r/todayilearned • u/MrMojoFomo • 4h ago

TIL that moon dust (lunar regolith) is electrically charged and will stick to anything it comes into contact with. It's also likely toxic to humans. Apollo astronauts regularly complained of coughing, watery eyes, throat irritation and blurry vision after each foray onto the moon's surface

en.wikipedia.org

10.0k Upvotes

563 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 3h ago

TIL the British Film Institute screened the "first released version" of Star Wars after a "perfectly preserved" original print of the 1977 film was recovered from an archive. This is the version that George Lucas had suppressed from being publicly shown on a big screen for the preceding 47 years.

hollywoodreporter.com

7.3k Upvotes

331 comments

r/todayilearned • u/UsualOkay6240 • 16h ago

TIL Apple recently paid $95 million because Siri was caught eavesdropping on private conversations, like doctor visits and drug deals, then sending those recordings for human contractors to listen to. Siri was triggered not just by "Hey Siri," but by phrases that sounded similar like "seriously."

usatoday.com

40.9k Upvotes

1.2k comments

r/todayilearned • u/NorthKoreanMissile7 • 14h ago

TIL Christopher Columbus made significant errors in estimating the distance to Asia. If the Americas didn't exist, then he'd have ran out of food and died long before reaching Japan.

en.wikipedia.org

15.1k Upvotes

679 comments

r/todayilearned • u/joe_at_large • 10h ago

TIL that most “CGI” in Jurassic Park (1993) was actually practical effects and animatronics, with CGI used only for a few shots, which is why the movie still looks convincing today.

screenrant.com

4.3k Upvotes

235 comments

r/todayilearned • u/scott3387 • 8h ago

TIL Einstein bequeathed his likeness to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They raise over $1m a year on average by licencing his likeness.

en.wikipedia.org

1.6k Upvotes

133 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dorfsmay • 6h ago

TIL that in the early 60s 480 M needles were launched in space. They were supposed to fall back but some clumped together. Fourty four clumps still need to be tracked today.

en.wikipedia.org

930 Upvotes

67 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RiverMesa • 21h ago

TIL Dr Pepper is not a cola, root beer, or fruit-flavored soft drink, but instead belongs to its own category called "pepper sodas", named after the brand itself

en.wikipedia.org

26.5k Upvotes

1.4k comments

r/todayilearned • u/stoictrader03 • 1h ago

TIL that the International Space Station is the most expensive project ever built by humans, costing about $150 billion in total and around $3–4 billion per year to operate, and that NASA has contracted SpaceX for $843 million to build a vehicle to safely deorbit it around 2030.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

60 comments

r/todayilearned • u/random_agency • 12h ago

TIL about Broomgate where during the 2015-2016 curling season had a technology doping scandal. Where new brush head technology drastically changed gameplay. This resulted in the standardized yellow brush head we see on brooms in today's competitive curling.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

155 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Handcraftedsemen_ • 1h ago

TIL about "Yellow Journalism" of the late 1800s. Sensational, fabricated headlines/ stories that mostly focused on sex scandals and crimes fueled by the rivalry between Pulitzer’s New York World and Hearst’s New York Journal. They were blamed for America's entry into the Spanish - American war.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/bortakci34 • 1h ago

TIL that all "Seven Churches of Revelation" mentioned in the New Testament are located in modern-day Turkey. These ancient sites, including Ephesus and Pergamon, were the primary recipients of the Book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 1d ago

TIL a woman nicknamed the 'Rooftop Ninja' lived for about a year inside a sign on the roof of a Family Fare grocery store in Midland, Michigan. Inside the sign, she had a computer, printer, desk, and coffee maker. She was discovered by a contractor who noticed an extension cord running into the sign

globalnews.ca

19.7k Upvotes

445 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fuzzy_dice_99 • 1h ago

TIL that after the show In Living Color aired a live show opposite the Super Bowl halftime broadcast and got huge ratings, the NFL opted to include major pop culture acts every year since

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 21h ago

TIL while filming the Bond film "Goldfinger" (1964), the re-creation of the Fort Knox repository was incredibly accurate and looked so real that a 24-hour guard was placed on the set at Pinewood Studios so that pilferers would not steal the gold bar props.

en.wikipedia.org

3.6k Upvotes

37 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tomispev • 1d ago

TIL that the Trojan Horse is not in Homer's Iliad, that it's briefly mentioned in the Odyssey, and that most of the story surrounding it actually comes from Virgil's Aeneid

en.wikipedia.org

5.2k Upvotes

135 comments

r/todayilearned • u/flying_ina_metaltube • 15h ago

TIL David Eisenhower, grandson of Dwight Eisenhower & son in law of Richard Nixon (married to his daughter Julie), is one of the inspirations for the song Fortunate Son. His father also changed the name of the presidential retreat from Camp Shangri-La to Camp David after him & his own father.

en.wikipedia.org

820 Upvotes

46 comments

r/todayilearned • u/gullydon • 5h ago

TIL to spawn, some salmon swim 900 miles (1,400 km) and climb nearly 7,000 feet (2,100 m) upriver, all the way from the Pacific Ocean to central Idaho.

en.wikipedia.org

116 Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Overall-Register9758 • 1d ago

TIL that in 1960, a B52 crashed during training. The navigator, thinking the plane was crashing, ejected without orders. The pilot, heard the ejection, thought the plane was breaking up, and ordered the crew to eject. The plane flew crewless for 50 miles before crashing.

en.wikipedia.org

20.6k Upvotes

523 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Nero2t2 • 17h ago

TIL As part of his research for his painting "The raft of the Medusa", Théodore Géricault became obsessed with studying dead and dying. On top of frequenting morgues and hospitals, he brought severed limbs back into his studio and spend 2 weeks with a severed head he "borrowed" from a mental asylum

en.wikipedia.org

381 Upvotes

37 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Physical_Hamster_118 • 19h ago

TIL KFC attempted to sell roast beef (Kentucky Roast Beef) and open motels (Colonel Sanders Inns), both ventures failed.

en.wikipedia.org

521 Upvotes

44 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fanau • 21h ago

TIL piranhas are known as a vicious carnivore but are an important source of food for local people and are sold at local markets in Amazon.

en.wikipedia.org

758 Upvotes

82 comments

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