Between carving pumpkins, buying Halloween decorations, and dressing up for trick-or-treating, it seems people still had time to learn loads of new things over the past few weeks. Sometimes, purely by chance…

Many of us have been there. One minute you’re looking up a recipe, the next you’re going down a rabbit hole after discovering that 75% of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and 5 animal species. Or, you’re casually watching an army movie when you learn that military dogs outrank their handlers. (More on that further down.)

The world is indeed filled with an endless amount of interesting facts about everything under the sun. And for some people, many of them only came to light for the first time last month.

Bored Panda has gathered our favorite mix of recent Today I Learned posts from an online community that refuses to gatekeep fascinating facts. Whether you’re a trivia fan or just someone who likes to sound impressive during awkward small talk, there should be something here for you… So sit back, keep scrolling, and don’t forget to upvote the ones that had you saying, “Wait, what?!?”

#1

TIL “the first unambiguous evidence” of an animal other than humans making plans in one mental state for a future mental state occurred in 1997 when a chimpanzee was observed (over 50x) calmly gathering stones into caches of 3-8 each in order to later throw at zoo visitors while in an agitated state.

Image credits: tyrion2024

How cool is it that U.S. military dogs outrank their handlers? Or that they have a rank at all? They even receive awards, accolades and promotions. Much to the disdain of “non-dog” people.

According to Regina Johnson, Sgt. 1st Class and the operations superintendent at the Military Working Dog School, some people get offended when animals receive honors normally reserved for humans.

But Johnson reminds them that the dogs work hard and save lives. She adds that the dogs are so much more than just U.S. government property.

“These dogs are our partners,” the expert says. “I remember trying to get into the K-9 program, and I had a human partner working in law enforcement at the time who commented to me that he couldn’t believe I would choose to work with a dog over a human partner, a big strong guy as a partner.”

#2

TIL that “The staff ate it later” is a caption shown on screen when food appears on Japanese TV programs to indicate that it was not thrown away after filming (Since it is generally not socially accepted to discard food in Japan).

Image credits: abaganoush

#3

TIL a woman had half of her brain removed when she was 8 due to a condition that caused her to have up to 150 seizures a day. Her doctors said she’d never drive, she got her license at 17. She went on to earn her bachelor’s & master’s degrees in just 5 years before becoming a speech pathologist.

Image credits: tyrion2024

Apparently, every military working dog is an NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) – by tradition. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s a high-ranking enlisted soldier who serves as the “backbone of the Army” by leading and training other soldiers. This means an Army dog is always one rank higher than its handler.

“That’s out of respect,” Johnson explains. “I see it all the time, especially in these young handlers. They make the mistake of thinking they’re actually in charge. You’ve got to tell them, ‘Hold up. That dog has trained 100 students. That dog is trying to tell you something.’ I think the tradition grew out of a few handlers recognizing the dog as their partner.”

#4

TIL about Chaser, a border collie with the best tested memory of any non-human animal. She could recognize and fetch 1,022 toys by name and category.

Image credits: dragonoid296

#5

TIL military working dogs usually outrank their handlers in order to ensure proper respect.

Image credits: VaraNiN

#6

TIL In 1956 a Swedish sailor named Åke Viking sent out a message in a bottle that read “To Someone Beautiful and Far Away” and it ended up reaching a 17-year-old Sicilian girl named Paolina, which sparked a correspondence between them that eventually culminated in their marriage in 1958.

Image credits: tyrion2024

According to a U.S Army official site, when it comes to new working-dog handlers, experienced dogs help train the students. “They use dogs, known as training aids, that already understand commands,” notes the site. “Once handlers graduate from the course, they go out into the force and are assigned a dog at their unit.”

Military dogs have their work cut out for them… The K-9 teams aren’t only deployed to war zones. They provide a variety of support, from patrol work around base to searches during health-and-welfare inspections and sweeps for explosives when VIPs arrive, explains the Army site.

#7

TIL René Laennec invented the stethoscope in 1816 because he thought it was improper to press his ear on a woman’s chest and found that a tube let him hear heart and lung sounds more clearly.

Image credits: Brendawg324

#8

TIL that proponents of Prohibition were so certain that enacting it would solve all crimes in United States that some communities sold their jails after the amendment passed.

Image credits: SamsonFox2

#9

TIL Beethoven’s relationship with his brother Johann was strained. He opposed Johann marrying his housekeeper so much he tried contacting the authorities to stop it. After buying an estate, Johann signed a letter “your brother Johann, landowner.” Beethoven replied: “your brother Ludwig, brain owner.”

Image credits: VegemiteSucks

Another October “Today I Learned” fact that we found quite intriguing was the one about the woman who had half of her brain removed when she was 8 years old, due to a condition that caused her to have up to 150 seizures a day. Needing to know a bit more, we went on a deep dive.

It turns out the woman’s name is Christina Santhouse. In 1996, she was on a family beach vacation on the New Jersey shore when her foot began shaking uncontrollably. The little girl was rushed to hospital and underwent three days of gruelling tests.

Doctors diagnosed her with Rasmussen’s encephalitis. It’s a rare autoimmune disease, usually found in children. The body attacks the brain, and cells wither away as a result.

#10

TIL that 75% of the world’s food is generated from only 12 plants and 5 animal species.

Image credits: Iluvpossiblities

#11

TIL about Riley Horner, an Illinois teen who, in the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury, found that her memory kept resetting every two hours. She was eventually able to recover with the help of specialists, and graduated from Nursing School in 2025.

Image credits: Sebastianlim

#12

TIL the Jane Goodall Institute complained about one of Gary Larson’s cartoons of her. She told them to be quiet, used the image to sell tshirts, and wrote the introduction to one of his collections.

Image credits: Forgotthebloodypassw

“Treating the seizures sounded worse than the disease,” reported ABC News in 2002. “Doctors said she would have to get a hemispherectomy, a procedure in which the diseased half of the brain is surgically removed. In short, Christina would be left with half a brain.”

But little Christina went on to defy the odds. She excelled at school, and took part in athletics as a teen. In 2016, People magazine reported that she “got her driver’s license at 17, became a star bowler who competed in England and Australia, then decided to go away to college, enrolling in Misericordia University near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.”

The publication added that she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in five years. She went on to become a speech therapist, bought her own house, and got married.

#13

TIL Keanu Reeves’s stunt double in The Matrix went on to direct Keanu in the John Wick movies.

Image credits: Macievelli

#14

TIL the village of Kräkångersnoret in Sweden changed its name because evolution in the Swedish language led to the name being ridiculed for essentially meaning “vomit regret snot”.

Image credits: HawkeyeJosh2

#15

TIL that Roman Emperor Diocletian issued an Edict on Maximum Prices where prices and wages were capped. Profiteers and speculators who fail to follow were sentenced to [demise].

Image credits: Physical_Hamster_118

Now in her 30s, Christina is a mom to two kids. She revealed during an Associated Press interview that she’s approached parenthood the same way she has everything else in her life since her 1996 surgery and rehabilitation:

“A lot of planning. A lot of preparation. A lot of faith. A lot of determination.”

#16

TIL about Unitarian Universalism, a religion that encourages members to think for themselves and work towards a world where love and justice flourish.

Image credits: Mathemodel

#17

TIL the Romans had so many different gods that in later antiquity one theologian noted that there were at least three different gods just dealing with doorways, including a specific god for the door’s hinge.

Image credits: 2SP00KY4ME

#18

TIL that the Beatles’ record label once sued Sesame Street over a parody song called “Hey Food.” The lawsuit was settled for $50.

Image credits: Blammyyy

“Motherhood brings a whole new set of challenges. It’s a constant effort to stay mentally and emotionally in the game, but the girls and my family are beyond worth it,” she said, adding that she’s come to realize that different is okay.

“The way I care for the girls might look different or take a bit longer, but it always gets done, and it’s done with unconditional love.”

#19

TIL Titanic victim Jeremiah Burke threw a message in a bottle overboard that read “From Titanic, goodbye all, Burke of Glanmire, Cork”. It washed ashore a year later only a few miles from his family home in Ireland. It then remained in his family for nearly a century before being donated to a museum.

Image credits: tyrion2024

#20

TIL Central African Republic leader, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, spent years looking for his long-lost daughter Martine, whom he fathered while serving in Vietnam. The first “Martine” was exposed as a fraud when the real Martine was found. Bokassa accepted both as his daughters and adopted the fake Martine.

Image credits: Ill_Definition8074

#21

TIL in 2014, passengers were warned three times not to eat nuts on a Ryanair flight due to a 4-year-old girl’s severe nut allergy, but a passenger sitting four rows away from the girl ate nuts anyway. The girl went into anaphylactic shock, and the passenger was banned from the airline for two years.

Image credits: Forward-Answer-4407

#22

TIL a British man won £1.45m on a six-race rollover jackpot after placing a £2 bet. He correctly selected 6 winners including the final horse, Lupita, who hadn’t won in 26 races & jockey, Jessica Lodge, who had not previously won. He picked them because “Lodge is just a name that sticks in my head.”

Image credits: tyrion2024

#23

TIL that cremated human remains aren’t actually ashes. After incineration, the leftover bone fragments are ground down in a machine called a cremulator to produce what we call ashes.

Image credits: Royal-Information749

#24

TIL the most complex word in the English language is “run”, with 645 possible different meanings.

Image credits: chuuniversal_studios

#25

TIL In 2006, Midas ran an “America’s Longest Commute” award, won by electrical engineer Dave Givens. His commute was 186 miles each way, and he’d drink 30 cups of coffee per day. He was willing to make this long commute so that he could live in a scenic horse ranch.

Image credits: Polyphagous_person

#26

TIL that Oskar Speck paddled a folding kayak from Germany to Australia over seven years. He arrived in 1939, unaware World War II had begun, and was arrested as an enemy spy upon landing, spending the war interned in Australia before later becoming an opal trader.

Image credits: jacknunn

#27

TIL that Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan, with over 2 million people.

Image credits: Greydl1

#28

TIL that most people only use about 1,500 to 3,000 words regularly in everyday conversation, a range known as the surface lexicon.

Image credits: littleperfectionism

#29

TIL The owner of the world’s oldest cat (Creme Puff, 38, 1967 – 2005) also owned the world’s sixth-oldest cat (Granpa Rexs Allen, 34, 1964-1998).

Image credits: haddock420

#30

TIL that during the Sylvester Stallone & Arnold Schwarzenegger rivalry in the 1980s, Schwarzenegger once tricked Stallone into doing the critically panned 1992 film “Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot” by pretending that it was a brilliant movie and and that he was thinking of doing it himself.

Image credits: Murky-Ad-4088

#31

TIL the busiest pharmacy in the world is the Vatican Pharmacy, owned and operated by the Vatican City State. It is open to the public and is very popular among Roman residents because it stocks hard-to-find medicines and is much cheaper (purchases aren’t subject to Italian taxes).

#32

TIL that the Navajo Reservation was under a 43 year development ban until 2009 – preventing things like fixing roofs, building houses, and installing gas and water lines.

#33

TIL that in the late 18th century some wealthy individuals would pay poor people (preferably younger) to extract their teeth and have it transplanted into an empty socket. Results were usually unsuccessful.

Image credits: UpperphonnyII

#34

TIL that in 1999, a 15-year-old named Jonathan James hacked into NASA’s computers, accessed source code used for the International Space Station, and forced NASA to shut down parts of its systems for 21 days.

Image credits: Ordinary_Fish_3046

#35

TIL that the Sargasso Sea, located entirely within the Atlantic Ocean, is the only sea without a land boundary.

#36

TIL over half of Americans use subtitles at least some of the time while watching TV, and the biggest reason is that dialogue has become harder to hear. One contributing factor is digital sound recording that allows many overlapping audio tracks to run at once, which can make speech less clear.

#37

TIL about the “lesbian vampire” archetype, which was used in the 19th-century gothic horror genre to circumvent the heavy censorship of lesbian characters.

#38

TIL of the Abilene paradox, a group fallacy in which a group collectively decides on a course of action that no or few members actually want to undertake, as each member mistakenly believes that their preferences are counter to the preferences of the group.

#39

TIL the three actors in The Blair Witch Project signed a contract with a clause that allowed the studio to use their real names “for the purpose of this film”. So when their identities were used again in the sequel without their permission, they sued the studio and won a settlement of $300,000 each.

#40

TIL that DJ Mustard’s given name is Dijon.

#41

TIL that the 90s-early 2000s icon Eliza Dushku was “inundated” with fan mails from prisoners due to her portrayal of Faith in the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

#42

TIL a Boeing chief test pilot improvised a barrel roll in new, untested 707 prototype during a public event. When his boss asked him what he thought he was doing rolling the plane, he replied, “I’m selling airplanes.”

#43

TIL: The modern Japanese Akita dogs are descended from a handful of dogs that survived World War II.

#44

TIL between 10%-15% of married couples reconcile after they separate and about 6% of couples marry each other again after they divorce.

Image credits: tyrion2024

#45

TIL in 2009, a student, Teunis Tenbrook, won a ten-year legal battle after his ban from Erasmus University. The ban occurred after staff and students complained they could not concentrate due to his smelly feet. A judge ruled that foot odor was not a valid reason to ban a student from a university.

Image credits: Sandstorm400

#46

TIL that after Steve Carell left “The Office,” James Gandolfini of the “Sopranos” was reportedly offered the role but HBO paid him 3 million to turn it down.

Image credits: Morganbanefort

#47

TIL a man fooled the computers at Columbia House Music Club & BMG Music Service by using 1,630 aliases to buy CDs at rates offered only to first-time buyers. Over four years, he bought 22,260 CDs for about $2.50 each. Operating as “CDs for Less”, he then sold the CDs at flea markets for $10 a piece.

#48

TIL of Tomoaki Hamatsu, a Japanese comedian nicknamed Nasubi, who for a gameshow in the late 90s lived inside a small room for 15 months, starving and alone, surviving solely off of magazine contest prize winnings, whilst being broadcast to over 15 million viewers a week without his consent..

#49

TIL “Goal For Germany” [gol da Alemanha] is used as an expression in Brazilian Portuguese to describe a mishap or accident. This term was coined after Brazil’s 1-7 World Cup Semi-Final defeat to Germany in 2014.

#50

TIL Alexander Alekhine, World Chess Champion from 1927 to 1935, once tried to cross the German-Polish border with no papers. He instead offered a declaration. “I am Alekhine, chess champion of the world. This is my cat. Her name is Chess. I need no passport.” He was arrested.

#51

TIL a mother visiting Pismo Beach was fined over $88,000 due to her kids collecting 72 clams after they mistook them for seashells. The incident had violated clamming regulations but she was able to get the county judge to reduce the fine to $500 after explaining the confusion.

#52

TIL that after Robert Lawrence Jr. was selected as America’s first Black astronaut in 1967, he was asked at a press conference “if he had to sit at the back of the space capsule.” He never flew to space, [he was] in a plane crash less than a year after selection.

#53

TIL the only known uninterrupted audio of 9/11 is a conversation between a tax consultant and a tax assessor who was being investigated for taking bribes. The consultant, Stephen McArdle, was wearing a wiretap transmitting the conversation to the FBI from the Mariott World Trade Center’s cafe.

#54

TIL that when you burn a pound of fat, 84% leaves your body as CO2, so after you run, you are basically breathing out the fat you burned.

#55

Til raw kidney beans are toxic. Undercooked kidney beans are even more toxic. Can cause severe nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pains.

#56

TIL that in 2024 biologists discovered “Obelisks”, strange RNA elements that aren’t any known lifeform, and we have no idea where they belong on the tree of life.

#57

TIL following the capitulation of France in WW2, ~1.8 million soldiers or approximately 10% of its adult male population became prisoners of war.

#58

TIL The Average weight for males in the United States ages 20 years and older is 199.8 pounds.

Image credits: CraftyFoxeYT

#59

TIL 95% of Americans don’t get the minimum recommended amount of fiber.

#60

TIL a woman who slashed Leonardo DiCaprio’s face and neck with a broken bottle at a Hollywood party in 2005 was sentenced to two years in prison. She reportedly snuck into the party and attacked the actor after mistaking him for an ex-boyfriend. DiCaprio’s injuries required 17 stitches.

#61

TIL a couple dressed up as “Mary and her little lamb” for a Halloween party, and the man caught fire after deciding to light a cigarette. They sued Johnson & Johnson, which had manufactured the cotton batting he had worn. A jury awarded the couple $625,000, but the decision was overturned on appeal.

#62

TIL That the famous “Hillary Step” at the top of Mount Everest is no longer there. It was the last obstacle to the Summit. It is now an easier 45 degree slope instead of a vertical wall.

#63

TIL the Honjo Masamune, considered one of the finest Japanese swords ever made, was taken by US forces after WW2 and never seen again.

#64

TIL that Keith Moon, drummer for “The Who,” was fond of blowing up hotel toilets. Starting with cherry bombs he later graduated to dynamite. Once, in response to a noise complaint, Moon asked a hotel manager to stay while he went to the bathroom, returned, and then waited for the toilet to explode.

#65

TIL in 2006 every lock and key in a UK prison had to be changed after a TV news program aired shots of a prison key that the news crew had filmed on a recent media visit to the prison. In total, 11,000 locks and 3,200 keys needed to be replaced.

#66

TIL only 1 in 5 US soldiers during WW2 were ‘combat forces’, everyone else was in support roles.

#67

TIL Stephen King wrote The Running Man in one week and it was “pretty much” published as a first draft.

#68

TIL that Saturn’s rings are incredibly thin. At their widest they are about 1 km thick, and at their thinnest about 10 meters thick. In width, they span from 7,000 km to 80,000 km away from Saturn’s equator.

#69

TIL during the Prohibition era in the US, the now-defunct drugstore chain Rexall sold a branded cologne/aftershave called “Bay Rum” which contained 58% grain alcohol but was labeled “for external use only.” It quickly became a popular, somewhat toxic, source of legal beverage alcohol at the time.

Image credits: mikechi2501

#70

TIL in the movie This is the End (2013), Rihanna told Michael Cera he could actually slap her [behind] for a scene if she could actually slap him in the face in return. On the take used in the movie, Rihanna slapped him so hard, Cera had to go lay down in his trailer for around half an hour.

Image credits: LookAtThatBacon

#71

TIL that in 1968, Richard Nixon feared that there would be a breakthrough in the Paris Peace Talks between North and South Vietnam, resulting in the war ending and damaging his campaign. Nixon dispatched an aide to tell the South Vietnamese to withdraw from the talks and prolong the war.

#72

TIL China has a 26-story skyscraper pig farm.

#73

TIL that three of the five likely oldest rivers on earth are in Appalachia.

#74

TIL that in Macau, the only city in China where casino gambling is legal, the game of baccarat is so incredibly popular that the tax levied on baccarat play is the city’s largest source of revenue.

#75

TIL that households in Turkey are estimated to hold about 5,000 tons of gold outside the banking system worth around $500 billion, which is nearly 35 % of Turkey’s GDP.

#76

TIL about Luis Albino, a 6 year old boy who was kidnapped in 1951 and found alive by his relatives in 2024.

#77

TIL in the Philippines the presidential and vice presidential elections are separate, so the winners may end up to be from opposing parties.

#78

TIL an analysis of more than 700,000 online gamblers found that only 4% of them had made money from online sports betting over a five-year period (2019-2023).

#79

TIL sports announcer Howard Cosell was once in a limo with co-broadcaster Al Michaels when they stopped at a street light and saw some teens fighting. Cosell got out of the car and started commentating on the fight. The teens looked at him awestruck, stopped fighting, and asked for his autograph.

#80

TIL that Scientologists advocate “silent birth,” in which everyone attending a birth avoids speaking as much as possible, because “any words spoken can have an abberrative effect on the mother and child.”

#81

TIL about the United States Housing Corporation, a federal agency that existed during WWI to provide housing to support the war effort. In just two years, they constructed neighborhoods and quality housing for over 170,000 people in dozens of cities across the US.

#82

TIL that as far back as 9500 years ago, a Native America culture existed called the Old Copper Complex. These Great Lakes natives created tools and weapons from 99% pure copper found laying around the Michigan Upper Peninsula.

#83

TIL that humans show a systematic aurofacial asymmetry, meaning that the eyes, nose and mouth are displaced to the left with respect to the midplane between the ears.

#84

TIL – Jon Stewart, met his wife Tracey on a blind date set up by a producer on the film ‘Wishful Thinking’, proposed to her through a personalized crossword puzzle created with the help of Will Shortz, the crossword editor at The New York Times.

#85

TIL that a hundred years ago, a quarter of the residents of New York would move house every single May 1st at exactly 9 AM.

#86

TIL The proper translation of the original Japanese for the phrase “All your base are belong to us” in Zero Wing should have been “With the help of Federation government forces, CATS has taken all of your bases.”

#87

TIL that the R-colored vowel (the “-er” sound in “butter,” as pronounced in North American English) is rare in languages, occurring in less than 1% of them. However, those languages include North American English and Mandarin Chinese, two of the most widely-spoken languages on earth.

#88

TIL that contrary to popular belief, few limb amputations during the American Civil War were done without anaesthesia. A post-war review found that 99.6% of surgeries performed were done under some form of general anaesthesia.

#89

TIL that champignon mushrooms were originally all light brown in color. The white variety goes back to a chance mutation in 1925 when a white mushroom was discovered among a bed of brown ones.

#90

TIL in 2009 PETA’s European branch asked the British synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys to rename themselves “Rescue Shelter Boys”.

#91

TIL that the 1955 children’s book “When the Robbers Came to Cardamom Town” is considered to have contributed significantly to criminology in Norway.

#92

TIL that the sample for Jay-Z’s song for “Hard Knock Life” was only cleared after Jay-Z wrote a letter to Annie’s composer claiming that seeing the musical on Broadway as a child changed his life. Charles Strouse, the musical’s composer, gave Jay-Z permission despite the entire story being made up.

#93

TIL that actor RJ Mitte of Breaking Bad fame was raised by his mother following his parents’ separation. After she became paralyzed, Mitte assumed financial responsibility for his family at the young age of 13, which by then also included his sister, who had been born when he was 11.

#94

TIL about the 1926 Baumes law, a New York statute where anyone convicted of more than three separate felonies would automatically receive life imprisonment, without regard to any extenuating circumstances. By 1930, 23 U.S. states adopted similar laws. Prison riots in NY led to reforms soon after.

#95

TIL that following the success of Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995), Jim Carrey became the first comic actor to receive a $20 million upfront salary when he starred in The Cable Guy (1996).

#96

TIL that it’s unclear from where Nation of Islam founder Wallace Fard Muhammad originated. While the NOI holds that Fard was Arabic, some evidence indicates he was south Asian, and once went by Wallie Dodd Ford. Fard appeared in Detroit in 1930 and disappeared without a trace in 1934.

#97

TIL the gibberish In Missy Elliott’s “Work It” is actually the previous line “I put my thing down flip it and reverse it”, in reverse.

#98

TIL the producer of the movie Manos: The Hands of Fate was a fertilizer salesman who bet that it was “not difficult to make a horror movie.” The movie is today considered one of the worst movies ever made and was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

#99

TIL that in order for Mia Farrow to legally adopt Soon-Yi Previn (now Woody Allen’s wife) from a Korean orphanage, a one-off bill for the adoption was passed by Congress and signed by President Carter.

#100

TIL Ludacris got the opportunity to act in 2 Fast 2 Furious after Ja Rule turned down $500K to return. Director John Singleton said “Ja was acting like he was too big to be in the sequel” & wouldn’t return his calls. So Singleton offered Ludacris a role instead even though he’d never met him before.

#101

TIL that the Razzie Awards once nominated a 12 year-old for Worst Actress (Ryan Kiera Armstrong for Firestarter) and had to rescind the nomination because of backlash.

#102

TIL Periconceptional alcohol consumption by fathers is associated with an increased risk of 1.43 times for autism and 2.71 times for ADHD.

#103

TIL Wham-O filed a lawsuit over a scene in “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star” in which David Spade uses a Slip ‘N Slide without water, later coats it with oil, and crashes into a fence. Wham-O sought the scene’s removal or the addition of a disclaimer, claiming the scene violated safety guidelines.