TIL the last time a checkmate actually occurred on the board during a World Chess Championship match was in 1929. [Source]

TIL that carpenter ants don’t actually eat wood , they chew through it to build massive hidden colonies inside walls and furniture, sometimes causing structural damage that looks like termite destruction. [Source]

TIL Iceland has a higher proportion of English speakers than the USA, and Iceland has a higher proportion of English speakers than Icelandic speakers. [Source]

TIL that in 2023, scientists detected possible signs of a gas called dimethyl sulfide (DMS) in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b — and on Earth, this gas is produced almost exclusively by living organisms (like marine plankton). [Source]

TIL that as of February 2026, Starlink has officially hit the 10,000-satellite milestone, making up 65% of all active satellites. Scientists warn that a single major solar storm could knock out their navigation and trigger a "Kessler Syndrome" chain reaction, trapping humanity on Earth. [Source]

TIL that early audiences who heard "Black Sabbath" by Black Sabbath at clubs in 1970 were absolutely terrified of it. According to Ozzy Osbourne's autobiography: “All the girls ran out of the venue screaming. Isn’t the whole point of being in a band to get a shag, not make the chicks run away?" [Source]

TIL the creator of Little Nemo also created a comic strip aimed at adults where a character would eat a Welsh Rarebit (open faced grilled cheese) and then would be subjecting with absurdist, dark dreams until he woke up. This was 1904. [Source]

TIL that the Black Sabbath Debut Album: Black Sabbath was recorded in a Single Day and the band made it to the pub in time for last order [Source]

TIL about six Tongan boys who survived for 15 months on a desert island until they were rescued by an Australian fisherman. Unlike the novel Lord of the Flies, they co-operated to survive and lived in an abandoned 19th century settlement. [Source]

TIL Late in his reign, Marcus Aurelius decided to wave the fiscus, the tax on the sale of gladiators, thus making it cheaper to host games. The decision was so popular among the elite that the transcript of the senate debate was carved in stone and broze across the empire, via private initiative [Source]

TIL in 2016 researchers observed a female orangutan enlist the help of a male to kill another female. This is the first time a female orangutan has been observed killing another female. It's "highly unusual" that the female enlisted the help of only one other individual & also one of a different sex [Source]

TIL Teddy Roosevelt would regularly stage and participate in boxing matches, sometimes with professionals, while in the White House. [Source]

Til the amphibian ark, a program established in 2007 to collect amphibians before they go extinct with the goal of using these collections to stabilize or re-establish wild population facing extinction [Source]

TIL Pluto has not completed a full orbit of the Sun since it was discovered in 1930, and was named by an 11yr old girl. [Source]

TIL that Leonardo DiCaprio improvised the line “I’m the king of the world!” during filming of Titanic , and James Cameron almost cut it from the movie. [Source]

TIL Iran was a secular democracy until the USA and Britain overthrew their government in 1953 for their oil and installed the Shah. [Source]

TIL that in some parts of World War I trench warfare, opposing soldiers informally agreed not to fire at each other during quiet periods, a phenomenon historians call “live and let live.” [Source]

TIL that in 2010, a man in Georgia dislocated his jaw at Which Wich by attempting to eat their Double Wicked Sandwich: it consists of double-portioned beef, bacon, turkey, ham, pepperoni and three cheeses. The man declined to sue them, only wanting a new Double Wicked as his friend ate the original. [Source]

TIL that the first atomic clock, built in 1955, was so accurate it would lose only about one second every 300 years making it more precise than the Earth’s rotation. [Source]

TIL the San Diego Zoo grew out of exotic animal exhibitions abandoned after the 1915 Panama–California Exposition. It was cheaper to leave the animals behind than transport them back to where they came from [Source]

TIL over 40 years researcher Ian Stevenson, M.D, amassed 3000 cases of children aged 2-5 who claimed to remember past lives, recalling specific details like names, locations and events from the previous lives of deceased individuals. [Source]