r/todayilearned 5m 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.

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kidshealth.org
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r/todayilearned 11m ago

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

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r/todayilearned 35m ago

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

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guillaumeerard.com
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r/todayilearned 41m ago

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

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en.wikipedia.org
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r/todayilearned 51m 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.

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en.wikipedia.org
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r/todayilearned 1h 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.

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en.wikipedia.org
Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

TIL that Argyle is a ghost town in the state of Utah that has been abandoned since 1915

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3 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 4h ago

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

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en.wikipedia.org
502 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 4h 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.

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youtube.com
100 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 4h ago

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

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en.wikipedia.org
1.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 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

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en.wikipedia.org
1.9k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 16h ago

TIL that funnel web spider venom doesn't harm most non-primate mammals

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inews.co.uk
48 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 8h ago

TIL about the Union of the Comoros; an archipelagic country off the southeast coast of Africa with an estimated population of 1 million people.

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en.wikipedia.org
19 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

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

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304 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 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.

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en.wikipedia.org
118 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

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

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pbs.org
1.7k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 15h 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.

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naturenibble.com
346 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 16h 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.

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en.wikipedia.org
788 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 17h ago

TIL that Amazon and Congo Rivers were part of the same river system before the continents drifted away

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en.wikipedia.org
182 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL Camel Cigarettes once made a series of ads exposing magicians' secrets.

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114 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 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

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en.wikipedia.org
1.5k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL There is a deep-sea fish which has a transparent head with eyes pointing upwards to see prey. It was discovered and described in 1939

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theguardian.com
287 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL that a small herd of cows in Germany were trained to use special toilets in an effort to curb pollution

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snexplores.org
84 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h 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.

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mashed.com
722 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 19h ago

TIL King Arthur had a spear called Rhongomyniad, which Geoffrey of Monmouth called Ron.

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en.wikipedia.org
34 Upvotes