TIL in 2013, "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis was able, as an independent song, to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart without a major record label. It was only the second independent song to reach #1 in history at the time. [Source]

TIL that Sheb Wooley, famous for singing The Purple People Eater and voicing the Wilhelm Scream, also taught Roger Miller how to play guitar. [Source]

TIL that the person in charge of the Kamikaze defence of Okinawa, Admiral Matome Ugaki, flew the last Kamikaze flight himself. [Source]

TIL tea leaves have ~4% caffeine vs coffee beans at 0.9-2.6%. But coffee is brewed hotter and with more beans, so a cup of coffee still packs more caffeine than a cup of tea. [Source]

TIL Mississippi has more than 5 times as many fatal motor vehicle crashes (24.9 per 100,000 people) than Massachusetts(4.9). [Source]

TIL that Brittany, the region at the northwestern tip of France, has a Celtic culture distinct from the rest of France with their own Brythonic language. [Source]

TIL about Exploding Head Syndrome. It is a sleep disorder that causes a person to hear loud, imagined noises (explosions, bangs, screams, etc) or see light flashes before falling asleep [Source]

TIL that Australia is wider than the Moon. Australia's diameter is approximately 4,000 km, while the Moon's is only 3,474 km. [Source]

TIL that the largest class action lawsuit settlement was 206 billion dollars to be paid over 25 years. [Source]

TIL You shouldn’t rinse your mouth immediately after bushing your teeth. Fluoride strengthens tooth enamel, leaving it on the teeth for at least 15 minutes after brushing can help make the enamel more resistant to cavity-inducing acids. [Source]

TIL that sharks existed before trees. Sharks appeared about 400 million years ago, while the first trees appeared around 350 million years ago. [Source]

TIL that Harry S. Truman was the only combat veteran of the First World War to serve as President. [Source]

TIL Amy Hennig is a famous game developer celebrated for creating the narrative and cinematic foundations for the Legacy of Kain & Uncharted series. She directed and wrote Soul Reaver at Crystal Dynamics before joining Naughty Dog to lead the creator, director and writer of the Uncharted games [Source]

TIL that If you travel at 1g acceleration, you will be outside of the Milky Way in about 12 years. You will be outside the observable universe in about 54 years. And if you travel at 1.19g for 100 years, you could witness the heat death of the universe. [Source]

TIL China accelerated a magnetic levitation (maglev) train tech vehicle from 0-700 km/h (435 mph) in 2 seconds in 2025 [Source]

TIL the English word “set” has 430 different meanings listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, giving it the longest dictionary entry at around 60,000 words. [Source]

TIL At the height of the counter-reformation Pope Julius III made Innocenzo Del Monte, his illiterate boyfriend, a cardinal and kept trying to appoint him to advisory roles, ignoring all pushback. Even after his convictions for serious crimes, Del Monte managed to retain his position [Source]

TIL in 2008, Universal Music Group invested in a startup called Uber, a media-sharing platform that fizzled out quickly. UMG was left with the domain name and in 2010, Uber offered UMG 2% equity in the company for the domain. UMG sold its 2% stake back for $863,000 and its worth roughly $3.46B today [Source]

TIL William Shatner starred in the 2010 sitcom "Sh*t My Dad Says" based on a popular Twitter account featuring colorful, often profane comments made by the 73-year-old father of writer Justin Halpern. The show lasted one season. [Source]

Til 1in 5 measles cases will require hospitalization at an average cost of $43,000 per patient [Source]

TIL 99% of commercially produced citric acid is made through fermentation using black mold [Source]