TIL (Timeline I Learned)

TIL Coffee can provide similar hydrating qualities to water - and there's no evidence it causes dehydration [Source, Comments]

TIL Gilded Age financier Russell Sage survived an 1891 office bombing after allegedly using his clerk as a human shield. The maimed clerk sued for 7 years and won two jury verdicts - but ultimately got nothing and died destitute. [Source, Comments]

TIL that in November 1872, the ghost ship Mary Celeste was found adrift in the Atlantic—completely seaworthy, fully stocked with 6 months of provisions, but all 10 people on board had vanished without a trace. [Source, Comments]

TIL in 2025, a Mexican comedy film titled "Johanne Sacreblu" was released to protest against the 2024 Oscar-winning French film "Emilia Pérez". It makes use of elements stereotypically associated with French culture to spoof how "Emilia Pérez" similarly portrayed Mexican culture in a simplistic way. [Source, Comments]

TIL that globally, 57% of adults didn't drink alcohol at all in the past year, and 44.5% have never had a drink in their life [Source, Comments]

TIL: Gargoyles on buildings are part of the building's water drainage system, often shooting water from their mouth. It's related to the word gargle. Building statues that arent part of the drainage system are called grotesques. [Source, Comments]

TIL Thomas Edison unintentionally caused the death of his assistant, Clarence Madison Dally, through radiation poisoning which caused cancer. Edison realized his X-ray experiments had poisoned Dally and stopped his research on X-rays after Dally’s death. [Source, Comments]

TIL the 2011 Japan earthquake was so powerful it moved the main island of Honshu 8 feet eastward, shifted the Earth's axis by up to 10 inches, and shortened the length of a day by 1.8 microseconds [Source, Comments]

TIL Alexander the Great carried an annotated copy of The Iliad on his campaigns, reportedly keeping it beneath his pillow beside his dagger. He called it a "handbook of the military art" and modeled himself after Achilles. [Source, Comments]

TIL Michael Jackson's 'Human Nature' was written by Steve Porcaro of Toto (Rains in Africa). Porcaro accidentally sent a snippet of a song he was working on to Quincy Jones on the B side of a cassette. Jones fell in love with it, help him to complete the song, and immediately sent it to Jackson [Source, Comments]

TIL a researcher studying wildlife for the US Department of Agriculture met Inuit people who taught him how to flash freeze fish to preserve their flavor. He later patented a way to mass produce this freezing process, which launched the frozen food industry. His name was Charles Birdseye. [Source, Comments]

TIL the Crusaders almost allied with the Mongols to defeat the Islamic caliphates. [Source, Comments]

TIL of The General Motors EV1, the first major American mass-produced electric car from 1996 to 1999. Despite favorable customer reception, GM believed electric cars are an unprofitable niche and ultimately reclaimed and crushed most of the cars. GM terminated the EV1 program in 2003. [Source, Comments]

TIL the largest manumission (voluntary freeing of slaves) in U.S. history was carried out by Robert Carter III who, influenced by his Baptist beliefs, gradually emancipated over 500 of his own slaves. He even provided them with land and wages after freeing them. [Source, Comments]

TIL Robert the Bruce, king of the Scots after the First War of Scottish Independence and Scottish national hero was from an Anglo-Norman family. His family rose to prominence among the first Anglo-Norman lords to hold land in Scotland. [Source, Comments]

TIL one of North America's largest known earthquakes, a magnitude 8.7-9.2 megathrust quake that struck the Cascadia Subduction Zone in 1700, went unrecorded, but its exact date was determined nearly 300 years later using Japanese records of a mysterious tsunami with no apparent source [Source, Comments]

TIL that up until 2014, Lazarat, a small village of less than 3,000 people in Albania, produced an estimated 900 tons of marijuana annually, worth €4.5 billion. It was nicknamed “Europe’s cannabis capital” [Source, Comments]

TIL Frogs' eyes don't just help them see they also help them eat. Unlike humans, frogs can't swallow in the usual way. Instead, when they eat, they retract their eyes into their skulls, using them to push food down toward the throat and make swallowing easier. That's why they blink when they swallow [Source, Comments]

TIL that Morton Salt merged with an aerospace rocket company to form "Morton Thiokol." After their rocket boosters caused the 1986 Challenger disaster, the public backlash forced the company to split up, spinning Morton Salt back into the independent table salt company we know today. [Source, Comments]

TIL that over half of South Korea's population and more than 52% of its GDP are crammed into Greater Seoul—which covers just 12% of the country's land. [Source, Comments]