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YOU WONT BELIEVE: Learning surprising intriguing facts | Mind Blowing Facts
We learn something new every day. Sometimes completely by chance. For example, did you know that French newborns cry with a rising melody, while German newborns cry with a falling melody? Or that people living within one mile of a golf course have a 126% higher risk of a Parkinson's Disease diagnosis than those living further away?
If you're looking for some new gems to add to your wealth of knowledge, you might want to join a community of like-minded individuals over at the Today I Learned page. More than 5.2 million people pop in every week to devour and share fascinating and fun facts. Every now and again, Bored Panda compiles a list of the page's best posts and we're giving you another round right now...
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#1
TIL the Maldives became the first country in the world to enforce a nationwide generational smoking ban, barring anyone born on or after January 1, 2007 from ever buying, using or smoking tobacco. The country already had a complete ban on vapes and e-cigarettes, regardless of age.
Today I learned that newborn babies have accents. It sounds wild since they can't even speak yet. But scientists say that because they're already listening while in the womb, once they're born, babies will cry in distinctive ways that reflect the language spoken by their parents.
"Human fetuses are able to memorize auditory stimuli from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language," reads a study published in Current Biology.
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#2
TIL that infants who live with dogs at three months of age are 90% less likely to develop a food allergy.
#3
TIL about Browser, the library cat. Adopted by a White Settlement, TX library in 2010, Browser was evicted from the library by the local govt in 2016, provoking a backlash that resulted in a unanimous decision permitting him to stay. Browser outlived the councilmember that voted to evict him.
The researchers recorded the cries of 60 newborns: 30 French and 30 German. They found that the French group produced cries with a rising melody contour, while the German group produced falling contours.
"Newborns are probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behavior in order to attract her and hence to foster bonding," said the researchers. "Because melody contour may be the only aspect of their mother's speech that newborns are able to imitate, this might explain why we found melody contour imitation at that early age."
#4
TIL that French newborns cry with a rising melody while German newborns cry with a falling melody, matching the intonation of their native language. Babies begin imitating their mother's speech patterns during the last trimester of pregnancy.
StrangeOne 14 hours ago
That is so fascinating. I wonder if they also start mimicking melodies of songs they can hear in the womb. I used to put earphones on my belly for my baby to hear. Sometime after she was born she giggled up a storm to AC/DC.
#5
TIL the Mona Lisa’s long-debated identity and creation date were confirmed in 2005 when a German researcher found a verified, handwritten note in the margin of a book stating that Leonardo da Vinci was painting a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo in 1503.
#6
Til I learned that President Truman was heavily involved with all aspects of his presidential library. He would work 5-6 days a week there, he personally trained staff, he held impromptu press conferences for visiting school children, and even worked the telephone giving directions.
I'll also admit that I was today years old when I found out that ostriches find humans attractive to the point that some even lose interest in their own species. Dr. Charles Deeming from Lincoln, England, was the first to notice this phenomenon in 2002 and received the Ig Nobel Prize for his work on the topic.
"The males literally get down on bended knee when a farmer approaches - while the female click their beaks seductively," reported Wales Online.
#7
TIL Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca, was escorted by crew members wearing brightly colored vests and told not to wander off set wearing his costume while on location for 'Return of the Jedi' Endor scenes, so that hunters in the California redwood forests would not mistake him for Bigfoot.
#8
TIL a man watching an episode of the "Antiques Roadshow" noticed a Navajo blanket, that was similar to one his grandma left him (and had been sitting in his closet for years), be appraised for $300K-$500K. He then got his blanket authenticated and put it up for auction where it sold for $1.5 million
Gingersnap In Iowa 13 hours ago
I was watching Antiques Roadshow tonight and I was wondering how many people turn around and sell the items they brought in to be appraised.🤔
#9
TIL researchers documented 34 cases of wild orcas offering food to humans, including fish, birds and stingrays.
Deeming, along with four other researchers, began investigating the birds' behavior after farmers reported that their ostriches were hardly laying any eggs.
"The farmers couldn't understand why every time they went to check on their ostriches they saw them engaging in courtship [behavior]," said Dr Charles Paxton, a statistician and ecologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. "What we found was that these animals were mostly displaying courtship [behavior] directed at the farmers. When human beings weren't around, their level of sexual [behavior] went right down."
Basically, the giant birds were more interested in their people than their mates.
#10
TIL there were 180.000 bees kept in the spires of Notre Dame and they survived the fire. Because bees don’t have lungs they weren’t hurt by the smoke, they just fell asleep
Upstaged75 14 hours ago
TIL! I had no idea bees didn't have lungs. Very cool. And yes, I looked up how they breathe - you're welcome to do the same. 😊
#11
TIL in 2017 Perth Zoo was put on lockdown when two orangutans briefly escaped their enclosure. A 5-year-old male orangutan fell over a barrier & into a garden bed outside the enclosure. His mom then simply went to retreive him before using the visitor boardwalk to go back to her exhibit voluntarily.
Stephanie Did It 12 hours ago
So not even an actual escape. Baby Boy fell over the barrier (which couldn't have been very secure) and Mama went to bring him home. No danger to anyone except Baby.
#12
TIL scientists have been able to trace the start of HIV/AIDS to King Leopold’s Belgian Congo, originating as far back as 1909. The first person to be infected probably got the virus in the 1920s
Another really interesting fact on this list is the one about Parkinson's, and how your risk of being diagnosed with the disease is 126% higher if you live within a mile of a golf course.
"One reason why individuals living near golf courses could be at higher risk for PD has to do with pesticides," says medical writer and editor Dr. Naveed Saleh. "Golf courses use various pesticides to treat their greens, including organophosphates, such as chlorpyrifos; herbicides, such as 2,4-D; and historically persistent organochlorines. These pesticides have been associated with the development of PD."
#13
TIL that Caligula’s real name was Gaius. When he was 2-3 years old, he accompanied his father on a military campaign wearing a miniature uniform devised by his mother, complete with little army boots. The soldiers nicknamed him Caligula, meaning “little boot.” He grew to dislike the nickname.
#14
TIL that in the late 1960s, the Beatles wanted to make the first live-action film adaptation of “The Lord of the Rings,” seeking Stanley Kubrick to direct with plans to feature their music. However, Stanley Kubrick called it unfilmable; J.R.R. Tolkien hated the band and thus refused the rights.
Lily from England 5 hours ago
I love the Beatles, don’t get me wrong, but Lord of the Rings was done so well (in my opinion) so it’s probably best it wasn’t done then. ☺️
#15
TIL Ostrich farms routinely have difficulties getting male ostriches to breed, because they often find their human caretakers more attractive than female ostriches.
But some experts are weary of the research...
“This study suggests an association between pesticides and Parkinson’s, however there are some important limitations in the methodology to be aware of. Firstly, Parkinson’s starts in the brain 10-15 years before diagnosis and the study didn’t only use subjects who permanently lived in the area," says Professor David Dexter, Director of Research, Parkinson’s UK. "This would not only affect participants’ exposure, but also suggests their Parkinson’s could have started before they moved around a golf course."
#16
TIL that the Boston Marathon has a retired number. Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run in it despite an unofficial ban on female runners. She wore bib #261. 50 years later when she ran in the marathon and they gave her the same number and then in her honor retired #261.
StarCrossedFriday 11 hours ago
I never got that ban - why would you care if someone else wants to run a marathon, regardless of gender?
#17
TIL only a fraction of Isaac Newton's total written output was dedicated to science and math. 60% of his surviving written works were dedicated to Biblical prophecy and alchemy.
#18
TIL that Mount Everest's first measurement came out to a perfect 29,000 feet, so surveyors reported it as 29,002 feet to make sure that the public knew it was a real calculation and not just an estimate.
Dexter added that the population was also not matched for location. 80% of the Parkinson’s subjects lived in urban areas, compared to only 30% of controls, he said; hence, other factors like air pollution from motor vehicles, etc could also account for some of the increases in Parkinson’s incidence.
"Additionally, no analysis was made of the drinking water for pesticide levels," notes the expert. "Once again, this lessens the validity of the claim of pesticide exposure because the studies have not been carefully controlled.”
#19
TIL Mayo Clinic data found that individuals living within one mile of a golf course have a 126% higher risk (more than double the odds) of a Parkinson's diagnosis compared to those living six or more miles away
StrangeOne 14 hours ago
Yes. I've heard of how unhealthy golf courses are due to all the grass care chemicals.
#20
TIL : Cold temperatures weaken nasal immunity, making us more vulnerable to viruses. A mere 5°C drop in nasal tissue temperature reduces immune response by nearly half.
#21
TIL that in 2024 a PhD student "accidently" discovered Valeriana - a Edinburgh sized hidden Mayan city in Mexico while browsing for data on the internet.
David Paterson 11 hours ago
An enormous number of new Mayan ruins have been discovered using Lidar.
#22
TIL the world's most cost-effective public health intervention is iodised salt, costing just $0.05/person/year. It prevents iodine deficiency — the leading preventable cause of intellectual disabilities, affecting ~2 billion people — and has eliminated endemic goitre in countries like the US and Switzerland
#23
TIL - When the Blues Brothers was released in 1980, execs who controlled over half the theaters in the country refused to book the film, citing the number of black actors. The film still became the 10th highest-grossing domestic film of 1980.
Did I say that out loud? 13 hours ago
And over 45 years later it's still got the best soundtrack any film will ever have. Fight me!
#24
TIL Krakatoa's eruption was estimated to be at 310 dB, the loudest sound ever. Well above the typical max sound limit of 194 dB
#25
TIL in 2001 Sharon Stone arranged a private visit to the LA Zoo's komodo dragon pen for her then-husband, who'd always wanted to see one up close. However, the dragon attacked him by biting his foot and attempting to eat it by jerking back & forth. He survived, but the top half of his foot was gone.
Upstaged75 14 hours ago
Apparently the guy, Phil Bronstein, was asked to remove his white sneakers because the keeper thought they might remind the dragon of white mice, which is what they fed it. So the poor guy was in there barefoot. 🤷♀️
#26
TIL Obi-Wan Kenobi's home planet is named "Stewjon" a play on the name of "Daily Show" host John Stewart. During an interview about Star Wars, John asked Lucas the name of Obi-Wan's home planet, and he answered Stewjon, jokingly. It was then made canon, after being mentioned in several guide books.
Luke || Kira (he/she) 3 hours ago
Half of Star Wars is the most beautifully, carefully crafted epic with deep lore and themes. The other half of Star Wars is thoroughly bull$hitted from fever dreams and inside jokes.
#27
TIL that Nigeria is the second largest consumer of Guinness beer, ahead of its native Ireland. Nigerian Guinness is also almost twice as strong (7.5% ABV) as the Irish version (4.2% ABV).
#28
TIL that the Iliad and the Odyssey are part of a cycle of eight ancient Greek epic poems, the other six of which are lost and of which only fragments survive
#29
TIL the City of London has paid the Crown rent on a parcel of land in Shropshire since 1211, but the exact location of the land has been lost to history. The annual payment is a billhook (a knife-like agricultural tool) and an axe.
#30
TIL that since 1993, there have been 47 incidents of Sri Lankan sports teams disappearing during overseas trips. The most famous was in 2004, when a 23-man "national handball team" vanished in Germany; it was later found that Sri Lanka didn't even have a handball federation
#31
TIL hikers in the Alps discovered Otzi in 1991, a 5,300-year-old man naturally preserved in ice. Scientists identified his last meal as ibex meat and grains, found over 60 soot tattoos around his joints and spine, and recovered his copper axe, flint knife, a fire-starting kit and grass cloak.
#32
TIL that China consumes 46% of cigarettes in the entire world at a rate of 2.4 trillion a year.
#33
TIL in 2008 a 33-year-old Wisconsin woman stole her daughter's identity and enrolled in high school in order to "get her high school diploma and join the cheerleading squad." She reportedly attended practices, received a cheerleader's locker & went to a pool party at the cheerleading coach's house.
#34
TIL author Chuck Palahniuk came up with the idea to write Fight Club after getting beat up on a camping trip when he asked other campers to turn their music down. When he returned to work bruised and swollen, his co-workers avoided asking him what had happened on the camping trip.
#35
TIL of the knight William Marshal, who rose from obscurity to win 500 tournaments, saved Eleanor of Aquitaine from capture, unhorsed Richard the Lionheart in combat, journeyed to the Holy Land, redrafted Magna Carta and saved England from a French invasion by personally leading a charge at age 70
#36
TIL most people in France did not speak French as recently as 1794, when only 11% of the population of France spoke fluent French. Instead, most people spoke regional languages like Occitan, Breton, Alsatian etc. French only became the majority language later on due to heavy assimilation efforts.
Ace 7 hours ago
Definitions change over time, but it's fair to suggest that in fact a large proportion of French people still _speak_ those older languages, only using more standard French in written communications. Go to Marseille, or Pau, or various other parts of France and you can tell that the old languages are still alive and well.
#37
TIL that as a research chemist at Oxford University, Margaret Thatcher co-authored a 1951 paper on the “saponification of α-monostearin”; she later said she was prouder of her science degree than becoming the first female Prime Minister.
#38
TIL since the age of five, 77 year old Martha Lillard is the only remaining patient to still live in an iron lung
#39
TIL a supermarket suddenly closed in 1999 and the owners walked away, leaving everything behind. Perishable foods rotted for months in the Texas summer heat, causing a foul stench and leading the building to be declared a biohazard. A hazmat team took 2 weeks to clean the store.
Loosey Goosey 9 hours ago
A funeral directors in England left the bodies behind when they closed down. They were sent to prison for it earlier this year.
#40
TIL a couple walking their dog found 1,427 buried gold coins valued at about $10 million, the largest known buried gold-coin discovery ever recovered in the United States.
#41
TIL that in 2021, 11-year-old Laney Perdue became the sole survivor of a plane crash thanks to her father, who wrapped her in a bear hug as the plane was going down. When she was recovered alive from the crash, all her injuries were on the opposite side of her body from where her father was sitting.
#43
TIL when Guinness World Records stopped monitoring the record for the most beer drunk in one hour in 1989, the record holder at the time was 23-year-old Jack Keyes who drank 36 pints over the course of one hour in Northern Ireland in 1969.
Alex Buchanan 12 hours ago
Coincidentally, Jack Keyes also holds the Guinness World Record for the longest wee ever taken.
#44
TIL Prince was the original choice to play the role of Ruby Rhod in The Fifth Element, which Chris Tucker ended up playing, but he backed out because Jean Paul Gaultier’s costumes were ‘too effeminate.’
Remi (He/Him) 11 hours ago
Prince wouldn't have been even half as amazing as Ruby Rhod so it really worked out
#45
TIL when Eminem's weight increased to 230lbs (100 kg) before he became sober, he was so unrecognizable due to the weight gain that Em once overheard two teenagers arguing about whether or not it was actually him that they were looking at, with one of them stating "Eminem ain't fat."
#46
TIL Margot Robbie convinced Martin Scorsese to cast her in The Wolf of Wall Street by hauling off & giving Leonardo DiCaprio an improvised "thunderclap of a slap on the face" during her first audition that stunned DiCaprio & Scorsese. Both men burst out laughing afterwards and thought it was great.
#47
TIL that First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln was institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital by her only surviving son. She snuck letters out to her lawyers and sympathizers who helped get her released three months later.
#48
TIL Coca Cola once made “MagiCans” that secretly contained cash prizes instead of soda. To stop people from spotting winners by weight, they filled part of the cans with foul-smelling chlorinated liquid. The promotion got canceled after people accidentally drank it. The promotion lasted for 3 weeks.
Stephanie Did It 12 hours ago
One wonders why the Coke geniuses didn't just partially fill them with water, or was that too easy?
#49
TIL that newborns can distinguish the sounds of every language on Earth, about 600 consonants and 200 vowels, but by their first birthday, their brain has already filtered out sounds not used in their native language, making foreign accents almost inevitable for adult learners.
Did I say that out loud? 13 hours ago
But wouldn't it also depend on the language and accent of the teacher? Wasn't there a Pope that spoke English with an Irish accent?
#50
TIL that when France initially set the definition of a metre to be 1/10,000,000 the distance from the North Pole to the equator, it sent two surveyors to calculate the distance. But due to an error not discovered until decades later, the resulting metre was actually 0.2 mm too short.
#51
TIL when a woman preparing to move was going to throw out a painting that had hung in her kitchen for years, her family called in an expert to appraise it. This led to a specialist authenticating it as a 13th-century work by Cimabue, who had only 15 known works in the world. The work sold for $26.8m
#52
TIL in the Vietnam war in the classified Operation Popeye, the US spread lead and silver iodide by aircraft to extend the monsoon season. The increased heavy rainfall was to soften roads, cause landslides, wash out river crossings, and maintain saturated soil conditions (Kissinger was involved).
#53
TIL that the oldest active organization affiliated with New Orleans Mardi Gras hasn't marched in the parade since 1991 because it refuses to let non-white people join.
#54
TIL that since 2014, a group of activists have been slowly expanding a decentralized network of routers that allow residents of New York City to access the internet completely for free
#55
TIL that Empress Ma was born poor and during a famine she stole cakes to feed her husband by hiding them in her breasts. The cakes were hot and she got burns. Later her husband became a rebel commander who became Emperor and made her his Empress. He was deeply devoted to her even as an Emperor.
Elladine DesIsles 13 hours ago
I'm sorry, but maybe around her breasts, or under them? In her bodice, perhaps? It's not as though breasts are like pockets or kangaroo pouches.
#56
TIL warm-blooded mammals are naturally resistant to most fungal infections because their body heat creates a “thermal barrier” that fungi can’t survive, which suggests this evolved as protection against poisonous fungi
David Paterson 11 hours ago
Sort of. A lot of the resistance comes from dry skin. Fungi can only grow on wet skin. This explains why fungi are more of a problem for amphibians than for reptiles and mammals.
#57
TIL The "Great Male Renunciation" was a period in fashion in the late 18th century where men in the West ceased wearing bright colors, jewelry, and varied garments in favor of utilitarian clothes and black suits
#58
TIL the cockpit voice recording of Delta Flight 1141 was so embarrassing it led to a law restricting the public release of CVRs. The crew discussed drink mixes & dating habits during takeoff procedure, with a pilot joking that in case they crashed, "the media would have some kind of juicy tidbit".
#59
TIL that Maria Antonia of Austria had the highest inbreeding coefficient (0.3053) of the House of Habsburg - higher than the child of brother and sister or the child of a parent and their own offspring
Rusty’scate 11 hours ago
Maria Antonia had the highest coefficient of inbreeding in the House of Habsburg; her father was her mother's maternal uncle and paternal first cousin once removed, and her maternal grandparents were uncle and niece.[2] She did not display any noticeable physical deformities that are normally accompanied by inbreeding, although portraits of her were likely embellished for political purposes and her genetics likely exacerbated the infection that led to her d***h.
#60
TIL David Fincher let Meat Loaf shadow him during the directing process for Fight Club (1999). Meat Loaf "hardly spent any time" in his trailer because he instead would sit behind Fincher so he could see what Fincher saw. Meat Loaf even helped Fincher select which take to use for some scenes.
#61
TIL while attempting to land a role in The Wire, Idris Elba hid his English accent from series creator David Simon to prove he was "American enough" for the part. In his 4th audition, Simon found out. However, by that time Elba had already impressed Simon enough to convince him to give Elba the role
#62
TIL about firefighter Donald Herbert. After lapsing into a coma following a firefighting accident he awoke a year later unable to recognize friends or family. He then lapsed into a minimally conscious state for over 9 years. Miraculously, he awoke again and his first question was about his wife.
#64
TIL that American ginseng is so valuable ($300-$500 a pound) that poachers risk jail time to steal roots from the Appalachia mountains
#65
TIL after a shopping mall in South Korea collapsed in June 1995, the last survivor who was discovered buried in the rubble was a 19-year-old woman named Park Sung-Hyun who was found after 16 days. Although she thought she'd only been buried for 5 days.
#66
TIL in 2007 Katherine Heigl won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama for her role on Grey's Anatomy. But in 2008 she removed herself from Emmy consideration because she said the material she was given on Grey's that year wasn't good enough; this comment led to her leaving the show.
#67
TIL about a highly mysterious company called JCM Farming, which owns an unusually fortified 80-acre "olive farm" in California protected by massive walls and armed guards and successfully sued several ballooners and ballooning companies out of business back in 2011
Rusty’scate 10 hours ago
The property, originally built as "Oasis Ranch", operates as an exclusive, highly secure retreat for foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and Fortune 500 executives. Because of this, the company aggressively enforces its privacy and famously filed numerous lawsuits in 2011 against local hot air balloon companies, successfully driving them out of business for allegedly flying too close and invading the compound's airspace.
#68
TIL during the Battle of France, one month before he became the leader of the Vichy regime, Philippe Pétain coincidentally found himself dining at the same restaurant at Charles de Gaulle. They shook hands in silence and never saw each other again.
#69
TIL that at the Beatles last stadium concert at Candlestick Park, there were 7,000 unsold tickets and the promoter lost money. They played for just 33 minutes.
Alex Buchanan 11 hours ago (edited)
Yup, that was it, Candlestick Park San Francisco 1965 was the last anyone ever heard of the poor woebegone Beatles...😏 🙄
#70
TIL that Hebrew is the only successful attempt at a large-scale linguistic revival. After having largely been replaced by other languages between the 2nd and 4th centuries. It was revived as a language beginning in the late 19th century
David Paterson 11 hours ago (edited)
I wouldn't call it a successful attempt. It was revived in Germany by people who had no knowledge whatever of surviving Semitic languages. I'm no scholar and even I know of ten or so errors in "revived" Hebrew. The easiest to explain is the word "ibn" which was written in Hebrew using only consonants as "bn" and incorrectly revived as "ben". Other revived languages include some Australian Aboriginal languages.
#71
TIL that Japanese meteorologist Wasaburo Oishi was the first person to discover jet streams in the atmosphere, but his discovery was largely unrecognized outside of his home country because he published it in the constructed language of Esperanto
David Paterson 10 hours ago (edited)
A footnote is that during WW2 the Japanese military put bombs on balloons and sent them up into the Jet Stream in which they would be carried across to mainland USA. Being unaware of the jet stream, Americans didn't understand how this could happen until someone recognised the sand in the ballast of a balloon as coming from a Japanese beach.
#72
TIL that in 2018, singer Akon announced the development of "Akon City," a planned community in Senegal which he claimed would be a "real life Wakanda," using blockchain and cryptocurrency technology. Construction began in 2023, but as of 2025 the site sits abandoned
#73
TIL about the "Endless Eight" arc of the anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The arc, which featured the characters of the show trapped in a time loop, featured the same episode eight times in a row with minute differences, all animated and recorded from scratch each time.
#74
TIL that the name "Khaleesi" has been in the top 1,000 list of popular names used for newborns since 2014. Though the popularity has decreased since "Game of Thrones" ended, there are about 120 girls names Khaleesi each year
#75
TIL that the SpongeBob episode "Mid-Life Crustacean" was removed from the Nickelodeon rotation and Paramount+ because it included a "panty raid" scene.
#76
TIL of the “spirit effect”, whereby spirit airlines entering a new route would cause other carriers to drop prices, making prices more affordable for regular Americans
#77
TIL Cheeseface, the dog on National Lampoon's infamous 1973 "If you don't buy this magazine, we'll kill this dog" cover, was shot and killed by an unidentified hunter on his owner's farm three years after it came out.
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General Anaesthesia 2 hours ago
Germany made its final payment for World War I reparations on October 3, 2010.
General Anaesthesia 2 hours ago
Germany made its final payment for World War I reparations on October 3, 2010.
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