Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/tyrion2024 on 2025-07-24 09:09:01+00:00.

Original Title: TIL after meeting William Woods in 1988, Matthew David Keirans went on to assume Woods's identity for over 30 yrs. Woods tried to reclaim his identity during this time, but was stopped by Keirans which led to him spending 428 days in jail & 147 days in a psychiatric hospital before being exonerated.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/amateurfunk on 2025-07-24 05:15:04+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that cyclist Mario Cipollini, widely regarded as one of best the sprinters of his generation, disliked mountain stages so much that he would sometimes skip them entirely, all while releasing photos of himself lounging at the beach while the others struggled in the mountains.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/RkeiStudio on 2025-07-24 00:23:14+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/AdInevitable5096 on 2025-07-24 03:07:51+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that shortly after Bill Gates left Harvard to start Microsoft, one of his professors remarked, “He had moved to Albuquerque to run a small company writing code for microprocessors, of all things. I remember thinking, ‘Such a brilliant kid. What a waste.’”

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/shaka_sulu on 2025-07-24 01:33:59+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Careful-Cap-644 on 2025-07-24 01:25:58+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Christianity was the predominant religion on the island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen until the 16th century, a pre-Islamic tradition rumored to have been established by shipwrecked St. Thomas on his way to India who converted the native Soqotri in the 1st century

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Algrinder on 2025-07-24 00:55:22+00:00.

Original Title: TIL an FAA audit of the 737 MAX assembly process found that mechanics at Spirit aerosystems (A Boeing supplier) were using hotel key cards to check the seal of emergency exits, and Dawn dish soap as a makeshift lubricant for door seals and wiped off the soap with a cheesecloth to make it look clean

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/hamburgerfan9 on 2025-07-24 00:20:54+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Sanguinusshiboleth on 2025-07-23 22:56:37+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that the island of Tristan de Cunha is the southernmost inhabited British overseas territory but was originally deemed, in 1793, as not being suitable for habitation let alone as a proposed penal colony.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Krakshotz on 2025-07-23 22:44:40+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Pupikal on 2025-07-23 22:12:15+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Top-Significance9430 on 2025-07-23 21:56:40+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/executivekoi on 2025-07-23 21:51:41+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/More-Log-1393 on 2025-07-23 21:38:56+00:00.

Original Title: TIL about Christiane F., a teen drug addict at the Bahnhof Zoo (Zoo Station), a hotspot for drug trafficking and underage sex work in West Berlin. Her book is widely read in German schools to warn about dangers of drug addiction.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/NoAskRed on 2025-07-23 21:38:39+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/No_Raspberry6493 on 2025-07-23 18:11:27+00:00.

Original Title: TIL about Congo (1954-1964), a chimpanzee artist who drew and painted in the style of abstract impressionism and created 400 art pieces, some of which sold for over $25,000 dollars at a 2005 auction that included works by Renoir and Warhol

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Agreeable-Affect3800 on 2025-07-23 12:16:38+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/LookAtThatBacon on 2025-07-23 15:50:16+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/jakduff on 2025-07-23 16:59:27+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/RkeiStudio on 2025-07-23 15:07:15+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MrMojoFomo on 2025-07-23 15:03:06+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that the Portugese Man o' War (Physalia physalis) is not a single organism (like a jellyfish) but a colony of clones. The creature is made up of multiple genetically identical organism, each of which alters itself to take on a different form/function to create the individual parts of the colony

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/NewlyDiscoverdMe on 2025-07-23 15:17:34+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that pet cats form attachments with their human owners that are similar to the bonds formed by children and dogs with their caretakers. It's the first time that researchers have empirically demonstrated that cats display the same main attachment styles as babies and dogs

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/PenelopeJenelope on 2025-07-23 13:25:05+00:00.

Original Title: TIL about the Theory of Spontaneous Generation , a idea that maggots just spontaneously manifested themselves on decaying meat, which was widely accepted before Louis Pasteur discredited it and developed germ theory

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Crazy_Objective_7509 on 2025-07-23 11:20:11+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that South Korea’s constitution claims sovereignty over the entire Korean Peninsula and does not officially recognize North Korea as a separate state. Despite functioning as two independent nations since 1991, both Koreas claim to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/HomeWasGood on 2025-07-23 12:59:54+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that FBI agents advised radio stations not to play "Sixteen Tons" in the late 1940s because they considered it subversive and accused Merle Travis of communist sympathies. Tennessee Ford's version later became one of the best selling singles in history.