TIL that a Los Angeles woman was once involuntarily committed after she insisted that the boy that she was reunited with was not her missing child. The story later inspired the 2008 movie “Changeling”. [Source]

TIL that in the late 1800s clam chowder was introduced in New Zealand as an "American" dish and has become integral to New Zealand cuisine [Source]

TIL that John Lennon came back from a 5 year recording hiatus in 1980 after hearing the B-52’s Rock Lobster. In his words, "[Rock Lobster] sounds just like Ono's music, so I said to meself, 'it's time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up!'" [Source]

TIL In medieval times the Byzantines used a giant chain to prevent enemy ships from crossing the Golden Horn, the natural estuary leading into Constantinople's harbor. Failing to break it, some invaders, including the ottomans in 1453, decided to carry their ships on land and circumvent it [Source]

TIL about Michel Siffre, who spend over two months in a cave (on more than one occasion) with no timekeeping devices of any kind in order to study how the human brain perceives time. [Source]

TIL Mars has five mountains taller than mount Everest [Source]

TIL that about 30% of people with depression have treatment resistant depression (TRD), which means they have failed at least 2 different types of treatment modalities. [Source]

TIL about war pigs: swine set on fire to repel enemy elephants [Source]

TIL that philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe believed that human consciousness is an evolutionary overextension, unnecessary for survival. He believed that humans developed four common coping mechanisms to dull our self-reflection and soothe our anxiety regarding our mortality. [Source]

TIL there is an old handwriting system that is faster than typing. Masters have reached up to 280 Words per minute! [Source]

TIL Thomas Jefferson's tombstone lists what he considers his three greatest accomplishments ... none of which are being President of the United States. [Source]

TIL puppeteer Frank Oz hasn’t worked with the Muppets since 2007 not because he wanna retire. In 2021, he stated: “I’d love to do the Muppets again but Disney doesn’t want me. They don’t want me because I won’t follow orders and I won’t do the kind of Muppets they believe in, The soul’s not there". [Source]

TIL that Ioannis Ikonomou is the Chief Translator of the European Commision, speaking 21 of the 24 Official Languages. He is also the only Translator trusted with classified Chinese documents, which he considers his favorite Language, but also the most Complicated. [Source]

TIL The tea ruined at the Boston Tea Party had a value in 1773 equivalent to $2.3 Million USD in today's money. [Source]

TIL that to prove the idea that Clark Kent wearing glasses was enough to hide the fact that he is Superman, Henry Cavill, who played Superman in the 2016 film "Batman v Superman", walked around Times Square wearing a Superman shirt in 2016, and no one seemed to notice him. [Source]

TIL about "headspin hole", a common scalp injury in breakdancers, caused by years of performing headspins. The repeated friction causes a cone-shaped "breakdance bulge" to form. [Source]

TIL the Drake Equation—the famous formula used to estimate the number of active civilizations in our galaxy—was never intended to be a "solution." Frank Drake originally wrote it in 1961 simply as an organizational agenda for the world's first SETI meeting. [Source]

TIL - The spray from your mouth when yawning is likely due to a phenomenon called "gleeking," which is the involuntary ejection of saliva from the sublingual glands under your tongue. This can happen when the muscles in your mouth contract during yawning, creating a stream of salia. [Source]

TIL Illinois school worker Vera Liddell was sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing $1.5M worth of chicken wings [Source]

TIL the eruption from a Coke and Mentos geyser isn't caused by a chemical reaction, but rather a physical one. The surface of the Mento has millions of cavities which serve as nucleation sites for carbon dioxide to desaturate from. [Source]

TIL: In 1876, Mary Lincoln thanked friends who helped free her from an asylum by giving them Abraham Lincoln’s handwritten note: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy." [Source]