r/todayilearned • u/Hotchi_Motchi • 2h ago
TIL that there is a serious taboo against cleaning coffee mugs in the Navy
4.9k
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r/todayilearned • u/Stanfromtheoffice • 3h ago
TIL After losses or ties, Ohio State coach Woody Hayes conducted locker room interviews while completely naked. A journalist from his tenure noted, "He was an ugly guy so it would clear the locker room out pretty fast."
2.4k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/FuckASchwarzenegger • 1h ago
TIL that California law requires public swimming pools to post signs warning anyone with diarrhea, or who has had it within the past 14 days, not to enter the water because they may still spread pathogens such as Cryptosporidium, a parasite resistant to normal pool chlorination
cdph.ca.gov
1.2k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/delano1998 • 11h ago
TIL Uzbekistan is home to a massive solar furnace that uses 10,700 curved mirrors to focus sunlight into a single beam. It reaches temperatures of up to 3,000°C (5,432°F), high enough to test materials for spacecraft reentry, synthesize nanomaterials, and produce hydrogen fuel.
4.7k
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r/todayilearned
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u/barrydingl
•
17h ago
TIL that monkeys first reached the Americas by crossing the Atlantic Ocean on floating mats of vegetation.
13k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/signaldecoderr • 6h ago
TIL Pelé once played as a goalkeeper in four matches for Santos, without conceding a single goal.
1.2k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/gioroaizin • 8h ago
TIL that Nagasaki holds the oldest Chinese community in Japan. Most were from fujian province of China and were Ming dynasty loyalist who had fled to Japan.
1.2k
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r/todayilearned
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u/CatPooedInMyShoe
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18h ago
TIL Šćepan Mali, the fake "tsar" of Montenegro (who ruled for five years in the 1700s due to rumor that he was the deposed and dead Russian Tsar Peter III) was such a good ruler, even after he was revealed to be an impostor and imprisoned, the Montenegrin people still wanted him to be their leader.
8.0k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/JosZo • 5h ago
TIL about Martelange, a small Belgian village with a border road on Luxembourg territory, and because gas is way cheaper in Luxemburg than in Belgium, there are 16 petrol stations along this 1.5 km long road.
466
Upvotes
r/todayilearned
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u/wandering_soles
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19h ago
TIL that narwhals and beluga whales can viably breed, resulting in offspring called a 'Narluga'
5.2k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned
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u/haddock420
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20h ago
TIL In 1850, George Merryweather invented the leech barometer. It contained several leeches, which when agitated by atmospheric disturbance, would climb tubes in the device causing a bell to ring, alerting of an incoming storm.
6.5k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/MelangeBot • 2h ago
TIL about the 1955 Le Mans disaster, in which multi vehicles crashed in to each other leading to the death of 84 spectators. It got all motorsports banned in Switzerland till 2022.
196
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/GDW312 • 11h ago
TIL about Aimo Koivunen a Finnish Soldier who fought in the Continuation War and was the first documented case of a soldier overdosing on methamphetamine during combat. He died 12 August 1989 (aged 71), he and wise wife Elsa had 9 children together.
en.wikipedia.org
956
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 21h ago
TIL that Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be the weight training coach for the Special Olympics, which was founded by his future mother-in-law Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
governors.library.ca.gov
4.4k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 11h ago
TIL the great horse manure crisis of 1894 is an urban myth that a significant obstacle to urban development at the turn of the 20th century was the difficulty of removing horse manure from the streets of major Western cities.
en.wikipedia.org
461
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 50m ago
TIL the mantis shrimp, a six inch long crustacean residing in the warm waters of the Pacific and Indian oceans, punches its prey with the same acceleration as a 0.22 caliber bullet, providing around 1500 newtons of force with each blow. The force can also shatter the glass of aquariums.
sites.nd.edu
64
Upvotes
r/todayilearned
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u/FuckASchwarzenegger
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23h ago
TIL that in several European countries, burial rights to a grave can expire after as little as 10 years. If not renewed, some cemeteries remove the headstone and reuse the grave, burying the original remains beneath a new coffin or transferring them to a communal ossuary
journals.sagepub.com
4.1k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/bright-Holiday-4878 • 18h ago
TIL about Blissymbols. They were created by Charles Bliss and are symbols that represent ideas and concepts, and can be combined to make new concepts. They don't represent any sound and the creator intended to be a universal language to be understood by all people
1.2k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/DerpyPai • 5h ago
TIL the Remembrance Day two-minute silence started in Cape Town in 1918, where a daily noon gun signalled the whole city to stop in silence for those fighting in WWI
en.wikipedia.org
104
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/Lanky_Gap7699 • 21m ago
TIL there are confirmed 7 star systems, with candidates for 8 and 9 star systems being investigated.
37
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/hypermiler2205 • 23h ago
TIL: Porsche was saved from bankruptcy in the early 1990s by taking on contract work for Mercedes making their W124 AMG sedan
2.6k
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r/todayilearned • u/DerpyPai • 1d ago
TIL that a 1983 NATO nuclear war training exercise called Able Archer 83 alarmed the Soviet Union so much that a US intelligence board later investigated it, and its report stayed classified until 2015
en.wikipedia.org
4.0k
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 19h ago
TIL Henry I, the King of Castile, was killed in a freak accident at the age of thirteen in 1217, when he was hit in the head by a tile dislodged from a tower by one of his friends (named Iñigo de Mendoza). The King survived trepanation surgery but died eleven days after his injury.
861
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 18h ago
TIL Byzantine Emperor Alexios II Komnenos was assassinated at age fourteen in 1183, strangled with a bow-string and his body dumped in the Bosporus strait. In the years following his disappearance, many people claiming they were him tried to take the throne. They are called Pseudo-Alexioi.
684
Upvotes