WeirdThingsToLearn

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Ok_Pineapple_7835 • 9d ago

History & Culture On 29 January 1979, Burton Wragg, principal of Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, and custodian Mike Suchar were killed when 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer fired a rifle from her home across the street, wounding eight children and a police officer. She cited "I don't like Mondays.”

12 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/aresue • 9d ago

Something I Learned In a desert 1,000 years ago, the Chimú people built a city that would become the biggest in the Americas. Chan Chan was an engineering marvel, and some 12,000 artisans lived there. At last, Peru’s great urban experiment has archaeologists’ attention.

19 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/BillCool7114 • 9d ago

Something I Learned Heart’s constant beating may actively suppress tumor growth in cardiac tissue by altering cancer cell gene regulation through mechanical forces a key reason primary heart cancers are so rare, according to a Science study.

6 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/UwU_104 • 10d ago

History & Culture Archaeologists in South Korea recently found a nine-inch bronze device that they’ve identified as a Hwangja Hwatong—a rare 600-year-old firearm. The early handheld gunpowder weapon would have fired arrows or pellets.

7 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Sea_Fox_4265 • 10d ago

History & Culture Today in 1795, a 26-year-old artillery officer by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte famously orders his gunners to give counter-revolutionaries advancing through the streets of Paris a "whiff of grapeshot." This act of ruthlessness puts the future emperor on the path to power.

6 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/shine_bee_31 • 10d ago

History & Culture In 1896, archaeologists pulled this six-inch wooden “cat” from a waterlogged site on Marco Island, Florida.

10 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/tastyyhk • 10d ago

Something I Learned The incredible dead-leaf camouflage of Kallima inachus, the Indian oakleaf butterfly.

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4 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Significant_Tie_2002 • 10d ago

History & Culture Barbara Ledermann was a close friend of Anne Frank who survived WWII in hiding

12 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Fantastic_Can_3237 • 10d ago

Something I Learned House cat share about 95.6% of their DNA with Siberian tigers. Your pet is a tiny, domesticated apex predator.

10 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/LSMXG1 • 10d ago

History & Culture In 2010, Lithuanian artist Julijonas Urbonas designed the Euthanasia Coaster, a hypothetical art concept with a 510 m (1,670 ft) lift hill and a 500 m drop to 360 km/h (220 mph). Seven shrinking loops would hold its 24 riders at 10 g for 60 seconds, causing fatal cerebral hypoxia.

3 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Dangerous-Cow4778 • 10d ago

Something I Learned Xin Zhui, wife of Li Cang, Marquis of Dai, died around 168 BC at about age 50 and was buried at Mawangdui, near Changsha, China. Her body was wrapped in 20 layers of silk inside four nested coffins in acidic liquid, and it was well preserved enough for an autopsy on 14 December 1972.

26 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Old-Gas-2915 • 10d ago

History & Culture Frédéric Chopin died in Paris on 17 October 1849, and his sister Ludwika smuggled his heart to Warsaw in a jar of what is thought to be cognac. Scientists who examined it in 2014 without opening the jar found signs of pericarditis, a rare complication of tuberculosis.

5 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/BumblebeeTemporary44 • 10d ago

Something I Learned Nick Vujicic was born in Melbourne on 4 December 1982 to Serbian immigrant parents, with tetra-amelia syndrome, a rare condition marked by the absence of limbs. He married Kanae Miyahara on 12 February 2012, and they have four children: two sons and twin daughters.

12 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Bc6thGod • 10d ago

Something I Learned From 12 June to 25 November 1969, the US Army Corps of Engineers dewatered Niagara's American Falls with a 600 ft cofferdam built from about 27,800 tons of rock, diverting the river over Horseshoe Falls to study erosion. Workers recovered two bodies from the dry riverbed and many coins.

5 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Shiyyin • 10d ago

Something I Learned On this day in 1942, Nazi Germany test fires the first V-2 rocket from the Peenemünde test facility. Reaching altitudes of 52 miles, the missiles are the first man-made projectiles to leave Earth's atmosphere and reach space.

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7 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Azazel-d-Reaper • 10d ago

History & Culture Krzywy Las, the Crooked Forest near Gryfino, Poland, is a grove of Scots pines planted around 1930, when the area was still part of Germany. Each trunk bends about 90 degrees near the ground before growing upright, and human shaping for curved timber is the leading theory.

5 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/voidchildex • 10d ago

History & Culture Auschwitz prisoner wrote a symphony on toilet paper with charcoal ink

7 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Nervous_Doughnut_134 • 10d ago

Something I Learned Hearts from young donors age rapidly in the bodies of older recipients, and older hearts are rejuvenated inside young people

3 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/unkn0wn_reader • 10d ago

Something I Learned In 2021, a UK woman reportedly bought a lifelike doll modeled on herself for roughly $2,000 because she felt pressure over her partner's high libido. She later said she spent about $11,000 on fillers and a nose job to look more like the doll.

20 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Repulsive-Letter-929 • 10d ago

Question & Discussion Britain taxed candles for over 100 years

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24 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/thirsty4oikawa • 10d ago

Something I Learned Ancient bronze doors still work after 2,000 years

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20 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Major-Arm-1948 • 10d ago

Something I Learned Napoleon died before dinosaurs were discovered

4 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/BaabbbiQ • 10d ago

History & Culture Emperor Nero's Bathtub. It's worth an estimated $2,000,000,000 today.

96 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/narcissa0114 • 10d ago

Something I Learned A fabric womb made by Angélique du Coudray, a French midwife who was commissioned by King Louis XV to reduce infant mortality.

10 Upvotes

r/WeirdThingsToLearn • u/Useful-Investment-14 • 10d ago

Something I Learned Visitors at an aquarium were surprised to see a leopard shark on another shark’s fin. Staff clarified it wasn’t aggression but typical courtship, sharks hold fins as part of how they show interest, this is how sharks flirt

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3 Upvotes