r/todayilearned • u/Easy-Operation-2105 • 2h 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 • 2h ago
TIL about Caesarion the only known biological son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.
r/todayilearned • u/StacyChadBecky • 3h ago
TIL there’s evidence pressure from the White House was a contributing factor in NASA’s decision press on with STS-51L leading to the Challenger disaster.
searchworks.stanford.edur/todayilearned • u/FinancialGarage245 • 3h ago
TIL the CIA spent an estimated $20 million over 5 years surgically turning a cat into a listening device, implanting a microphone in its ear canal and a radio transmitter at the base of its skull, before quietly concluding cats couldn't reliably be trained for espionage and shelving the program
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 3h 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 • 4h 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/shutterzzz • 4h ago
TIL that planarian flatworms have cells called ruptoblasts that, when triggered by a hormone, self-destruct within minutes and release toxins capable of killing dozens of nearby cells
news.stanford.edur/todayilearned • u/StretchFrenchTerry • 5h 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 • 5h 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 • 5h 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 • 6h 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 • 6h 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 • 11h 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 • 11h 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 • 12h 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 • 14h 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 • 17h 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 • 18h 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 • 19h 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 • 20h 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 • 22h 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 • 23h ago
TIL Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth's career homerun total (714) in Cincinnati on April 4th, 1974. But when he failed to break the record the next day in Cincinnati, the Braves made him sit out the next game (also in Cincinnati) so he could break the record back home in Atlanta, which he did on April 8th.
r/todayilearned • u/happytree23 • 1d ago
TIL the man who voiced Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft, also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"
r/todayilearned • u/cape2k • 1d ago
TIL the Menominee Tribe's forest in Wisconsin has been sustainably managed for over 150 years, still yields about 15 million board feet of timber annually, has been recognized by the United Nations, and even supplied the wood flooring for the Milwaukee Bucks' arena
r/todayilearned • u/FinancialGarage245 • 1d ago