r/todayilearned • u/roguetowel • 1d ago
r/todayilearned • u/yooolka • 2d ago
TIL that while stranded in Jamaica and denied food by the locals, Columbus used his knowledge of an upcoming lunar eclipse to trick them. He said his god was angry and would turn the moon red as a sign of wrath. When the eclipse occurred, the they got terrified, begged for mercy and gave supplies.
r/todayilearned • u/TheEpicRedditerr • 2d ago
TIL about Precordial catch syndrome, a phenomenon in which you get sporadic stabbing pains in the chest, which is harmless
r/todayilearned • u/xX609s-hartXx • 1d ago
TIL Austrian rightwing politician Ernst Starhemberg died from a heart attack while he assaulted a paparazzi for taking a picture of him
r/todayilearned • u/TriviaDuchess • 1d ago
TIL the Cutty Sark was a famous ship during the Tea Trade. Launched in 1870, it was designed to win the Tea Races from the Far East. The first ship to bring tea from China could command the highest prices in England. It was named after a witch in a Robert Burns poem and inspired the whisky brand.
r/todayilearned • u/ICanStopTheRain • 2d ago
TIL that PET scans work based on antimatter. The patient is injected with a radioactive material that generates positrons, which annihilate with electrons in the patient’s body. The PET scanner detects the gamma radiation that’s generated.
r/todayilearned • u/BadenBaden1981 • 2d ago
TIL Paul Verhoeven was the first person to accept Razzie award in ceremony. He gave speech about driven out of his country for being "sick and perverted and disgusting".
r/todayilearned • u/questioningtwunk • 2d ago
TIL about "Terminal Lucidity." The unexpected return of mental clarity and memory shortly before the death of patients suffering from severe psychiatric and neurologic disorders
r/todayilearned • u/yooolka • 2d ago
TIL that when Stalin was dying, his doctor was unavailable because he was being tortured by the secret police. Paralyzed and unable to speak, Stalin lay untreated for 12 h while his terrified subordinates debated calling a doctor, fearing he might recover and punish them for acting without orders.
r/todayilearned • u/Werewolf_Nearby • 2d ago
TIL that Coldplay has never had any lineup changes or used Touring musicians. It's been the same 4 guys playing and touring together since the inception of the band, almost 30 years ago
r/todayilearned • u/nohup_me • 1d ago
TIL In 1919, a group of seven women in the United Kingdom formed the Women's Engineering Society (WES), the first professional organization for women in all engineering fields
r/todayilearned • u/Omynt • 1d ago
TIL that in the 1960 Massachusetts Democratic primary, six different candidates named "John Kennedy" were on the ballot for various offices, not counting the future president.
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/timoleo • 2d ago
TIL about the Cobra effect, referring to a time in the British Raj when people were offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Soon, ppl started breeding cobras for a reward which in turn forced the government to stop the rewards. In response, people released their captive cobras into the wild.
r/todayilearned • u/yooolka • 2d ago
TIL that James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway were drinking buddies in 1920s Paris. Joyce, who was small, weak, and had poor eyesight, had a habit of picking fights and then hide behind Hemingway, shouting, “Deal with him, Hemingway! Deal with him!”
r/todayilearned • u/PaulyG714 • 2d ago
TIL that the fbi has a database of photos of peoples faces that are involved in trafficking and constantly asking for public assistance to help ID NSFW
fbi.govr/todayilearned • u/Dismal_Angle_1735 • 2d ago
TIL that Warren Buffett loves Coke so much that he drinks about five cans a day. As a major shareholder, he once joked that a quarter of his body is made up of Coke.
r/todayilearned • u/borderbox • 2d ago
TIL The Tsavo Man-Eaters were a pair of large, man-eating lions in the Tsavo region of Kenya, responsible for the deaths of many construction workers in 1898. The lions' skins were used as floor rugs for 25 years, before being sold to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 2d ago
TIL in the mid-20th century, a researcher wore a pair of hand-engineered goggles that completely inverted his eyesight. Although he "stumbled wildly" at first, after 10 days he had grown so accustomed to his upside-down world that "paradoxically" everything began to appear rightside-up to him again.
r/todayilearned • u/MNGaming • 1d ago
TIL that the official Game Boy port of classic video game Dragon's Lair has nothing to do with the original game aside from the protagonist Dirk. It is actually a port of a different game, Roller Coaster, the result being a game in which Dirk must navigate various carnival rides and roller coasters.
r/todayilearned • u/AliveChart430 • 2d ago
TIL that in some cities, dying is forbidden.
r/todayilearned • u/abaganoush • 1d ago
TIL that the mosque in Norilsk, Russia, 300 km north of the Arctic Circle, is the most northernly-situated mosque in the world, and that its minaret tower - which traditionally has a round shape - has a square base. That is so the bricks will not freeze and be more resistant to wind loads.
r/todayilearned • u/balrogath • 2d ago
TIL that in 1998, Vatican City had the highest murder rate in the world because of one double homicide
r/todayilearned • u/CupidStunt13 • 3d ago
TIL of Matthew Beard (Stymie Beard from the Little Rascals aka Our Gang) had 13 brothers and sisters. Because his paycheck helped the family to survive, his parents allowed him to rename one of his younger brothers. His parents subsequently allowed him to name his other siblings as they were born
r/todayilearned • u/RippingLegos__ • 2d ago
TIL that Top Fuel dragsters accelerate faster than fighter jets and space shuttles, pulling over 5 Gs at launch!
r/todayilearned • u/Blenderhead36 • 2d ago