
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236points
#26
TIL that Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, sold the series as a pure entertainment vehicle due to censorship he experienced with previous projects that would delve into controversial social/political issues. The Twilight Zone tackled the same issues but veiled in science fiction and fantasy
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222points
#27
TIL that James K. Polk is the only US president who pledged to serve only one term during his campaign. He was known for fulfilling all his major promises and died 3 months after his term ended, making his retirement the shortest. He is also the only speaker of the house to be elected as president
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217points
#28
TIL that over 200 bird species including the Northern Cardinals, wild turkeys and Baltimore Orioles use a method of pest control called "anting." They take an ant in their beak and wipe their tail feathers in order to deter lice. The ants release formic acid that the birds utilize routinely
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210points
#29
TIL when your immune system fights an infection, it cranks up the mutation rate during antibody production by a factor of 1,000,000, and then has them compete with each other. This natural selection process creates highly specific antibodies for the virus
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204points
#30
TIL in 1879 it was estimated the Oxford English Dictionary to take 10 years for completion, but in five years they'd only reached the word "Ant". After crowdsourcing readers to help it was completed 44 years later. The publishers now estimate it would take a single person 120 years to just type it
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204points
#31
TIL that Gaddafi had a serious obsession with Condoleezza Rice, showering her with over $200,000 in gifts and having a famous local composer write a song for her called “Black Flower in the White House”
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203points
#32
TIL Thomas Midgley Jr, who helped invent leaded petrol, once poured the lead additive over his hands and inhaled its fumes to prove it was safe. He was later diagnosed with lead poisoning... for the second time.
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193points
#33
TIL that in 1999, a group of hackers discovered that they could enter any Hotmail account by simply entering “eh” as a password. It was fixed by Microsoft within two hours.
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187points
#34
TIL that Beverly Hills, California is named after Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, which was named after the town Beverley in Yorkshire England, which came from the name "Beverlac" in the 10th century, meaning "beaver lake," because of all the beavers in the nearby river
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181points
#35
TIL that in 1967 the Soviet cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov died in an accident on the Soyuz 1 mission, making him the first human to die in a space flight. Komarov was aware of the faulty design of the shuttle and specifically asked the authorities to give him an open casket funeral after the mission
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178points
#36
TIL that in 2005 a Russian private was forced to squat for four hours as part of a brutal army hazing ritual and the lack of blood flow resulted in his genitals and legs requiring amputation sparking public outcry in Russia
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174points
#37
TIL that limping was a fad in Victorian England. Young women admired the genuine limp of Alexandra of Denmark, bride of the Prince of Wales. So, women went around fake limping, dubbed the "Alexandra Limp." Shopkeepers at the time sold pairs of shoes with one high heel and one low.
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168points
#38
TIL scientists "hacked" the genetic code of brewer's yeast to produce cannabis compounds. They inserted genes from cannabis plants into the yeast's genetic code which allowed it to produce CBD and THC. Their end goal is to allow large scale cannabinoid production without cultivation.
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162points
#39
TIL According to a survey, 43% of American Cardiologists are overweight to obese.
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152points
#40
TIL Jane Stanford, founder of Stanford University, was murdered by strychnine poisoning. The president of the university at the time, David Starr Jordan, was suspected of covering up the murder. The killer was never found.
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144points
