People Share 40 Interesting "Today I Learned" Facts That Have Changed Everything For Them

Some “today I learned” facts are cute little brain snacks, but this one hits different. A cat named Room 8 lived in a public school for 16 years, vanished every summer, and came back on the first day like he had a calendar subscription. Then the kids turned him into a local legend, with poems and songs floating around like he was part of the curriculum.

It gets even wilder from there. Elderly pedestrians in Singapore can tap a concession card to stretch the “green man” by up to 13 seconds, while gamers are out here remembering how Ubisoft offered thousands of hours of 3D Notre Dame research after the 2019 fire. And then there’s Foldit, where players helped crack a protein puzzle tied to an HIV-like virus in just 10 days, plus the unsettling science of highway hypnosis and the heartbreaking truth that sharks basically do not make sound.

By the time you reach the vibrating Harry Potter broomstick from 2001, you realize this list is really a trail of surprisingly human stories, not random trivia.

This is pretty cute though.

TIL about a cat named Room 8 that lived in a public school for 16 years. During his time there, he would disappear during the summer and return, like clockwork, on the first day of school. He became so well-known that poems and songs were sung about him.Houndguy

This actually makes so much sense though.

TIL elderly pedestrians in Singapore get more time to cross the road at traffic lights. By tapping their concession card on the crosswalk button, the green man stays lit for up to 13 seconds longer.griefofwant

This is for all the gamers.

TIL Ubisoft offered to share their detailed 3D model of Notre Dame from Assassin's Creed: Unity, some 5,000 hours of research, with the French government reconstruction effort after the fire in 2019.Funk5oulBrother

Now this is a good deed that goes unnoticed.

triviafrenzy

Here's another one for the gamers.

TIL about the game "Foldit," a puzzle game about protein folding. In 2011, its gamers helped decipher a protein of an HIV-like virus, solving a scientific problem that had gone unsolved for 15 years in as little as 10 days.12a357sdf

I know myself and so many others who have done this.

TIL Highway hypnosis, also known as white line fever, is an altered mental state in which a person can drive a car, truck, or other automobile great distances, responding to external events in the expected, safe, and correct manner with no recollection of having consciously done so.gullydon

Wow, this is really interesting.

TIL that sharks don’t make sounds. Across 400-500 species, no one has ever found an organ even capable of producing sound.Jangles2000

This is so sad, honestly, especially knowing that he knew it would happen.

TIL that just before Laika went into space, one of the scientists using her for testing brought her home to play with his children, knowing that she would not survive her journey.Alaskan_Tsar

Well, that's an interesting use for something that was supposed to be a toy.

TIL in 2001, Mattel made a vibrating Harry Potter broomstick that led to many questionable Amazon user reviews. They discontinued the toy after adult stores in Times Square started selling them for twice their original retail price.SappyGilmore

Yeah, because that's believable.

TIL when Captain Francesco Schettino was asked why he abandoned the sinking Costa Concordia cruise ship in 2012 while the ship’s passengers were either dying or trying to escape, his excuse was that he accidentally fell into a lifeboat.

He received 16 years in prison for his role in the incident.

waitingforthesun92

I would believe this.

Opening-Cap5703

This is insane.

TIL that three years after winning gold at the 2004 Olympics, wrestler Rulon Gardner and two friends’ plane crashed into Lake Powell, Utah. The three men swam an hour to the shore through 44°F (7°C) water and waited all night without shelter for rescue. All three men survived.HasSomeSelfEsteem

What a wonderful gift.

mckinneym

It's crazy how things like this happen and then nobody really talks about it.

TIL about the "Tanganyika-Laughter Epidemic." A student in 1962 in Tanzania started laughing in a school in Kashasha. The laughter quickly spread to hundreds of people, causing schools to close for months.Researchers believe it was caused by stress and social tensions. No official explanation was given.UnlimitedDuck

We love a good history lesson.

TIL that, on 16 November 1949, students in Ghent (Belgium) stormed the medieval castle, lowered the portcullis, and threw fruit from the walls at the police to protest a new tax on beer. The event is still commemorated yearly by the city as the greatest student prank in its history.EliteTusken

This is why you can't believe everything proven or disproven by science.

TIL that when Johannes Rebmann, the first European to see Mount Kilimanjaro, published his discovery in 1849, it was dismissed as a malaria-induced hallucination because it was believed that snow at this latitude was impossible.It took 12 more years for scholars to accept the mountain's existence.ShabtaiBenOron

Another science lesson for you today.

Jay-Zee1231

This is quite interesting just how things worked out.

TIL the Black Death contributed greatly to the rise of the British pub and pub culture. Thanks to the plague, the scarcity of labor greatly improved the standard of living for peasants, who in turn spent their extra money on beer.TheMadhopper

This is the same kind of moral mess as the Reddit fight over surprising a vegetarian partner with a bacon dish.

I need more info on this.

TIL MSG isn’t bad for you, and its bad reputation stemmed from what’s called the Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.Oztravels

Oof, well that was a mess-up they had to quickly fix.

TIL about Nebraska's "safe haven" law that didn't have an age limit for dropping off unwanted babies. A wave of children, many teenagers with behavioral issues, were dropped off. It has since been amended.LaUNCHandSmASH

It sounds like more Americans need to be taught more then.

mankls3

I like to wonder how they named all these different things.

Fellowshipbook

I wonder how many other animals will do this.

skumati99

I believe this definitely too.

TIL birth rates in the U.S. have dropped more than 20% since 2007.SAT0725

For all our sports fans out there.

TIL that when Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed for MLS club LA Galaxy, LeBron James sent him one of his Lakers jerseys as a "welcome to LA" gift. Zlatan's response was to sign it and send it back.JimPalamo

I didn't know about this, so this is interesting.

TIL of "Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome," where the body doesn't respond to testosterone, so individuals have the genetic makeup of a man while showing the physical traits of a woman.bigbananaNo

They are called Spurdogs!

HawthorneUK

Good to know some scientist is spending their days trying to figure this out.

d0ggzilla

Wow, that's pretty interesting.

JosiahWillardPibbs

That's actually insane though.

TIL that in 1880, the average ages of consent in the U.S. were set at 10 or 12 years old in most states, with the exception of Delaware, where it was 7.SilentWalrus92

This is actually so sad; we can't imagine how they feel.

NeoPossum

This proves just how special of a place it is.

TIL that during its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.volossaveroniki

I mean, well duh. Italy knows what they're doing.

continentalatlas

I wouldn't want to be around for this one.

JosiahWillardPibbs

Well, it just gives a real-life feel to it all.

Emble12

I'd say that many of us don't know this.

Livebeam

Okay, then this is a weird way to get a singer's voice.

TIL that castrati were singers who were castrated before puberty to develop a unique voice for singing. They were primarily in church choirs and operas. Italian operas without one would be doomed to fail. The Pope tried to ban them in 1748, but failed, as it would drastically reduce church attendance.Flares117

I didn't even know this was a debate, but okay.

Practical_Clerk9034

That's enough with the Kevinism.

UralIveGotTonight

This is actually pretty funny though.

TIL that in 2012, in Cebu, Philippines, after a 6.9 earthquake struck the city, someone shouted while finding their daughter whose name is "Chona Mae." This was misheard as "Tsunami" and eventually caused a mass panic.PotatoCatPi

Room 8 disappearing every summer and returning on the first day feels like the warm-up act, until the Singapore crosswalk trick shows how small tech changes can matter.

Then Ubisoft’s Notre Dame model and the Foldit gamers’ 10-day protein win turn “TIL” into something closer to real-world teamwork.

After that, highway hypnosis and the silence of sharks hit the mood shift, like the list suddenly remembered the darker side of science.

And just when you’re processing Laika being brought home to play one last time, the vibrating Harry Potter broomstick from 2001 lands like a weird, chaotic punchline.

These "Today I Learned" facts are so interesting, and they really do show how much we don't know. It's always fun to learn new things. Did you learn anything new from this list?

Let us know because we want to see how many people can learn from this one post.

This whole “today I learned” thread doesn’t just teach facts, it drops you straight into other people’s lives.

Still not sure where medical ethics should land, read Tim Andrews’ pig-to-human kidney transplant story.