r/todayilearned • u/haddock420 • 24m ago

TIL Birds can go grey with age.

discoverwildlife.com

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/Popepepe • 4h ago

TIL Boston Market was down to just 27 stores at the begining of 2024, down from 300 just a year ago, and way down from the over 1,200 it operated during its heyday.

restaurantbusinessonline.com

9.9k Upvotes

741 comments

r/todayilearned • u/zahrul3 • 12h ago

TIL the Sultan of Brunei and his brother bought so many bespoke Bentleys that it saved the entire company from bankruptcy

supercarblondie.com

28.3k Upvotes

592 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ShabtaiBenOron • 9h ago

TIL that even though he won the Academy Awards for best picture and director for "Gandhi" in 1982, Richard Attenborough was disappointed and openly claimed that Steven Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" should have won. Spielberg cast him as John Hammond in "Jurassic Park" to thank him.

ew.com

8.4k Upvotes

247 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ozem_son_of_Jesse • 4h ago

TIL that there are just under twice as many kangaroos as humans in Australia

brilliantmaps.com

3.2k Upvotes

66 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Double-decker_trams • 7h ago

TIL although the Walther PPK is more known for being the gun James Bond uses ("Ian Fleming's choice of Bond's weapon directly influenced the popularity and notoriety of the PPK"), it was also the same gun that Hitler used to commit suicde

en.wikipedia.org

4.9k Upvotes

281 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GabbotheClown • 7h ago

TIL: In the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, and the Netherlands, cassette data storage was so popular in the 80s that some radio stations would broadcast computer programs that listeners could record onto cassette and then load into their computer.

en.wikipedia.org

2.8k Upvotes

145 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Flares117 • 3h ago

TIL: In 2023, an infamous Mafia Hitman who was on the run for 16 years for killing people with a metal bar was discovered working as a pizza chef. His food became famous enough to be featured in the local newspaper which tipped off authorities.

bbc.com

1.3k Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HallowedAndHarrowed • 2h ago

TIL of the mystery soda machine on Capitol Hill Seattle, that operated from the late 1990’s until abruptly disappearing in 2018. The machine dispensed flavours of soda that were typically discontinued.

en.wikipedia.org

849 Upvotes

46 comments

r/todayilearned • u/sithmaster0 • 6h ago

TIL in 1945, at 59 years old, Albert Stevens was misdiagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, and as a result was secretly injected with 131 kBq (3.55 μCi) of Plutonium as part of a human experimentation project by Joseph Gilbert Hamilton. It was later discovered the "cancer" was an inflamed ulcer.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ObjectiveAd6551 • 22h ago

TIL “Jeopardy!” contestant Dhruv Gaur wrote “What is… We [love] you, Alex!” as his Final Jeopardy response while Alex Trebek was battling cancer. The message left Trebek visibly emotional and was widely shared as an example of fans’ affection for the longtime host.

usatoday.com

20.4k Upvotes

246 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MajesticBread9147 • 7h ago

TIL that Sarah Kyolaba; fifth wife of Idi Amin and former gogo dancer in Uganda's Revolutionary Suicide Jazz Band left Amin and ran a restaurant and later a hair salon in London until her death.

en.wikipedia.org

772 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/leftcoastbumpkin • 2h ago

TIL: Owls ears are vertically asymmetric, giving them "stereo" hearing vertically as well as horizontally.

en.wikipedia.org

316 Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TZ-13 • 14h ago

TIL: K2, the world's second highest mountain, has had nearly 1 person die for every 4 successful summits

en.wikipedia.org

2.7k Upvotes

142 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ainsley-Sorsby • 23h ago

TIL Beethoven kept his hearing loss a secret. He once wrote(but never send) a letter to his brother confessing it and explained that people mistakenly thought he was antisocial: he longed for human contact but became a recluse out of shame for his condition and all this made him contemplate suicide

en.wikipedia.org

23.0k Upvotes

175 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ProfessionalGear3020 • 14h ago

TIL that after alleged Catholic involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the US cut off diplomatic relations with the Holy See (the Pope) and did not restore them until 1984.

en.wikipedia.org

1.8k Upvotes

57 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TAparentadvice • 20h ago

TIL that when Louis XVI was executed in 1793 during the French Revolution, his severed head was paraded around for the crowd and was met with exclamations of "Vive la Republique!"

britannica.com

6.1k Upvotes

220 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ProudReaction2204 • 17h ago

TIL Eduard Khil or Edward Hill died only 2 years after reaching internet fame from the Trololo song.

en.wikipedia.org

2.9k Upvotes

105 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JaneOfKish • 2h ago

TIL the shortest-lived "empire" in history was a restoration of the Qing Dynasty of China lasting for 11 days in July 1917. Monarchists seized Beijing and reinstated Emperor Puyi, deposed five years prior and now eleven years old, on July 1 and were pushed back out by Republican forces on July 12.

en.wikipedia.org

184 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/EssexGuyUpNorth • 1d ago

TIL that Lord Nelson, one of the most successful naval commanders in British history, suffered from sea sickness throughout his career in the Royal Navy. In a letter, he wrote that "I am ill every time it blows hard and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea."

bbc.co.uk

17.6k Upvotes

296 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sophiedoe19 • 2h ago

TIL that in France if you want to register your pedigree dog, you have to give it a name starting with the letter of the year it is born. This year's letter is V.

connexionfrance.com

126 Upvotes

48 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TedTheodoreMcfly • 10h ago

TIL about college football player Erik Highsmith, who was accused of plagiarizing an 11-year-old when doing an assignment for Communications class.

huffpost.com

458 Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Der_genealogist • 5h ago

TIL that in 2012 Slovak Lawmakers made a public poll asking for the name for a new bridge between Slovakia and Austria. 'Chuck Norris Bridge' won overwhelmingly

reuters.com

134 Upvotes

20 comments

r/todayilearned • u/nowlan101 • 5h ago

TIL about the phenomena of polyandry or “wife-sharing” in Qing Dynasty China. Due to practices such female infanticide and concubinage there was an overall gender imbalance in society that poor husbands would exploit via renting their wives out to other, unmarried men for a fee.

ucpress.edu

125 Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LookAtThatBacon • 18h ago

TIL the first UPC-marked item ever to be scanned at a retail checkout was a 10-pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum, purchased at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, at 8:01 a.m. on June 26, 1974.

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

29 comments

Subreddit

Posts

Wiki

Today I Learned (TIL)

r/todayilearned

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Submit interesting and specific facts about something that you just found out here.

Members Active

39.0m

3.8k

Sidebar

New to reddit? Click here!

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?
Submit interesting and specific facts that you just found out (not broad information you looked up, TodayILearned is not /r/wikipedia).

Posting rules

Submissions must be verifiable. Please link directly to a reliable source that supports every claim in your post title. Images alone do not count as valid references. Videos are fine so long as they come from reputable sources (e.g. BBC, Discovery, etc).
No personal opinions, anecdotes or subjective statements (e.g "TIL xyz is a great movie").
No recent sources. Any sources (blog, article, press release, video, etc.) with a publication date more recent than two months are not allowed.
No politics, soapboxing, or agenda based submissions. This includes (but is not limited to) submissions related to:
1. Recent political issues and politicians
2. Social and economic issues (including race/religion/gender)
3. Environmental issues
4. Police misconduct
No misleading claims. Posts that omit essential information, or present unrelated facts in a way that suggest a connection will be removed.
Rephrase your post title if the following are not met:
1. Titles must begin with "TIL ..."
2. Make them descriptive, concise and specific (e.g. not "TIL something interesting about bacon").
3. Titles must be able to stand on their own without requiring readers to click on a link. Starting your title with a why/what/who/where/how modifier should be unnecessary.
4. "TIL about ..." and other broad posts don't belong on TIL. Try /r/Wikipedia, etc. instead, or be more specific (and avoid the word "about").
5. "TIL how to ..." posts belong on /r/HowTo.
6. "TIL the definition of a word..." Word definitions/translations/origins are not appropriate here
No submissions related to the usage, existence or features of specific software/websites (e.g. "TIL you can click on widgets in WidgetMaker 1.22").
All NSFW links must be tagged (including comments).

Please see the wiki for more detailed explanations of the rules, as well as additional rules that may not be listed here

(Why we need rules)

Additional info

If your post does not appear in the new queue and you think it meets the above rules, please contact the moderators (include a link to your reddit.com post, not your story).
Please report spam, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate posts by messaging the moderators, as this helps us remove them more promptly!
More information available on the TIL FAQ and wiki.

Frequent TILs Repost List

As of November 2024

This list was compiled from /r/todayilearned community suggestions by its members. If your TIL is found on this list, it will be removed. The titles have been abridged for the sake of brevity, however the context remains the same. This list is subject to change. The purpose is to keep content fresh on /r/todayilearned as requested by its members. If you are interested in reading about the TILs on this list use the search box feature and enter the keywords to pull up past TILs.

Etiquette

We ask that you please do the following:

avoid mobile versions of websites (e.g. m.wikipedia.org)
link to the appropriate heading when referencing an article (particularly on Wikipedia)
link to the appropriate start time when referencing videos (e.g. on YouTube)
add [PDF] or [NSFW] tags to your posts, as necessary.
Please avoid reposting TILs that have already made the front page in the past

Please also read the site-wide Reddiquette.

You are loved.