20 Times People Learned New Things And Just Had To Share Them In This Online Group (New Pics)

When you’re an adult “learning something new” no longer means spending hours memorizing some new math formulas or historical dates. For once, learning new things can actually be pretty fun – and if there’s hardly a better place to do it in than the Today I Learned subreddit.

#1

Image source: operator139

TIL a 2018 study by Yale psychologists found introverts who are prone to melancholy seem to be more astute at understanding how people behave in groups than their sociable peers. Introverts are more prone to assessing truths about humans’ “social nature” without formal training or tools

#2

Image source: howmuchbanana

TIL the chemical reaction in glow sticks was discovered by Dr. Edwin Chandross in 1962, but he had no idea the “chemiluminescent” objects were popular at music shows until a Vice interview in 2013. “Is that so?” he said. “Maybe my granddaughter will think I’m cool now.”

#3

Image source: CareBearOvershare

TIL the big orange fuel tank attached to the space shuttles was originally white, but they stopped painting it to save 600lbs

#4

Image source: Majorpain2006

TIL Tag brothers are a group of 10 men who had been playing the game of tag since 1990, chasing each other around the country, traveling by plane, car etc. As of 2018, the game is still ongoing

#5

Image source: WhileFalseRepeat

TIL of eagle hunters in Mongolia. Known as the Burkitshi, this nomadic tribe hunts with eagles (only female eagles as they are larger and believed to be fiercer). While eagles can live for decades, theirs are captured at the age of four and released after 10 years to live out their life in the wild.

#6

Image source: Brutal_Deluxe_

TIL after a chance encounter, Charles-Michel de l’Épée was taught to sign by the deaf. Believing the deaf should be able to receive the sacraments, he founded a school in 1760 to teach sign language. His public advocacy enabled deaf people to legally defend themselves in court for the first time

#7

Image source: ThePainCrafter

TIL that Charles D. B. King holds the record for the most fraudulent election in history. In 1927 he was elected President of Liberia with 234,000 votes in a country that only had 15,000 registered voters at the time

#8

Image source: Blackadder288

TIL that the jumping spider, Nefertiti, was launched to the ISS to observe if it could catch prey in microgravity. It succeeded in catching prey by learning to walk slowly, rather than leaping, as this species usually does. It survived reentry and readjusted to full gravity before its natural death

#9

Image source: 1sterMeeeseeeks

TIL Lisa Leslie as a high school basketball player scored 101 points in 16 minutes of play. She shot 37 of 56 from the floor and 27 of 35 from the line. However, she did not break the record for women’s points in a high school game because the other team’s coach refused to play the second half

#10

Image source: xeldesign

TIL I learned the first American soldier to land on the beach durning the invasion of Normandy was shot twice and not only survived, but lived to be 90 years old

#11

Image source: foxmulder2014

TIL A director made a ten hour movie that’s just about paint on a wall drying, lasting for ten hours and seven minutes. The film was created by Charlie Lyne in order to troll the British Board of Film Classification (B.B.F.C.) who were forced to sit through the whole thing

#12

Image source: hull534

TIL about the 71 teenage students, who were stationed to protect a South Korean HQ, despite having no experience in war or even firing a gun. The SK army didn’t think the NK army would attack that HQ, but they did. Those students, still in their school uniforms, held back the NK army for 11 hours

#13

Image source: enerallyAwfulHuman

TIL Kodak uncovered the first atomic bomb test when customers began complaining about black spots on their photos

#14

Image source: motiongfx515

TIL astronauts need to sleep near air vents or risk carbon dioxide from their own lungs forming a bubble around their head due to weightlessness

#15

Image source: WhileFalseRepeat

TIL Los Angeles is the first major city in the world to synchronize all its traffic lights. Nearly 4,400 lights across 469 miles receive real-time updates about traffic flow to make second-by-second adjustments. The system limits congestion by up to 16% while also dramatically reducing idling time

#16

Image source: JMASTERS_01

TIL research found that 94% of British people said they had conversed about the weather in the past six hours, and 38% said they had in the past 60 minutes. This means at any moment in the UK, a third of the population is either talking about the weather, has already done so or are about to do so

#17

Image source: bbcplanetgirth

TIL The Lion King Game (SEGA/SNES) was made extremely difficult on purpose. Disney told the developers to make the game so difficult that people wouldn’t be able to beat it during a rental period at Blockbuster. A few developers would later apologize to fans for how hard the game is

#18

Image source: rifletruffles

TIL after an earthquake shattered the Colossi of Memnon in Egypt, the damaged statue began to “sing” during sunrise which modern scientists attribute to early morning heat causing dew trapped within the statue’s crack to evaporate creating vibrations that echoed through the desert air.

#19

Image source: thisCantBeBad

TIL that Christopher Lee sent Peter Jackson a photograph of him in a wizard’s costume, wanting to play Gandalf, but Jackson decided he would be a perfect Saruman, instead.

#20

Image source: SLJ7

TIL that from 2003 to 2005, a 13-year-old girl wrote a 365k word Harry Potter fanfiction while in the hospital receiving cancer treatment. She passed away just six days after completing it, and her father used her notes to write the second book in the series