“Today I Learned”: 30 Interesting And Weird Facts To Satisfy Your Curiosity (New Facts)

The members of the TIL community dish out cool and interesting facts daily, so let's take a more comprehensive look at some of them, shall we?

An intriguing fact about the declining fertility in America, as shared by user u/Plupsnup, has a surprising upside. The most obvious reason people think birth rates have stagnated stems from the fact that people just don't want to have kids anymore or postpone it to later in life.

More and more women are choosing to establish themselves in their careers first and then having children. However, the fact is that America also has way fewer teen moms than it had in the 1990s. The Economist reports that this trend is visible elsewhere, too: in Britain and the EU, teen pregnancy rates have fallen by 69% and 58%, respectively.

The story of Masabumi Hosoto, the only Japanese Titanic survivor, is a fascinating one. Interestingly, Japan didn't celebrate his survival, as the local media condemned him for not complying with the "women and children first" rule. The Japanese praised those who perished heroically and criticized people like Hosoto, who, in their eyes, chose to live cowardly.

The poor man even lost his job and only found part-time work for the rest of his life. He lived as a recluse and in quiet shame and didn't want anyone to even mention the Titanic in his home. After his passing, evidence came out that he actually helped row the lifeboats and saved fellow passengers, restoring his good name.

If you've ever looked at the Japanese flag and thought it looked a little bit off-center, you might've been right. As the user u/QuietGanache pointed out, the sun symbol wasn't at the exact center until 1999, when the country officially adopted its flag and anthem.

But what's more interesting is that many deem the other variant of the rising sun flag with a red disc and 16 rays coming from it controversial. They associate the flag with Japan's wartime atrocities and imperialist tendencies. Some countries, like South Korea, even asked the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizers to ban it.

Only the best of the best should attend the world's best universities. However, Stanford University apparently rejected 69% of applicants with a perfect SAT score from 2008 to 2013. Why? As the university explains, academic excellence isn't the only component in the admissions process. They have a complicated and rigorous admissions process and look for "intellectual vitality" and not just academic credentials. The then-dean of admissions Richard Shaw simply said: "There is no formula."

How many times have you tried to decode what your dog or cat is telling you? Well, researchers finally decoded what Egyptian fruit bats are talking about with each other. Neuroecologist Yossi Yovel and his team recorded their calls and grouped them into four categories. The bats argued about food and their positions in the sleeping cluster. It was noted that there were different sounds for males making unwanted mating advances, which were distinct from sounds "telling" one bat to another that they were sitting too close.

Greenland has once again been in the press these past weeks because of someone's pretty questionable political rhetoric. However, as Reddit user u/ToodlesMcDoozle pointed out, it appears almost 14 times larger in maps than it actually is. That's due to Mercator projection, which tends to stretch out countries towards the poles. In reality, Greenland is roughly the size of The Democratic Republic of Kongo.