Today I Learned 🎓

TIL that, on July 14, 2025, police arrested a 49-year-old Tennessee woman after they used AI facial recognition technology to identify her as a suspect in a North Dakota bank fraud. She then spent 5 months in jail before being released after her bank records proved her innocent. [Source]

TIL Electricity was a well-known phenomenon prior to Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment. The experiment was more about demonstrating that lightning was a form of electricity. The electrical nature of lightning had also been demonstrated a month prior in France by Thomas-François Dalibard. [Source]

TIL that Nat Turner interpreted a solar eclipse as a divine signal from God to begin planning his rebellion, the bloodiest slave revolt in US History. [Source]

TIL of Pizza Pacaya, a pizza restaurant in Guatemala that uses the active volcano Pacaya to cook its pizza. The founder said it took him five years to perfect the art of cooking pizza with a volcano, and that it has erupted twice while he was serving a pizza, with no one hurt in either instance [Source]

TIL that before the Black Plague, women brewed the majority of ale and ran the majority of alehouses in England. [Source]

TIL that Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are hydrologically one lake, and it is the largest freshwater lake in the world by area. [Source]

TIL That Peni Parker of the Spiderverse was co-created by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way [Source]

TIL Michael Jackson’s high pitched wasn’t his natural voice, his natural voice was deeper than the one he presented in public [Source]

TIL Philosopher Antonio Gramsci was less than 5 feet tall and severely hunchbacked due to a spine deformity. At the end of his 11 year imprisonment at the age of 46 he had arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, high blood pressure, angina, gout, and gastric disorders and was unable to eat solids [Source]

TIL that the lunar bag Neil Armstrong used during the Apollo 11 moonwalk was unknowingly sold at auction for just $1,000. After a legal battle with NASA over ownership, the bag was later sold again for an incredible $1.8 million. [Source]

TIL that the soleus muscle in the human calf acts as a 'second heart' (skeletal muscle pump), actively pumping venous blood back up to the heart against gravity whenever we move. [Source]

TIL that the Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber first saw combat in 2015, a full 59 years after it entered service in 1956. [Source]

TIL that your friends have, on average, more friends than you do. [Source]

TIL the Clacton Spear is the oldest known wooden weapon. It sat intact and undisturbed for 400,000 years before discovery in 1911. Since then, we’ve accidentally damaged it 3 times. [Source]

TIL:That Only Coutries From Europe and South America ever reached the men's FIFA World Cup Finals [Source]

TIL that Latvia has a 0.85 male to female ratio, the lowest percentage in the world. Over the age of 65, the ratio is about 0.5. As a result, a new “husband for an hour” industry has emerged, where Latvian women pay for services such as plumbing, repairs, and other services. [Source]

TIL that in 1921, over 10,000 armed West Virginia coal miners fought coal company forces in the Battle of Blair Mountain. After nearly a week of fighting, President Warren G. Harding sent U.S. troops, including aircrafts, to end the largest armed uprising in the U.S. since the Civil War. [Source]

TIL that the day that the 44th president of the USA was sworn into office, a Japanese city that shared his name celebrated the inauguration with women dancing the hula, a traditional dance from the POTUS' home state of Hawaii. [Source]

TIL Canada has a lake five times saltier than the ocean where people can float effortlessly like the Dead Sea [Source]

TIL Unscramblerer did a study on the most mispronounced words in the USA. Topping the list was the word "Gyro". The most searched human name was "Aoife". Condiments can be very tricky as "Worcestershire sauce", "Mayonnaise", and "Tzatziki all made the list for states. [Source]