25 New “Today I Learned” Facts That Prove We Still Have A Lot To Learn

Many things pique our interest in life, but few spark our curiosity quite like Today I Learned facts. Some are so simple and obvious that we wonder how we never realised them before, while others are so surprising, it’s hard to believe we went so long without knowing such relevant details about daily life. If you’re eager to expand your knowledge and pick up a few new nuggets of information, this is the perfect list for you. Scroll below to check out the latest trivia finds from the “Today I Learned” Reddit community that amazed us and taught us something new!

#1

Image source: tyrion2024, Getty Images/unsplash

TIL “the first unambiguous evidence” of an animal other than humans making plans in one mental state for a future mental state occurred in 1997 when a chimpanzee was observed (over 50x) calmly gathering stones into caches of 3-8 each in order to later throw at zoo visitors while in an agitated state.

#2

Image source: Royal-Information749, Pablo Merchán Montes/unsplash

TIL that cremated human remains aren’t actually ashes. After incineration, the leftover bone fragments are ground down in a machine called a cremulator to produce what we call ashes.

#3

Image source: Brendawg324, Unknown author

TIL René Laennec invented the stethoscope in 1816 because he thought it was improper to press his ear on a woman’s chest and found that a tube let him hear heart and lung sounds more clearly.

#4

Image source:  Mathemodel, Quadell

TIL about Unitarian Universalism, a religion that encourages members to think for themselves and work towards a world where love and justice flourish.

#5

Image source:  abaganoush, イチゴのショートケーキでアハ体験

TIL that “The staff ate it later” is a caption shown on screen when food appears on Japanese TV programs to indicate that it was not thrown away after filming (Since it is generally not socially accepted to discard food in Japan).

#6

Image source:  tyrion2024, viewsaddict

TIL a woman had half of her brain removed when she was 8 due to a condition that caused her to have up to 150 seizures a day. Her doctors said she’d never drive, she got her license at 17. She went on to earn her bachelor’s & master’s degrees in just 5 years before becoming a speech pathologist.

#7

Image source: tyrion2024, Getty Images/unsplash

TIL In 1956 a Swedish sailor named Åke Viking sent out a message in a bottle that read “To Someone Beautiful and Far Away” and it ended up reaching a 17-year-old Sicilian girl named Paolina, which sparked a correspondence between them that eventually culminated in their marriage in 1958.

#8

Image source: dragonoid296, Pilleybianchi

TIL about Chaser, a border collie with the best tested memory of any non-human animal. She could recognize and fetch 1,022 toys by name and category.

#9

Image source: Forgotthebloodypassw, Gary Larson

TIL the Jane Goodall Institute complained about one of Gary Larson’s cartoons of her. She told them to be quiet, used the image to sell tshirts, and wrote the introduction to one of his collections.

#10

Image source: Forward-Answer-4407, Immo Wegmann/unsplash

TIL over half of Americans use subtitles at least some of the time while watching TV, and the biggest reason is that dialogue has become harder to hear. One contributing factor is digital sound recording that allows many overlapping audio tracks to run at once, which can make speech less clear.

#11

Image source: VaraNiN, Altino Dantas/unsplash

TIL military working dogs usually outrank their handlers in order to ensure proper respect.

#12

Image source: Macievelli, Warner Bros.

TIL Keanu Reeves’s stunt double in The Matrix went on to direct Keanu in the John Wick movies.

#13

Image source: 2SP00KY4ME, Marie-Lan Nguyen

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.

#14

Image source: tyrion2024, amazing_history4

TIL Titanic victim Jeremiah Burke threw a message in a bottle overboard that read “From Titanic, goodbye all, Burke of Glanmire, Cork”. It washed ashore a year later only a few miles from his family home in Ireland. It then remained in his family for nearly a century before being donated to a museum.

#15

Image source: Blammyyy, Sesame Street

TIL that the Beatles’ record label once sued Sesame Street over a parody song called “Hey Food.” The lawsuit was settled for $50.

#16

Image source: Physical_Hamster_118, Classical Numismatic Group, Inc.

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].

#17

Image source: VegemiteSucks, Google Arts & Culture

TIL Beethoven’s relationship with his brother Johann was strained. He opposed Johann marrying his housekeeper so much he tried contacting the authorities to stop it. After buying an estate, Johann signed a letter “your brother Johann, landowner.” Beethoven replied: “your brother Ludwig, brain owner.”

#18

Image source:  SamsonFox2, Archives of Ontario, C.H.J. Snider fonds

TIL that proponents of Prohibition were so certain that enacting it would solve all crimes in United States that some communities sold their jails after the amendment passed.

#19

Image source: haddock420, MagicDetail

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).

#20

Image source: Forward-Answer-4407, Patrycja Jadach/unsplash

TIL in 2014, passengers were warned three times not to eat nuts on a Ryanair flight due to a 4-year-old girl’s severe nut allergy, but a passenger sitting four rows away from the girl ate nuts anyway. The girl went into anaphylactic shock, and the passenger was banned from the airline for two years.

#21

Image source: Iluvpossiblities, Waldemar Brandt/unsplash

TIL that 75% of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and 5 animal species.

#22

Image source: Murky-Ad-4088, Universal Pictures

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.

#23

Image source:  Sebastianlim, realratedred

TIL about Riley Horner, an Illinois teen who, in the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury, found that her memory kept resetting every two hours. She was eventually able to recover with the help of specialists, and graduated from Nursing School in 2025.

#24

Image source: HawkeyeJosh2, Jan Norrman

TIL the village of Kräkångersnoret in Sweden changed its name because evolution in the Swedish language led to the name being ridiculed for essentially meaning “vomit regret snot”.

#25

Image source: NateNate60, camera obscura/unsplash

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).