TIL that in Whittier, Alaska, nearly all of its roughly 270 residents live in a single 14-story building, "Begich Towers", which also houses the post office, grocery store, school, and church. The tow
TIL that British 1st Dragoon Guards cavalry unit still wears coat of arms of Holy Roman Emperor as their regimental badge because Emperor Franz Joseph was their Colonel-in-chief
TIL Pan Am didn't have domestic routes within the US, it mostly operated international routes. The Civil Aeronautics Board banned the airline from establishing domestic routes. After deregulation in 1
TIL that the origin stories of characters such as Iron Man or the Punisher, which were previously tied to the Vietnam War, have now been retconned to take place during the Siancong War, a fictional co
TIL that for Terminator 2, stunt pilot Chuck Tamburro flew a real helicopter under an overpass at 60 knots with about 5 ft of clearance above and 4 ft on each side; when camera operators refused to fi
TIL that Lennox Lewis, Gene Tunney, Rocky Marciano and Vitali Klitschko are the four heavyweight boxing champions to have retired as champion. Of these four Lewis and Marciano are the two to hold a wi
TIL an elderly man in Italy lived for a year with an exposed brain due to scalp cancer that ate through his skull. He had no neurological symptoms except numbness, and his only treatments were wound c
TIL that Phryne, a wealthy 4th-century BC Greek courtesan, was tried for impiety in Athens. According to later accounts, she revealed her body before the jury, while her lawyer Hypereides argued that
TIL Nazi Germany forced occupied Greece to accept an interest-free loan in 1942. Germany began repaying it in April 1943, but repayments ceased after the war, leaving 476 million Reichsmarks unpaid. G
TIL that Joe Weider got Arnold Schwarzenegger his first movie role by passing him off as a German Shakespearean actor, even though Arnold barely spoke English.
TIL that the inhabitants of Madagascar (Malagasy people) are the descendants of approximately 30 Indonesian mothers who sailed on a transoceanic voyage 1200 years ago.
TIL that William Shatner offered to wrestle a real Bengal tiger that had been brought onto the set of Star Trek: The Original Series, only to quickly back down once he actually saw the animal up close
TIL In 1893 an envelope cutter named Walter Cowles was drinking at a tavern in London when he boasted he could fit a billiard ball in his mouth and close it fully. He inserted the ball in his mouth bu
TIL that on a 1977 school trip to Washington DC, a senior made a bet to get his classmates and himself set up for an unannounced tour of the White House. With a local payphone he gradually convinced o
TIL Japanese idol Momoka Tojo was forced by her agency to post a "good night" selfie on X every day for a full year as a "purification" punishment after leaking a photo with her boyfriend. She complie
TIL that the HMHS Britannic could survive with six of its watertight compartments flooded, unlike the RMS Titanic’s four. And the damage done by the naval mine in 1916 was limited. However, the Britan
TIL during World War II, Empress Teimei, the mother of Emperor Hirohito, openly opposed Japan’s involvement in the war. Beginning in 1943, she worked behind the scenes with her third son Takamatsu to
TIL Audrey Hepburn secretly delivered messages for the Dutch Resistance as a teenager during WWII and reportedly helped raise money for the resistance through underground performances.
TIL that according to scientists, forgotten memories aren't generally lost forever from your brain. Instead, they are simply made inaccessible to you, and so can be returned with the right stimuli.
TIL that in France, they passed the "Right to Disconnect law" back in 2017. Making it illegal for companies with over 50 employees to penalize their workers for ignoring work emails/ messages after wo
TIL that the sculpture "L'Homme au doigt" was auctioned for $141.3 million, making it twice as expensive as the most expensive auctioned jewel (the Pink Star diamond), and almost the exact same price
TIL a Babylonian clay tablet called Plimpton 322, made around 1800 BC, lists number patterns matching Pythagorean triples, over 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born
TIL that as a baby, Harambe was taken home by a zoo employee at night, bottle-fed and even had his diapers changed after his mother stopped caring for him at about 21 days old.
TIL that in 1977 GM secretly put Chevy engines in Oldsmobiles, and a jury awarded 14,000 owners $550 each in one of the biggest consumer fraud cases in US history.
TIL the world's first bike path made entirely of recycled plastic waste was opened in the Netherlands, taking equivalent amounts of over 218,000 plastic cups out of landfills.
TIL cities are actively using vertical vine coverage and green canopies on buildings as a low-tech solution to drop surface temperatures by up to several degrees.
TIL that the spiciest peppers in the world all belong to the exact same species called Capsicum chinense, named because it was mistakenly thought to come from China. It includes the habanero, Scotch b
TIL the Brewer & Shipley hit song, "One Toke Over the Line", despite being banned on many radio stations for its drug references, was performed on "The Lawrence Welk Show" in 1971 as a "gospel number"
TIL the famous airplane the Spruce Goose is actually made of birch. A longstanding rumour is that mechanics working on the plane called it the "Birch Bitch."
TIL the head of Germany’s armed forces in WWII was Wilhelm Keitel: nicknamed “Lakitel” or Lackey because of his willingness to be nothing but Hitlers mouthpiece. He was known as a blindingly loyal toa
TIL that the iconic parade scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off was filmed partly during a real Chicago parade, with as many as 12 cameras and only one chance to get the live footage right!
TIL that in ancient times, labdanum, the resin that is the main ingredient of the amber scent in perfumery, was collected by combing it from the beards and thighs of goats and sheep that had grazed on
TIL that in the movie Matilda (1996), the famous scene where Miss Trunchbull swings a student by her pigtails was filmed without CGI. The child actress was secured in a harness and lifted by a crane,
TIL that Charles Guiteau, later killer of President James Garfield, was so despised by female members of the Oneida Community that they pejoratively named him "Charles Gitout". The Oneida Community wa
TIL Peter Sellers was originally supposed to play Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove (1964), but dropped out because he couldn't convincingly perform the required Texas accent and was afraid of heights. Th
TIL that Polandball (AKA Countryball) comics were originally created to troll a specific Polish user on the imageboard Krautchan. The Polish user’s name was Wojak, and he is the origin of the Wojak me
TIL in the first century CE an ancient Korean king liked to use his subjects as human furniture to sit on or lie on and would kill them if they moved. One attended became fearful and killed him with a
