TIL 8% of human DNA is made from viruses [Source]

TIL when Yuri Gagarin (the first person in space) landed on earth he had to ask where a phone was in order to let people know he was back on Earth [Source]

TIL according to Einstein's relativity, the past still exists: every moment is a permanent coordinate in spacetime. When his friend Besso died, Einstein wrote: For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future only has the meaning of an illusion, though a persistent one. [Source]

TIL about the hobble skirt, a short-lived fashion trend where the wearer's stride was impeded. They were directly responsible for several deaths. The fashion only lasted from about 1908 to 1914. [Source]

TIL Lenin believed Stalin was too crude and this defect was unacceptable for the position of General Secretary. He was looking for a plan in 1923 to remove Stalin with someone "more tolerant, more polite and more attentive towards comrades, less capricious, etc." [Source]

TIL that Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro), the Joker (Heath Ledger & Joaquin Phoenix) and Anita (Rita Moreno & Ariana DeBose) are the 3 characters whose portrayals won Academy awards for two different persons. [Source]

TIL Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama also worked in the video game industry. He was the character designer for Dragon Quest and helped developed Chrono Trigger. [Source]

TIL 2000 years ago, in order to build a high-quality cavalry force, the Chinese took the initiative to invade Central Asia and destroyed a Hellenized kingdom. [Source]

TIL that after French soldier La Tour d'Auvergne died in 1800, his name was still called at every roll call and a sergeant would answer "Died on the field of honor." Napoleon had honored him as "First Grenadier of France." [Source]

TIL Mississippi law imposes a penalty of 6 months in county jail and $500 fine, "if any man and woman shall unlawfully cohabit, whether in adultery or fornication.” For conviction, the statue states it is sufficient to prove the cohabitating couple is having “habitual sexual intercourse.” [Source]

TIL there's evidence that the left nostril tends to be more dominant and open, especially with right-handed people. It's part of nasal cycling, where one nasal is always more open than the other. They typically switch every few hours. [Source]

TIL WWE wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife and 7 year old son, then committed sucide in 2007. Doctors later discovered that his brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer's patient. [Source]

TIL about wholphins (portmanteau of whale and dolphin) an extremely rare cetacean hybrid born from a mating of a female common bottlenose dolphin with a male false killer whale. [Source]

TIL that after WWI, while much of the Ottoman Empire was carved up by the Allies, Turkey fought back and resisted efforts to partition Anatolia, leading to the modern Turkish Republic [Source]

TIL that with a score of 0.230 Middle Juba in Somalia is the subnational region with the lowest Human Development Index in the world [Source]

TIL that ties are possible at the Academy Awards. It has happened 6 times in history, most recently in 2012. [Source]

TIL Chronic Radiation Syndrome/Sickness (CRS) is caused by exposure to elevated levels of radiation(but not enough to cause Acute Sickness) for a period of weeks or months, resulting in wasting and scurvy-like symptoms. It is heavily documented in Eastern literature, yet rarely in Western sources [Source]

TIL in a 1995 Barbara Walters interview, Jim Carrey revealed that he turned down a $10 million offer to star in 'The Mask II' because his experiences on Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls convinced him that reprising a character he had previously played offered him no challenges as an actor. [Source]

TIL Taylor Swift sends flowers to Kelly Clarkson after every "Taylor's Version" album re-release to thank her for suggesting that Taylor "go in & re-record all the songs that U don't own the masters on". At the time, Taylor was upset that the masters of her first 6 albums were sold to a third party. [Source]

TIL the sole cure for late stage African sleeping sickness, arsenic, was suggested first due to an anecdote of a man who survived a snake bite using arsenic. Although arsenic has no effect on snake bites or most diseases, by pure chance it happened to be the cure to African sleeping sickness. [Source]

TIL that economist and philosopher Adam Smith was kidnapped by vagrants when he was 4 years old. He was later found unharmed [Source]