Here's A Collection Of The Most Interesting "Today I Learned" Facts Shared To This Online Group (20 Facts)

There's just something about random interesting pieces of trivia that can keep many of us hooked for hours. And lucky for us, there's an online community where we can do just that. Of course, I'm talking about the r/TodayILearned subreddit. The subreddit in question has nearly 25 million members, and it's like an encyclopedia of short, interesting facts that's updated almost every minute. We've already featured some fascinating facts shared on this subreddit before here and here, and now we're back with even more - check them out in the gallery below!

#1

Image source: qasqaldag TIL the former World Chess Champion G. Kasparov described Hungarian female chess player Polgár as a "circus puppet" and said that women chess players should stick to having children. Later in September 2002, in the Russia versus the Rest of the World Match, Polgár defeated Garry Kasparov.

#2

Image source: chubwhump TIL that Russian President Boris Yeltsin once got so drunk at a state dinner that he drummed on Kyrgyzstan President Askar Akayev's bald head, using dinner spoons.

#3

Image source: jsakic99 TIL that Simone Segouin was a French Resistance fighter in WWII that was only 18 when Germany invaded. She took part in large-scale missions, such as capturing German troops, derailing trains, and other acts of sabotage. And she is still alive and just celebrated her 95th birthday.

#4

Image source: PageTurner627 TIL mercy dogs were trained during World War I to comfort mortally wounded soldiers as they died in no man's land

#5

Image source: WouldbeWanderer TIL about Judith Catchpole, a young maidservant in the colony of Maryland, who was tried in 1656 for witchcraft and killing her newborn child. The judge summoned an all-female jury, who determined that Judith did not kill her child - in fact, there were no signs that Judith had even been pregnant.

#6

Image source: montanaham TIL there is still someone in the US living in an iron lung.

#7

Image source: mrcoolguy29 TIL that in the 1830s the Swedish Navy planted 300 000 oak trees to be used for ship production in the far future. When they received word that the trees were fully grown in 1975 they had little use of them as modern warships are built with metal

#8

Image source: Matt64360 TIL that the youngest French resistance hero was a little boy who acted as a courier for resistance fighters, slipping past enemy patrols and carrying messages. In 1950, he was posthumously awarded the rank of sergeant of the resistance. He was Marcel Pinte, and he died for France at the age of 6.

#9

Image source: geek_fest TIL Saudi Arabia accidentally printed thousands of textbooks containing an image of Yoda sitting next to King Faisal while he signed the 1945 UN charter

#10

Image source: bearjew64 TIL of a French soldier who was taken as a POW and fed only potatoes during his captivity, and survived. Feeling like he should have died, he made it his life’s mission to convince the world of the nutritional value of potatoes, and his tomb in France is decorated with potatoes as a tribute.

#11

Image source: SomeGuy671 TIL of Waverly Woodson, a black medic who treated at least 200 injured men on D-Day while injured himself. As he hit the beach a shell tore apart his landing craft, filling him with shrapnel. Despite this, he set up an aid station and treated wounds for 30 hours, at one point even amputating a foot.

#12

Image source: hwkfan1 TIL that four high-school students in the ‘70s are the reason we no longer have pay toilets in America. They created an organization called CEPTIA, and were able to successfully lobby against the issue. 8 years later, pay toilets were all but nonexistent throughout the US

#13

Image source: Twizzyu TIL that Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream" was painted on cardboard

#14

Image source: Scrolling2Oblivian TIL the great smog of London in 1952 was so bad that pedestrians couldn't even see their feet. Some of the 4,000 who died in the 5 days it lasted didn't suffer lung problems – they fell into the Thames and drowned because they could not see the river

#15

Image source: NuevoJerz TIL that 30 years ago you had 15-17 minutes to escape a house fire. Nowadays you only have 3-5 minutes (due to more plastics & petroleum-based products in the house as well as more open floor plans, bigger rooms, & higher ceilings)

#16

Image source: tingoose48 TIL about Mary Ann Brown Patten, who took command of a merchant vessel in 1856 when the captain, her husband, became ill and the first mate was found to be sabotaging the voyage to win a bet he'd placed on a competitor. She defeated a mutiny attempt and brought the ship safely back to port.

#17

Image source: ShunpeiChan TIL that one of the 2 co-owners/founders of Macy's died on the Titanic, along with his wife, because he refused to board rescue ships before women and children were helped. His wife chose to stay behind because she did not want to abandon her husband, so they both died together aboard the Titanic.

#18

Image source: QuasarMaster 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”.

#19

Image source:  thn87 TIL If you grind a marine sponge through a sieve into salt water, it'll reorganize itself back into a sponge. It's the only animal that we know of that can do that

#20

Image source: Big_JR80 TIL that although Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was written to include cannons firing and cathedral bells, synchronising them with an orchestra proved all but impossible. It wasn't until 1954 that composer Antal Doráti mixed a studio recording with cannons and bells, finally playing it as intended.