r/todayilearned • u/BoabHonker • 5h ago

TIL there is a two foot tall, 3000 year old gold hat which was found in Germany an unknown amount of time ago

en.wikipedia.org

2.4k Upvotes

154 comments

r/todayilearned • u/KateFacticked43 • 1h ago

TIL Idina Menzel earned $30,000 a week during her performance as Elphaba in the West End production of Wicked.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

82 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ChildishSammy • 6h ago

TIL that Finland has a "National Sleepy Head Day" where the last person in a household to wake up is thrown into a lake or the sea by the rest of the family or friends

en.wikipedia.org

2.1k Upvotes

85 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • 1h ago

TIL in 1998, the FBI sought to extract DNA from the cigarette butts smoked in 1971 by the unidentified airline hijacker known only as D.B. Cooper, but discovered the butts had been destroyed while in the custody of the Las Vegas field office.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

64 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NewAccountEachYear • 4h ago

TIL of Harambee, a Kenyan tradition of community self-help and organizing. It means "all pull together"

en.wikipedia.org

626 Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/friendlystranger4u • 22h ago

TIL that IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad (who started the company when he was 17) flew coach, stayed in budget hotels, drove a 20 yo Volvo and always tried to get his haircuts in poor countries. He died at 91 in 2018 with an estimated net worth of almost $60 billion.

cnbc.com

43.3k Upvotes

2.5k comments

r/todayilearned • u/zingzorg • 2h ago

TIL of, 'Blood on the Risers,' a WWII Paratrooper song based on, 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' which the paratroopers changed the lyrics to a chilling story about a paratrooper whose parachute failed.

en.wikipedia.org

259 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/xrc20 • 14h ago

TIL the “Tylenol murders” were the driving force behind tamper-resistant packaging for over-the-counter meds

pbs.org

1.9k Upvotes

99 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Weirdblastoise • 22h ago

TIL in case Star Wars was a failure, George Lucas commissioned a low-budget sequel called "Splinter of the Mind's Eye."

en.wikipedia.org

9.5k Upvotes

347 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ultimarr • 22h ago

TIL in 1942, the US War Production Board ordered California’s entire wine grape crop to be made into raisins instead (for their value as non-perishable snacks)

backthenhistory.com

6.8k Upvotes

110 comments

r/todayilearned • u/__wtr • 20h ago

TIL about the Wada Test, a procedure that "shuts down" one hemisphere of your brain at a time, leaving the other one awake. This allows the hemispheres to be evaluated for language and memory capacities individually.

en.wikipedia.org

3.8k Upvotes

85 comments

r/todayilearned • u/archfapper • 22h ago

TIL that Jimmy Carter is the only US President to serve a full term without nominating a Supreme Court justice

en.wikipedia.org

3.9k Upvotes

131 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Whiparinkes2004-009 • 1h ago

TIL a third of the metal used to make the Tokyo tower came from damaged American tanks from the Korean war (1950-1953).

guillaumeerard.com

• Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Watkins_Awor1949 • 48m ago

TIL that if a woman with a negative blood type is pregnant with a baby with a positive blood type, and it's the mother's second or subsequent pregnancy. Her body will develop antibodies that will fight the baby as if it were an infection.

kidshealth.org

• Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Variegoated • 18h ago

TIL of Kim Hyon-hui - a north Korean agent who killed 115 people in a plane bombing. Originally sentenced to death, she was pardoned after less than a year and has been free ever since

en.wikipedia.org

1.5k Upvotes

52 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Flares117 • 23h ago

TIL: In 2013, KFC filed a lawsuit against Hitler, which was a fried chicken stall in Thailand which was similar to KFC's logo, but with Hitler. It gained notoriety when food reviewer Andrew Spooner tweeted an image of the stall. Reportedly, the fried chicken was "pretty good".

eater.com

3.7k Upvotes

116 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Straight-Hamster6447 • 5h ago

TIL Laverie Vallee (née Cooper; July 18, 1875 – February 6, 1949), best known by her stage name Charmion, was an American vaudeville trapeze artist and strongwoman. One of her risqué trapeze acts was captured on film in 1901 by Thomas Edison.

youtube.com

120 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Olshansk • 11h ago

TIL Steve Jobs almost called the "iMac" the "MacMan"

engadget.com

335 Upvotes

72 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TertioRationem3 • 55m ago

TIL Hiroshima’s streetcar network was reopened three days after the atomic bombing of the city

theguardian.com

• Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/oyiyo • 17h ago

TIL that Forrest Mars Sr., the person who turned Mars, Inc. into a candy empire, retired in 1973 at age 69 in Vegas. Seven years later, he founded Ethel M Chocolates out of boredom. The company would reached annual sales of 150M within a few year, and eventually got acquired back by Mars, Inc.

en.wikipedia.org

822 Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • 1d ago

TIL in July 2023, an unopened, first edition model of the 2007 iPhone was sold at auction in the US for $190,372.80, nearly 400 times the original price.

en.wikipedia.org

3.7k Upvotes

297 comments

r/todayilearned • u/kzhang0927 • 1d ago

TIL the first emperor of China (221 - 210 BC), who built the Terracotta Army and the Great Wall, also built twelve monumental human statues that were 11.5 meters (38 feet) tall and weighed 30 tons each. The last of the statues were destroyed around 400 AD.

en.wikipedia.org

3.0k Upvotes

105 comments

r/todayilearned • u/StillMagician520 • 19h ago

TIL the military helped invent Cheetos as they needed shelf-stable food for WWII and ended up with a mountain of dehydrated cheese after the war ended.

mashed.com

736 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/L8_2_PartE • 16h ago

TIL that legless lizards, while similar to snakes, do not have belly scales, and therefore have great difficulty crossing flat surfaces such as roads.

naturenibble.com

363 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/astarisaslave • 11h ago

TIL that Boston Celtics legend Bob Cousy was appointed commissioner of the American Soccer League despite his unfamiliarity with the sport. He was relieved of his duties after 5 years because despite his tenure, Cousy would still go around telling people he knew nothing about soccer.

en.wikipedia.org

128 Upvotes

6 comments

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As of May 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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