title
stringlengths 2
302
| label
stringlengths 3
20
|
|---|---|
"TIL while Apple was buying rural land for a new building, one couple refused to sell their 1 acre plot of land they had originally purchased for $6,000. After rejecting every single offer, Apple just told them to name a price. They sold it for $1.7 million." | todayilearned |
"TIL to collect taxes, Christian IV of Denmark asked captains of ships crossing the Øresund to estimate the value of their cargo, which was applied as the tax base without further audit. But the king also claimed the right to buy the entire cargo at exactly that price." | todayilearned |
"TIL When Eminem wanted to get clean he called Elton John who then helped him for 18 months to kick his addiction to Vicodin, Ambien and other prescription drugs." | todayilearned |
"TIL, when Germany surrendered at the end of WWII, huge celebrations broke out on the streets of London. Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister secretly left Buckingham Palace to join the crowds outside, with Elizabeth describing it as "one of the most memorable nights of my life"" | todayilearned |
"TIL Ryan Reynolds paid $10,000 of his own money for the right to wear a shirt with The Golden Girl’s Bea Arthur on it in Deadpool. The estate agreed for a donation in that amount to a charity of their choosing. Ryan paid it himself because he felt you couldn’t have Deadpool without Bea Arthur." | todayilearned |
"TIL that in 1983 the head of a woman was found in a peat bog in England. A man assumed it belonged to his wife, who he had murdered and dumped in the bog in 1961, and made a full confession. The remains were dated and discovered to be 1750 years old. The man was still convicted of his wife's murder." | todayilearned |
"TIL that in 1965, a morbidly obese man didn't eat food for over an entire year. The 27 year old was 456lbs and was put under an experimental fast by doctors. He ingested only multivitamins and potassium tablets for 382 days and defecated once every 40 to 50 days. He ended up losing 275lbs." | todayilearned |
"TIL before the internet, Nintendo had "game counselors" - whom you could call if you were stuck in a game and they would coach you through it." | todayilearned |
"TIL: Tom Cruise is obsessed with sending his co-stars cakes, even ones he worked with decades ago. Louis Theroux, documentary maker, even went to his grandmother's 100th Birthday Party to find 100 cupcakes from Tom Cruise, after Tom worked with his cousin." | todayilearned |
"TIL that it is illegal to trade onion futures in the United States due to the 1958 Onion Futures Act, after two traders in 1955 purchased 98% of the onions in Chicago and subsequently crashed onion prices while holding short positions on onion futures." | todayilearned |
"TIL of Dmitry Argarkov who scanned a credit card agreement, edited it, and returned it with a 0% interest rate and no limit in the new terms. The bank signed and approved without reading and a judge held them to it." | todayilearned |
"TIL when the inventors of Silly String were trying to sell their idea to Wham-O, one of them sprayed the can all over the person who was meeting with them and all over their office. They were asked to leave, however, a day later received a telegram asking them to send 24 cans for a test market." | todayilearned |
"TIL while waiting for his audition for 'The Office', John Krasinski was telling someone about how he was worried the producers were going to screw the show up because of how great the British version is. The person he was talking to was Greg Daniels, the shows executive producer." | todayilearned |
"TIL that Usain Bolt was offered a position as wide receiver in the NFL and rejected it due to the hits NFL players take." | todayilearned |
"TIL that the Mexican government sent around 500 of it's elite soldiers to be trained as commandos at Ft. Bragg(USA), in order to better combat the rising drug violence in the country. After training, many of the soldiers returned to Mexico, only to start the brutally violent drug cartel: Los Zetas." | todayilearned |
"TIL in 1724 Margaret Dickson was hanged but later found still alive. She then was allowed to go free because under Scots Law her punishment had been carried out. Only later were the words "until dead" added to the sentence of hanging" | todayilearned |
"TIL that Kelly Clarkson didn't want to win American Idol because the winner was contractually bound to make a musical rom com." | todayilearned |
"TIL Prairie dog language is complex. They don’t just have a call for “danger”: their calls differentiate human, hawk, domesticated dog, coyote etc. and specify size & color. One study found that they can communicate “Here comes the short human in the yellow” (vs the tall human in blue) to each other" | todayilearned |
"TIL After Oprah's famous "You get a car" episode, where she gave away 276 cars at a total cost of $7.6 million, many of the recipients sent in complaints to the show as they had all been charged a $6-7k "gift tax"." | todayilearned |
"TIL a sloth's claws work the opposite way that human hand does. The default position is a tight strong grip, and sloths must exert effort to open them up. This is why sloths don't fall out of trees when they're asleep." | todayilearned |
"TIL that actress Tilda Swinton comes from an ancient Anglo-Scots family that can trace its lineage to the Middle Ages, & is one of only three British families that can trace their unbroken land ownership and lineage to before the Norman Conquest" | todayilearned |
"TIL Frankie Muniz suffers from long term memory loss and doesn't even remember being on Malcolm in the Middle." | todayilearned |
"TIL that roundabouts reduce fatalities from accidents by 72-82%. They also lower wait times and save gas." | todayilearned |
"TIL that in 2017, a dog named Odin refused to leave his flock of goats behind during the California Tubbs Fire as his owners fled to safety. Days later, the owners came back to their property to find Odin survived and managed to keep all the goats alive." | todayilearned |
"TIL the FBI followed Einstein, compiling a 1,400pg file, after branding him as a communist because he joined an anti-lynching civil rights group" | todayilearned |
"TIL that during the Danish Colonization of Greenland, missionary Hans Egede found that local Inuit had no concept for what bread was and so he changed the Lord’s Prayer to say “Give us this day our daily seal”." | todayilearned |
"TIL that in January 2014, seven-year-old Charlotte Benjamin sent a handwritten letter to Lego complaining there were "more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls". In June 2014, Lego announced a new "Research Institute" collection featuring female scientists which sold out within a week." | todayilearned |
"TIL Phil Collins, composer of the soundtrack to Disney's 1999 animated film "Tarzan", performed all the songs not only in English, but French, German, Italian and Spanish as well." | todayilearned |
"TIL Joseph Strauss, the engineer of the golden Gate Bridge, mandated that a net be installed under the bridge for safety while being built. This was revolutionary at the time. The net caught 19 men who fell, saving all of them from a certain death." | todayilearned |
"TIL Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and hundreds more, started smoking at the age of 9, changed his last name from Blank to Blanc, survived a car accident resulting in a two week coma, recorded The Flintstones in a full body cast, and died only a year after recording Who Framed Roger Rabbit." | todayilearned |
"TIL in 2000, an art exhibition in Denmark featured ten functional blenders containing live goldfish. Visitors were given the option of pressing the “on” button. At least one visitor did, killing two goldfish. This led to the museum director being charged with and, later, acquitted of animal cruelty." | todayilearned |
"TIL 48 hours before Deadpool was green lit by 20th Century Fox, the studio cut the film's budget by $7-8 million down to $58 million. Numerous changes were made as a result, such as having Deadpool forget his bag of guns before the final battle sequence to avoid a costly gun fight in the third act." | todayilearned |
"TIL the first word that Helen Keller learned was water. Her tutor took Helen’s hand, poured water over it, and then spelled out W-A-T-E-R in Helen’s palm. Helen made the association between the writing in her palm and the water. After this breakthrough, Helen learned 30 more words that day." | todayilearned |
"TIL After Michael Jackson's hair caught fire in 1984 he founded a burn center. “I wanted to do something because I was so moved by the other burn patients I met...” He suffered painful burns, but hospital staff remember him spending much of his time visiting and comforting other patients" | todayilearned |
"TIL That the term "Agnostic" was coined in 1869 by T.H. Huxley, and not as a description, but as a creed: "to follow reason as far as it can take you, but then, when you have established as much as you can, frankly and honestly to recognize the limits of your knowledge."" | todayilearned |
"TIL after Marcelo Bielsa became manager of Leeds United FC, he found out that the average fan had to work 3 hours to pay for a match ticket. He called his players together and made them pick up litter from around the training ground for 3 hours, to appreciate how the fans laboured for their passion" | todayilearned |
"TIL Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter in the film series was allergic to his own glasses. He had a nickel allergy and suffered for weeks with mysterious bumps around his eyes, where the glasses touched his face. The nickel glasses were quickly replaced with hypoallergenic specs." | todayilearned |
"TIL that Bill Murray once drove a taxi cab so that the cab driver could spend time playing saxophone in the backseat. The cab driver mentioned that he never had time to play his sax since he had to work 14 hours a day. Murray took the driver’s seat so that he could finally play some tunes." | todayilearned |
"TIL in 2012, the Walmart with the most Facebook likes would get a visit from Pitbull. Internet pranksters quickly made the most remote Walmart in the US (located in Kodiak, Alaska) the most liked Walmart page. Pitbull kept his promise and performed there." | todayilearned |
"TIL a Florida brewery created edible six-pack rings that feed animals instead of killing them" | todayilearned |
"TIL that the Vatican has nominated St. Isidore of Seville to be the patron saint of the Internet, a seventh-century theologian and encyclopedist who tried to record everything ever known." | todayilearned |
"TIL about Jason Vukovich, known as the “Alaskan Avenger,” who was convicted of using the state’s sex offender registry to track down offenders, break into their homes, and beat them with a hammer." | todayilearned |
"TIL that Casey Kasem, the original voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo, was a vegan and critic of factory farming. Kasem quit the show in 1995 when he was asked to voice Shaggy for a Burger King commercial. He would not agree to return until 2002 when producers agreed to have Shaggy become a vegetarian." | todayilearned |
"TIL Titanic crew member William Murdoch who was portrayed as shooting a passenger and then commiting suicide in the movie, was in fact last seen trying to fill as many life boats as possible and heroically went down with the ship." | todayilearned |
"TIL that Joss Whedon wrote the Buffy episode "Hush" after hearing people say that the show was only successful because of the dialogue. Hush, with only 17 minutes of dialogue, became the only episode nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing and is considered to be one of the show's greatest." | todayilearned |
"TIL: Ben Franklin was a slaveowner for much of his life, but after a friend took him to visit a school for black children. He wrote that African ignorance was not inherently natural but come from lack of education, slavery and negative environments. And petitioning Congress to end slavery." | todayilearned |
"TIL when George Westinghouse fell into financial problems and asked Nikola Tesla for relief from the royalties Westinghouse agreed to, Tesla tore up the contract that would bring him millions. "I'm not interested in money, I'm interested in leaving something behind for the humankind"." | todayilearned |
"TIL that former Prime Minister of Australia Bob Hawke had a serious accident at 17. This near-death experience acted as his catharsis, driving him to make the most of his talents and not let his abilities go to waste. Later he set a world record by drinking 1.4 liters of beer in 11 seconds." | todayilearned |
"TILIn 1984, a regular at a pizzeria asked his waitress for help choosing his lottery numbers. He won, came back, and tipped her $3 million." | todayilearned |
"TIL There is a group of wolves in British Columbia known as "sea wolves" and 90% of their food comes from the sea. They have distinct DNA that sets them apart from interior wolves and they're entirely dedicated to the sea, swimming several miles everyday in search of seafood." | todayilearned |
"TIL in 1990, the high school dropout rate in Sevierville, Dolly Parton’s hometown, was over 30%. In 1991, she launched The Buddy Program, offering 7th and 8th graders $500 if they graduated. The dropout rate for those classes dropped to 6%, and has generally retained that average to this day." | todayilearned |
"TIL In 1971 Fleetwood Mac had to cancel a sold out show booked at the Whiskey A Go Go when their guitarist Jeremy Spencer simply vanished into thin air. He was eventually found having cut off all his hair, dressed in shabby clothes, and joined a cult called The Children of God." | todayilearned |
"TIL Scientists put slime mold onto a model of a map of Tokyo, with food representing urban centers. After a day, it created a network almost identical to Tokyo’s actual rail network. Human designers created that network to be as efficient as possible; slime mold did the same, but without a brain" | todayilearned |
"TIL a 60 years old Japanese Truck Driver found out he was accidentally switched at birth in 1953 at San Ikukai Hospital in Tokyo. His biological parents are rich family & the infant who took his place grew up to be the Head of a Real Estate company. Meanwhile he was raised by a poor single mother." | todayilearned |
"TIL The Lord of the Rings films originally would have been released by Disney via Miramax but they chose not to fund it due to costs. They let New Line Cinema have it on the condition they pay $10M in "turnaround" costs. The LOTR trilogy will later on gross over $2.9B at the global box office." | todayilearned |
"TIL that roundabouts reduce fatalities from accidents by 90%. They also lower wait times and save on gas." | todayilearned |
"TIL a father, John Crowley, was told his two infant children had an incurable genetic disorder that would kill them in less than a year. He refused to accept this, so he founded a biotech company (with no prior experience) which pioneered an experimental enzyme therapy that saved their lives." | todayilearned |
"TIL The US Military still uses 8 inch floppy disks on outdated IBM computers to run the nuclear missile systems. It's because they are incredibly hard to hack. The computers are essentially air-gapped and the old IBM computers are reliable. They could run for another 40 years with spare parts." | todayilearned |
"TIL that the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (zombie fungus) doesn't control ants by infecting their brain. Instead it destroys the motor neurons and connects directly to the muscles to control them. The brain is made into a prisoner in its own body" | todayilearned |
"TIL 71% of U.S. youth would not currently qualify for military service due to their heath, physical appearance, or educational background." | todayilearned |
"TIL the bishop of Orlando is also bishop of the moon, due to a canon law that says "any newly discovered territory would fall under the bishopric from whence the discovering expedition departed." His is therefore the largest Catholic diocese, at over 14,000,000 square miles." | todayilearned |
"TIL Kim Kardashian was paid to post a selfie on Instagram and Twitter advertising a pharmaceutical product. Sent to 42 million followers on Instagram and 32 million on Twitter, this illegal advertisement did not contain any risk information or language specifying that it was a paid endorsement." | todayilearned |
"TIL Eddie Murphy recorded "Party All The Time" following a $1 million bet with Richard Pryor that he couldn't sing. The album it appears on is dedicated to Pryor, with the liner notes reading "To Richard Pryor, my idol with whom I have a $1,000,000 bet. No Mother Fucker, I didn't forget."" | todayilearned |
"TIL a Brazilian priest strapped himself to 1000 balloons as a fundraising event for truckers. He set off into the sky and then disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean. His body was recovered months later." | todayilearned |
"TIL that James Doohan (Scotty on 'Star Trek') received an honorary doctorate from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. The university gave him the degree after half of its students said in a survey that his character had inspired them to choose engineering as a career." | todayilearned |
"TIL after the TV show Teletubbies ended, the owner of the land used had to dig out the hill and flood the field it was filmed in, due to the amount of people trespassing to see Teletubbieland." | todayilearned |
"TIL a Florida man heard purring coming from his parked truck; he ended up using sheet metal cutters to peel back a portion of his truck to reveal a kitten. The Humane Society helped him coax the kitten out. When the public heard about it, several people offered to help pay to repair his truck." | todayilearned |
"TIL Serial killer Ed Kemper befriended the very police officers investigating his murders, and would socialize with them at a bar called the “Jury Room”. They called him “Big Ed” and never suspected him. When he initially confessed, they thought he was pulling a prank." | todayilearned |
"TIL that the new Rolls-Royce Ghost soundproofing was so overengineered that occupants in the car found the near-total silence disorienting, and some felt sick. Acoustic engineers had to go back and work on "harmonizing" various sounds in the car to add a continuous soft whisper." | todayilearned |
"TIL 1.5 yrs after Norm Macdonald was fired from Saturday Night Live, he was asked back to host. In his opening monologue he asked "How did I go from not being funny enough, to being so funny I'm hosting the damn show? Then it occured to me. I haven't gotten funnier - the show has gotten really bad."" | todayilearned |
"TIL Ernest Hemingway had often complained the FBI was tracking him, but was dismissed by friends and family as paranoid. Years after his death released FBI files showed he had been on heavy surveillance, with the FBI following him and bugging his phones for nearly the final 20 years of his life" | todayilearned |
"TIL "Libations," the practice of pouring out alcohol in memory of those who have "passed on" was common in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. "Pouring one out for the homies" is a custom over 3,000 years old and is mentioned in the Bible, the The Iliad, and The Odyssey." | todayilearned |
"TIL human procrastination is considered a complex psychological behavior because of the wide variety of reasons people do it. Although often attributed to "laziness", research shows it is more likely to be caused by anxiety, depression, a fear of failure, or a reliance on abstract goals." | todayilearned |
"TIL: During the time of the Great Depression, a banker convinced struggling families in Quincy, Florida to buy Coca-Cola shares which traded at $19. Later, the town became the single richest town per capita in the US with at least 67 millionaires." | todayilearned |
"TIL There are twice as many bathrooms as necessary as the Pentagon because planners had to design the it for black and white employees, including “white” and “colored” cafeterias. However, Pres. Roosevelt made Jim Crow laws illegal on Federal property prior to its opening and was never enforced." | todayilearned |
"TIL America's oldest, unbroken treaty relationship is with Morocco, which was the first nation to recognize the US. The treaty was signed by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Sultan Muhammad III. It has lasted 232 years and is called the "Treaty of Friendship"." | todayilearned |
"TIL in the 1920's newly hired engineers at General Electric would be told, as a joke, to develop a frosted lightbulb. The experienced engineers believed this to be impossible. In 1925, newly hired Marvin Pipkin got the assignment not realizing it was a joke and succeeded." | todayilearned |
"TIL during a charitable auction in Kiev, Ukraine, Wladimir Klitschko auctioned off his 1996 Olympic gold medal to a buyer who bid $1 million. After the sale, the buyer immediately returned the medal out of respect for Klitschko." | todayilearned |
"TIL that the CDC has urged that schools open later because two-thirds of teenagers suffer chronic sleep deprivation." | todayilearned |
"TIL that Norman Mineta's baseball bat was confiscated when he was sent to a Japanese American internment camp as a boy. As a Congressman, he was sent a $1500 bat, which he had to send back, as it exceeded a price limit on gifts. He was quoted as saying, "The damn government's taken my bat again."" | todayilearned |
"TIL in 2015, a British woman began receiving threatening emails from a stalker that included pictures of her in public she had no idea were being taken. When she contacted authorities, they told her the emails were coming from inside her house. It turned out to be her husband." | todayilearned |
"TIL George Clooney once gave 14 of his closest friends each $1M in cash, and even paid the taxes on it for them - with one condition: they all had to take it or none of them got it." | todayilearned |
"TIL that an Alabama bloodhound joined a half marathon after her owner let her out to go pee. She ran the entire 13.1 miles and finished 7th." | todayilearned |
"TIL Mexico passed a law that requires food packages to display large black octagonal "warnings" if the product is high in sugar, sodium, calories, or unhealthy fats." | todayilearned |
"TIL The company Samsung accounts for 15% of South Korea's entire economy, and that South Koreans often live in Samsung owned apartment buildings, can get treatment from Samsung-owned medical centers, go to Samsung universities, and even end up at a Samsung funeral parlor when they die." | todayilearned |
"TIL that when humans domesticated wolves, we basically bred Williams syndrome into dogs, which is characterized by "cognitive difficulties and a tendency to love everyone"" | todayilearned |
"TIL That Electronic Arts were voted "The Worst Company In America" by The Consumerist for 2 years in a row in 2012 and 2013" | todayilearned |
"TIL that Hugh Laurie struggles with severe clinical depression. He first became aware of it when he saw two cars collide and explode in a demolition derby and felt bored rather than excited or frightened. As he said: “boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars"." | todayilearned |
"TIL: Japan had issues with crow nests on electric infrastructure, so they went and destroyed all of the nests....which prompted the local crow population to just build MORE nests, far in excess to what they actually needed" | todayilearned |
"TIL that Harvard professor Tom Lehrer was asked at the age of 84 by rapper 2 Chainz if he could sample his 60-year old song. Lehrer replied, "I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this. Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?"" | todayilearned |
"TIL the word "utopia" is a pun. It comes from the Greek word for "good place" but also "no place." It's good, but it doesn't exist." | todayilearned |
"TIL an octopus named Otto caused an aquarium power outage by climbing to the edge of his tank and shooting a jet of water at a bright light that was annoying him. He's also been seen juggling hermit crabs, throwing rocks at the glass and re-arranging his tank surroundings." | todayilearned |
"TIL that in 2015, a Louisiana man was arrested for drunkenly riding a horse on a highway. When detained, he said, "The horse knows the way home" and the sheriff concluded it did not constitute DUI." | todayilearned |
"TIL in 1998 Bill O'Reilly wrote a novel about a tall, bitter, sexually predatory newsman who gets forced out of his job and starts murdering former colleagues who helped to ruin his career." | todayilearned |
"TIL The German Parliament building has a glass dome above it that people can climb using a spiral ramp. The dome symbolizes that the people are above the government, and the government should be transparent." | todayilearned |
"TIL When his eight years as President of the United States ended on January 20, 1953, private citizen Harry Truman took the train home to Independence, Missouri, mingling with other passengers along the way. He had no secret service protection. His only income was an Army pension." | todayilearned |
"TIL that Maui in Maori Mythology- who influenced Maui from Disney's Moana- turned into a worm so that he could climb into the vagina of the Goddess of Night in order to grant immortality to humanity. He was killed when she woke up and crushed him with her obsidian vaginal teeth." | todayilearned |
"TIL that a man decided to deposit a check that he received from a junk mail ad just to see what would happen. to his surprise, they allowed him to deposit the $95,000 check. the bank tried to take the money back, but since he didn’t break any laws, there was nothing they could do." | todayilearned |
"TIL that Christopher Columbus was thrown in jail upon his return to Spain for mistreating the native population of Hispaniola" | todayilearned |
"TIL that a "white elephant gift exchange" gets its name from the legend of the King of Siam gifting rare albino elephants to those who displeased him in hopes that the upkeep costs would financially ruin them." | todayilearned |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.