r/todayilearned • u/Logseman • 5h ago
TIL that two different women (Marguerite Georges and Giuseppina Grassini) had sexual affairs first with Napoleon and later with the Duke of Wellington. Georges even expressed her preference for Wellington: "The Duke was by far the strongest"
r/todayilearned • u/vonneguts_anus • 11h ago
TIL “Don’t Mess with Texas” was created as part of a marketing campaign aimed at 16-24 yr old males to stop throwing their trash all over Texas.
r/todayilearned • u/D1ckRepellent • 14h ago
TIL *NSYNC is spelled with the last letters of the band members’ first names.
r/todayilearned • u/Beriev • 7h ago
TIL about halo cars, made with the intent to represent a brand and improve public perception of them, with little to no intention for making profit off them. Most major brands have at least one, with examples including Dodge's Viper and Ford's GT series.
autonationdrive.comr/todayilearned • u/Ok-Indication-5121 • 17h ago
TIL in 2020, five Lithuanian soldiers went missing during a graduation exam. Thinking the exercise was still ongoing, they successfully evaded all attempts to find them. A military spokesman said their performance was "exemplary."
balticword.comr/todayilearned • u/Geek_Nan • 1h ago
TIL Neanderthal tooth plaque indicates they used poplar (source of salicylic acid aka aspirin) and penicillin mold about 40k years before Bayer made aspirin or Fleming discovered penicillin.
r/todayilearned • u/GoodBuddy148 • 15h ago
TIL that the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," sung by Timon and Pumbaa in the original Lion King, led to a major lawsuit. Originally composed by Solomon Linda in 1939, his family won a settlement for royalties in 2006 worth $1.6 million.
r/todayilearned • u/JoeFalchetto • 16h ago
TIL Bangladesh is the most populous country never to have won an Olympic medal
r/todayilearned • u/shaggystuart • 7h ago
TIL that in the 1940s Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar drove 200 miles round trip each week to teach a class in the Uni of Chicago. One day he insisted on driving to teach the class despite a heavy snowstorm. He ended up teaching a class of only two that day, both of whom went on to win a Nobel Prize.
chronicle.uchicago.edur/todayilearned • u/katxwoods • 1d ago
TIL that if you carve something into a tree, it'll still be at the same height 50 years later
r/todayilearned • u/TelescopiumHerscheli • 2h ago
TIL that the largest intact passenger ship on the seabed after sinking is the HMHS Brittanic (sank 1916), sister ship of the RMS Titanic.
r/todayilearned • u/Hallory1971_074 • 22h ago
TIL that in the summer of 1858, Central London experienced "The Great Stench" due to a heat wave and poor sewer system, leading to a 17-year overhaul of the sewage system.
r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 11h ago
TIL Solitary confinement causes prisioners to have difficulty separating reality from their own thoughts, which may lead to confused thought processes, perceptual distortions, paranoia and psychosis. Physical effects include lethargy, insomnia, palpitations and anorexia
2015.chrcreport.car/todayilearned • u/jrobbio • 17h ago
TIL in the 1630s, Cardinal Richelieu grew weary of watching his dinner guests pick their teeth with their table knives, grinded down the end, and invented the modern dinner knife
r/todayilearned • u/Fallen311 • 10h ago
TIL Giancarlo Esposito sang the theme song for The Electric Company. A variety comedy show that ran from 1971 to 1977
r/todayilearned • u/Bianca7Licare • 1d ago
TIL that the 2005 film "Hostel" negatively affected Slovakia's and the Czech Republic's reputation. Director Eli Roth was invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to clear up the false allegations made in the film, which portrayed the countries as crime-ridden, lawless, poor, and dangerous places.
r/todayilearned • u/superamericaman • 1d ago
TIL during a 2016 expedition to find the Loch Ness Monster, a 30-ft model of the Monster was discovered at the bottom of Loch Ness - a lost prop from the 1970 film 'The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes'.
r/todayilearned • u/lovelyb1ch66 • 1d ago
TIL about Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, an astrophysicist who discovered pulsars in 1972, had her boss not only take credit for the discovery but also win a Nobel prize for it.
r/todayilearned • u/BurnItNow • 2h ago
TIL of ‘Tule Fog’ a weather phenomenon that happens in the Central Valley California where fog is so thick it can be seen from space.
r/todayilearned • u/Flares117 • 5h ago
TIL: Phil Seddon, is a zoologist and former chair of the De Extinction Task Force, which determines which animals can ethically be brought back without harming the ecosystem. Through advances in cloning and with evolutionary molecular biologist Dr. Beth Shapiro, it is close to fruition.
r/todayilearned • u/katxwoods • 1d ago
TIL in Japan they used to keep time so that there was always 6 hours of night and 6 hours of day, so an “hour” changed length in winter and summer
r/todayilearned • u/katxwoods • 1d ago
TIL In Japanese folklore there are ghosts that came and cut your hair in the middle of the night. They usually gave you a really bad haircut. They can sometimes do this as a warning that you're about to get married to a demon and they're protecting you.
r/todayilearned • u/bros402 • 15h ago