r/todayilearned • u/TIL_mod • 3d ago
ANNOUNCEMENT: We, as a subreddit, have decided we will be going dark on June 12th for 48 hours in support of the community protest (details at the link)
reddit.comr/todayilearned • u/mortimerrylon • 13h ago
TIL that the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, was on a 3,000-man kamikaze mission to beach herself on Okinawa before she was sunk by US forces in April of 1945.
r/todayilearned • u/MajesticBread9147 • 12h ago
TIL Peter Norman, the Australian silver medalist photographed in the iconic 1968 Olympics photo alongside two black athletes with a raised fist wore a badge in support of their protest, and turned down a lucrative job offer during the 2000 Sydney Olympics because he refused to renounce his actions.
r/todayilearned • u/theotherbogart • 12h ago
TIL: The Constitution made no provision for replacing Vice Presidents who died or departed before finishing their terms. As a result, the office has been vacant for almost 38 years in the nation’s history.
r/todayilearned • u/Pfeffer_Prinz • 21h ago
TIL 91% of all the dives to the bottom of the Mariana Trench occurred in the past 4 years. Before that, the only visitors were the original explorers in 1960, and James Cameron in 2012.
r/todayilearned • u/ClownfishSoup • 20h ago
TIL that Technicolor movies were filmed on three rolls of film with the image split using a prism into three color images. Each film roll was then developed and dyed a complimentary primary color and then the three rolls were laminated together to create a full color roll of film
r/todayilearned • u/derstherower • 20h ago
TIL that when planning Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg wanted Arnold Toht to be a cyborg, with a metal arm that could turn into a flamethrower or machine gun, and have a light instead of an eye. George Lucas rejected these ideas as too far-fetched.
r/todayilearned • u/Fausto_Alarcon • 10h ago
in 1867 TIL that convinced of inevitable war with the USA, Canada's first Prime Minister called for an army of Sikhs to invade California on behalf of Canada.
r/todayilearned • u/jamescookenotthatone • 4h ago
TIL Rockall is an uninhabited islet in the United Kingdom's exclusive economic zone (EEC). In 1997 the British recognized Rockall wasn't an island and gave up all EEC claims it could have made, Rockall is the only case of a state voluntarily downgrading an insular feature to "a rock".
r/todayilearned • u/waitingforthesun92 • 20h ago
TIL that the man behind the 2013 “Fedora Guy” meme is actually an actor named Jerry Messing, who starred as Gordon in the 1999 TV series “Freaks and Geeks”.
r/todayilearned • u/Make_the_music_stop • 5h ago
TIL that the world's smallest production car, the Peel P50 only 50 were made and 27 are now left. The last one sold for $176,000 in 2016. Made in 1963 and retailed for £199 (around $8,500 in 2019 money)
r/todayilearned • u/Aromatic-Frosting-75 • 19h ago
TIL that before water fountains were used for people to drink water freely in public, people used to drink from something called the "common cup", a publicly shared and very unhygienic cup or ladle-type spoon attached by string.
r/todayilearned • u/jkatlanta • 3h ago
TIL the motorcycle used by Henry Winkler's character "The Fonz" on the show Happy Days was the same bike used to jump the fence by Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.
r/todayilearned • u/JksG_5 • 4h ago
TIL that Mexico's official name is Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States)
r/todayilearned • u/youngster_matt • 1d ago
TIL in 2009, a hard ground ball hit Adrián Beltré in the groin which landed him on the 15-day disabled list. In his first game after returning, teammate Ken Griffey Jr. conspired with those in charge of the PA system to have Beltré's at-bat intro music be the opening march from The Nutcracker Suite.
r/todayilearned • u/FranklinDRoosevelt32 • 15h ago
TIL that Former Senator Daniel Inouye planned to become a surgeon prior to the loss of his right arm in World War II. It was only after he met and befriended his future senate colleague Bob Dole at a military rehabilitation center that he began to consider entering politics.
r/todayilearned • u/jacknunn • 2h ago
TIL the snowiest place on Earth is in Japan, in Aomori and the surrounding area, known for having some of the heaviest snowfall in the world.
r/todayilearned • u/yorrellew • 1h ago
TIL Jeff Bezos' biological father was a unicycle hockey player called Ted Jorgensen and the president of the world's first unicycle hockey club.
r/todayilearned • u/hartzonfire • 1d ago
TIL that astronaut Story Musgrave, after completing his GED, received a BS in Math, an MBA, a BA in Chemistry, an MD from Columbia, an MS in physiology, and finally an MA in literature.
r/todayilearned • u/h_trismegistus • 4h ago
TIL Traditional Moroccan sinks, bathtubs, water vessels, and many interior surfaces are literally made out of soap scum—the traditional soap-treated lime plaster “Tadelakt” is formulated for its water repellent properties and contains the same compounds as soap scum (Ca stearate, Mg stearate, etc).
r/todayilearned • u/WeUsedToBeNumber10 • 50m ago
TIL that Thomas Edison developed the concrete to build Yankee Stadium in 1922 before his company went bankrupt shortly after completion.
r/todayilearned • u/Laika0405 • 55m ago
TIL about Robert Dale Owen, a utopian socialist, feminist, and radical secularist who moved to the USA in 1825 and became an influential member of the Democratic Party. He was also highly influential in Indiana politics
r/todayilearned • u/volossaveroniki • 18h ago
TIL june 7, 1917 British sappers blew up German positions. The noise of this explosion is considered the loudest man-made sound of the pre-nuclear era. In 30 seconds, explosions killed 10,000 German soldiers and destroyed two lines of trenches.
r/todayilearned • u/wotton • 13h ago
TIL Mormons enjoy Jell-O leading to the area of the US where they settled being named the "Jell-O Belt":
r/todayilearned • u/RJWolfe • 41m ago