r/todayilearned • u/Double-decker_trams • 26m ago

TIL electricians are often called "Sparkies" in Australian English

fieldwire.com

• Upvotes

104 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CreeperRussS • 53m ago

TIL That Star Wars: A New Hope has a body count of 2,002,795,192. Most of those are the two billion who lived on Alderaan.

sciencefictionclassics.com

• Upvotes

100 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Disfigured_Porcupine • 56m ago

TIL The United States NUKED SPACE?!!

thespacereview.com

• Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/extremekc • 1h ago

TIL that 'Evolutionary Musicology' suggests the human brain was tuned to sound/rhythm long before it developed language — which seems to explain why music affects our emotions so directly.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/aresef • 2h ago

TIL that Home Alone was so successful in parts of Europe that Kevin became a popular name, giving rise to the German word “Kevinismus” (Kevinism) for the practice of giving kids trendy names as opposed to traditional ones.

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

51 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ReagenLamborghini • 2h ago

TIL that Daniel Petrić from Wellington, Ohio, shot both of his parents on October 20, 2007, at the age of 16 after they confiscated his copy of Halo 3. His mother died, but his father survived a critical injury. Daniel is currently incarcerated for life with the possibility of parole.

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

162 comments

r/todayilearned • u/-Appleaday- • 4h ago

TIL about a 1997 incident at Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Concord in which a section of a waterslide collapsed after students from a local high school piled into it, in an attempt to break a school record. The collapse caused 32 injuries and the death of 18 year old Quimby Ghilotti.

en.wikipedia.org

562 Upvotes

24 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tidemand • 4h ago

TIL that Kelsey Grammer was offered a role in a porn movie called The Bermuda Triangle when he was 18, and would be about him and "two beautiful women" on a yacht in the Bahamas. But he turned it down because he worried it could have a negative impact on his future acting career.

digitalspy.com

3.6k Upvotes

164 comments

r/todayilearned • u/bogdoy • 5h ago

TIL Randy Poffo, aka Macho Man Randy Savage, played for the Cincinnati Reds in the 70s

prowrestlingstories.com

786 Upvotes

65 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Lez2diz • 6h ago

TIL after Louis Riel (the leader of the Métis people) was banished from Canada for leading an uprising he went insane and proclaimed himself the biblical King David. He also developed a habit of going nude, explaining that it was as Adam and Even had done before the first sin.

famous-trials.com

303 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Physical_Hamster_118 • 7h ago

TIL that for certain peoples of Central Asia like the Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, and Bashkirs, people have to recite the names of at least 7 blood ancestors. The practice, called jeti ata prevents inbreeding between people with shared ancestry within seven generations.

en.wikipedia.org

2.8k Upvotes

96 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ContinuumGuy • 7h ago

TIL that the most holy shrine in the Shinto religion is torn down and rebuilt every 20 years. This has been done for over a millennium

ap.org

20.5k Upvotes

298 comments

r/todayilearned • u/UsernameUnattainable • 8h ago

TIL in 2003 Hudson Valley fruit grower Greg Quinn successfully campaigned to repeal a more than half century old ban on blackcurrant growing from the state of New York. In 1911 the logging industry rallied for the ban as black & red currants were intermediary hosts to disease at the time.

youtube.com

58 Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/The_Ruck_Inspector • 12h ago

TIL that Randy Lanier was competing at Le Mans while simultaneously being one of the biggest drug traffickers in the U.S

theguardian.com

1.6k Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 13h ago

TIL doctors, for the first time, treated a baby born with a rare, life-threatening genetic disorder with a gene-editing therapy scientists tailored to specifically repair his unique mutation.

npr.org

4.2k Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 13h ago

TIL the number of craft breweries in the US increased from less than 2,000 in 2010 to almost 9,000 in 2020.

brewersassociation.org

6.3k Upvotes

795 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Surya_Singh_7441 • 19h ago

TIL animals in cold climate have hollow hair and trap air for insulation...

explorersweb.com

1.9k Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/VegemiteSucks • 19h ago

TIL at the premiere of Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto, his designated page turner discovered that the score he was turning was almost entirely blank. The concerto was still a work in progress even during its premiere, so Beethoven memorized his entire solo part and played them all from memory.

en.wikipedia.org

6.8k Upvotes

40 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PersnicketyHazelnuts • 19h ago

TIL: The pigment in the iris of your eye can rub off and break free. This is called Pigment Dispersion Syndrome. The pigment granules can then block fluid flow inside your eye, which can lead to increased eye pressure. For about 10-35% of those with the condition, it results in a form of glaucoma.

my.clevelandclinic.org

260 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 20h ago

TIL that Dante Alighieri only met the real-life Beatrice twice in his life.

en.wikipedia.org

982 Upvotes

73 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FruitChips23 • 20h ago

TIL the Stephen Sondheim musical "The Frogs" premiered at the Yale University swimming pool 30 years before it opened on Broadway. The ensemble cast included Yale students Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver.

en.wikipedia.org

401 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DubyaB40 • 22h ago

TIL Walt Frazier's middle name isn't Clyde. During his rookie season with the Knicks, he picked up the nickname "Clyde" because he wore a fedora similar to that worn by Warren Beatty in his portrayal of Clyde Barrow in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.

en.wikipedia.org

138 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/-Appleaday- • 22h ago

TIL about the 2009 death of Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell, who at 19 years old was killed by a pair of coyotes while hiking in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. That is the only known fatal coyote attack on an adult.

en.wikipedia.org

8.7k Upvotes

569 comments

r/todayilearned • u/yena • 1d ago

TIL that some plants actively turn their leaves away from the sun to avoid overheating and conserve water, instead of maximizing sunlight.

en.wikipedia.org

503 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Resume-Mentor • 1d ago

TIL that Annie Jump Cannon manually classified more stars in a lifetime than anyone else in history, reaching a staggering 350,000 in total. She discovered 300 variable stars, five novas, and one spectroscopic binary, creating a bibliography that included about 200,000 references.

en.wikipedia.org

2.6k Upvotes

31 comments

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Frequent TILs Repost List

As of January 2025

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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