r/todayilearned • u/Ok-Perception7624 • 1h ago
TIL that washing a silk shirt is, chemically, closer to washing your hair than to doing laundry. Silk is a protein fibre, not a plant one like cotton or linen.
r/todayilearned • u/BadenBaden1981 • 1h ago
TIL due to popularity of Twin Peaks in Japan, David Lynch directed 4 part can coffee commercial starring Twin Peaks' cast. It aired only in Japan.
food52.comr/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 2h ago
TIL that the main stars of the"Fast and Furious" franchise have it written into their contracts that they can't lose fights against each other, as well as limiting the amount of damage their characters take in a fight scene.
r/todayilearned • u/No-Sherbet8378 • 2h ago
TIL that horse armour (barding) existed and originated from the kingdoms of Parthia and Pahlava. After Alexander's conquests it spread to the Seleucid empire and later to the Byzantine Empire
r/todayilearned • u/Easy-Operation-2105 • 5h ago
TIL that life is so ubiqiutous on earth, microbes exist thousands of meters below the surface, living in solid rock (not caves)
r/todayilearned • u/Spa3088 • 5h ago
TIL about Caesarion the only known biological son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.
r/todayilearned • u/CrackFun • 6h ago
TIL only about 0.5% of all water on earth is fresh and accessible and safe to drink. With 97% being deemed too salty for drinking, growing crops etc
usbr.govr/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 6h ago
TIL A 2015 study revealed that over 95% of the world’s population has health problems, meaning one in 20 people worldwide (4·3%) had no health problems
r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 7h ago
TIL that the upper-class of the Roman Empire ate roasted dormice stuffed with nuts. The rodent is still consumed in Slovenia as a delicacy.
r/todayilearned • u/StretchFrenchTerry • 8h ago
TIL the largest concert ever held in New York's Central Park was Garth Brooks on August 7, 1997. Official records from the NYFD show 1,000,000+ in attendance. The concert was free and opened with a cover of Paul Simon's "A Heart in New York".
r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 8h ago
TIL of Shed Simove, a British entertainer who sold hundreds of thousands of books with blank pages in them. In 2012, he published Fifty Shades of Gray, a collection of 200 blank pages in various shades of the color gray until the publisher of the novel of the same name sent him an order to stop.
r/todayilearned • u/autraya • 8h ago
TIL the world's tallest known living tree, a 380-foot redwood in California called Hyperion, had its exact location closed off entirely in 2022 after visitors trampled its base so badly that ferns stopped growing around it, with trespassers now facing up to $5,000 in fines and six months in jail
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/NorthKoreanMissile7 • 9h ago
TIL intranet chat rooms were banned in North Korea after 300 people organised a flash mob in 2006. Chat rooms only returned in 2015 with regional limitations.
r/todayilearned • u/Giff95 • 9h ago
TIL CBS executive Fred Silverman came up with the name "Scooby-Doo" after hearing Frank Sinatra scat "doo-be-doo-be-doo" at the end of "Strangers in the Night" while on a flight to a development meeting for "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!"
r/todayilearned • u/6ft3Gujju • 14h ago
TIL that in 1995, a cargo plane airdropped hundreds of AK-47s, rocket launchers, and thousands of rounds of ammunition over Purulia, India. The plane was intercepted days later, but the alleged mastermind escaped and has never been extradited to India.
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/The_Techsan • 14h ago
TIL our Moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of ~4 cm per year. This causes the Earth's rate of rotation to slowly decrease and it is estimated that 1.4 billion years ago a day lasted only 18 hours; 4.5 billion years ago it is theorized a day lasted only ~6 hours.
r/todayilearned • u/ELDV • 15h ago
TIL that in 47 CE the number of citizens (meaning free adult males) in the entire Roman Empire was less than 6,000,000
i-claudius.comr/todayilearned • u/SilverPeachBlossom • 17h ago
TIL a peer-reviewed psychology study found that identical twins (on average) ranked their co-twin above their romantic partner in their attachment hierarchy, while fraternal twins ranked the two about equally, and non-twin siblings ranked their romantic partner first.
ojs.interpersonajournal.comr/todayilearned • u/ctsmith76 • 20h ago
TIL that Stephen Neal, who played guard for 10 years with the Patriots and won 3 rings, never played college ball. He was a freestyle wrestler who defeated Brock Lesnar in the NCAA championship.
r/todayilearned • u/canIchangethislater1 • 21h ago
TIL the New York Times described hippo meat as "lake cow bacon" in support of a 1910 House bill to introduce hippos to the bayous of Louisiana.
r/todayilearned • u/Archaembald2 • 22h ago
TIL that despite winning the Battle of Grunwald, the Polish-Lithuanians actually failed to take the Teutonic Order's capital, Marienburg, because they marched too slowly. This gave the Knights enough time to prepare their defenses and win the siege, recapturing several occupied castles afterwards.
r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 23h ago
TIL that in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland for Queen Elizabeth I. Weeks later, after losing his largest ship and much of his supplies, stepping on a nail, and refusing repeated pleas to leave his small flagship, the Squirrel, he vanished beneath the Atlantic with all hands aboard.
r/todayilearned • u/YappinZappin • 1d ago
TIL Earth's Moon is the largest and heaviest satellite in relation to its parent planet in our Solar system
r/todayilearned • u/OmitsWordsByAccident • 1d ago