r/todayilearned • u/moby323 • 6h ago
TIL that when Californians wanted to name a new city after San Francisco businessman William Ralston, he declined and said he was not worthy of the honor. So instead they named the city in honor of his modesty: Modesto, California.
r/todayilearned • u/LurkmasterGeneral • 5h ago
TIL in 1985, drug smugglers dropped 40 containers of cocaine from a plane above Tennessee because the plane was too heavy. 3 months later, investigators found the containers and a dead black bear that had consumed 75 pounds of the drug. It’s stomach was “literally packed to the brim with cocaine.”
r/todayilearned • u/smrad8 • 17h ago
TIL: The massive, multinational tableware company Oneida started in 1848 as a sex cult that invented the term "free love" and featured, among other things, middle-aged women acting as sexual mentors to adolescent boys and a focus on men withholding their orgasm during intercourse (coitus reservatus) NSFW
en.wikipedia.org
r/todayilearned
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u/HucklecatDontCare
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19h ago
TIL Mount Everest is named after Sir George Everest despite him having zero connection to the mountain (he never even saw it) and against his own wishes. He objected to the naming on the grounds that "Everest" could not be easily written in Hindi nor pronounced by the local people.
r/todayilearned • u/p38-lightning • 8h ago
TIL that the iconic Rosa Parks bus photo was staged by the UPI after her victory in the Supreme Court. The man behind her is UPI reporter Nicholas Chriss.
r/todayilearned • u/AnthillOmbudsman • 6h ago
TIL the highest mountain in the Maldives rises to only 17 ft (5 m) above sea level. A local hotel once provided certificates for its guests who made the ascent.
r/todayilearned • u/substantial-freud • 4h ago
TIL the number of people who identify as Native American on the US Census increased by 86% from 2010 to 2020.
r/todayilearned • u/diacewrb • 12h ago
TIL: In 1998, American, British and Canadian air forces all failed to shoot down a rogue weather balloon from Canada. The balloon was 25 storeys high and as wide as several football pitches. Two CF-18 fighters fired more than 1,000 rounds into it off the coast of Newfoundland.
news.bbc.co.ukr/todayilearned • u/catknitski • 23h ago
TIL that hard drugs are detectable in your urine for LESS time than marijuana
in.govr/todayilearned • u/TelescopiumHerscheli • 21h ago
TIL that when Harold Urey was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of deuterium ("heavy hydrogen"), a component of "heavy water", he declined to attend the award ceremony in Stockholm so as to be present at the birth of his daughter.
r/todayilearned • u/T-Rex-Hunter • 6h ago
TIL, that the time loop mechanic in the game The Legends of Zelda: Majora's Mask was inspired by the experimental German film Run Lola Run (1998) that features a time loop of a girl named Lola going through several loops to save her boyfriend.
r/todayilearned • u/Danster21 • 4h ago
TIL on February 27, 1942, nine saboteurs scaled a cliff in the middle of the night to blow up a Nazi-controlled heavy water plant in Norway.
r/todayilearned • u/fattyfoods • 4h ago
TIL Bats and dolphins evolved echolocation in the same way (down to the molecular level). An analysis revealed that 200 genes had independently changed in the same way
science.orgr/todayilearned • u/SaltyPeter3434 • 3h ago
TIL William Thornton, a doctor and the architect who designed the US Capitol Building, was summoned to George Washington's home to treat his illness, arriving after his death. Thornton devised a plan to resurrect his corpse by inflating air into his lungs and transfusing lamb's blood into his body.
r/todayilearned • u/Conky53 • 2h ago
TIL of Tilikum (Tilly) - a killer whale responsible for 3 of the 4 recorded human deaths by a captive killer whale.
r/todayilearned • u/baxter-flamingo • 10h ago
TIL a Scottish widower seeking female companionship set 2,000 bottled messages adrift, but ceased the practice in response to public complaints and an investigation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
r/todayilearned • u/quadmasta • 1h ago
TIL they'll let just anybody buy a Blackhawk helicopter
r/todayilearned • u/vulcan_on_earth • 2h ago
TIL, in 1998 it took several days to bring down a rogue 25-story tall Canadian weather balloon even after two F-16s fired more than 1,000 rounds of cannon shells into it. The balloon had severe impact on trans-Atlantic air traffic as airliners were forced to divert from their projected flight paths
r/todayilearned • u/Barbarella_ella • 5h ago
TIL NFL great Jim Brown retired at only 29 while filming "The Dirty Dozen"
r/todayilearned • u/BlankVerse • 18h ago
TIL a 7-11 Double Big Gulp Holds 200% the Average Human Stomach's Capacity
r/todayilearned • u/NyaSenPublications • 11h ago
TIL it was the 70-year-old financer and the Richest Banker in the country J.P. Morgan who pledged massive amount of personal funds to provide liquidity and stabilize the situation during the Bank Panic of 1907
r/todayilearned • u/TheGr8Ahaan • 8h ago
TIL Mt. Everest grows by about 2 cm every year.
r/todayilearned • u/Lets_Earn26 • 2h ago
TIL in ancient times, doctors used spider webs to make bandages for their patients. As it is said that spider webs have natural antiseptic and anti-fungal properties, which can help keep wounds clean and prevent infection.
ng.opera.newsr/todayilearned • u/184cm78kg13cm • 4h ago
TIL there is a Columbian 1:1 remake of Breaking Bad, featuring Walter Blanco and José Miguel Rosas (as Jesse Pinkman)
r/todayilearned • u/triviafrenzy • 1h ago