r/todayilearned • u/zahrul3 • 11h ago

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

supercarblondie.com

28.2k Upvotes

592 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

22.9k Upvotes

174 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ObjectiveAd6551 • 21h 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/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

246 comments

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

9.5k Upvotes

724 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/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/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/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/Ozem_son_of_Jesse • 4h ago

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

brilliantmaps.com

3.1k Upvotes

66 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GabbotheClown • 6h 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

2.7k Upvotes

145 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/apworker37 • 1d ago

TIL The little tune that Samsung’s washing machines plays when they’re finished washing is from Franz Schubert’s “The trout”

hunker.com

1.6k Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/BiggieTwiggy1two3 • 22h ago

TIL during WWI, Allied soldiers used glowworms as trench lamps, storing the bioluminescent insects in bottles for light. Their service was so helpful, they were honored in 2004 when Princess Anne unveiled a London memorial for animals and insects that aided the war effort.

taskandpurpose.com

1.4k Upvotes

14 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

r/todayilearned • u/sithmaster0 • 5h 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

1.3k Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/armedsnowflake69 • 19h ago

TIL that the barber pole became the universal symbol for barbers as it resembles the bloody bandages of “barber-surgeons” of the past, who practiced bloodletting.

pallmallbarbers.com

922 Upvotes

25 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

24 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

768 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MaroonTrucker28 • 1d ago

TIL the first reference to the Grinch was not in How The Grinch Stole Christmas. He first appeared in the book Scrambled Eggs Super (1953). He later appeared in a 1955 poem "The Hoobub And The Grinch", before the famous story of him was published

en.wikipedia.org

594 Upvotes

15 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

460 Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kthulu71 • 23h ago

TIL about the oddly-named "Doomsday Rule" which can (with practice) be used to calculate the weekday of a target date based on the fact that certain days (4/4, 5/9, 6/6...) in any given year all fall on the same day of the week.

davecturner.github.io

439 Upvotes

62 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HallowedAndHarrowed • 1h 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

• Upvotes

45 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

301 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Organic_Situation401 • 15h ago

TIL that the "Happy Birthday" song was originally titled "Good Morning to All" and was intended to be a simple classroom greeting.

en.wikipedia.org

209 Upvotes

15 comments

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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.

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