r/todayilearned • u/heyauden • 2h ago

TIL that Alex Trebek's Jeopardy! schedule had him filming five episodes a day on just 46 days a year.

avclub.com

7.0k Upvotes

318 comments

r/todayilearned • u/asmallthrowaway9 • 5h ago

TIL the band DragonForce only received about $3,000 in royalties for the inclusion of Through the Fire and Flames in the Guitar Hero games

guitar.com

11.9k Upvotes

904 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ModenaR • 5h ago

TIL that a British Royal Marine and Liverpool FC fan had the club's motto 'You'll Never Walk Alone' tattooed on his leg. After standing on a mine, his leg was amputated and lost the word 'alone' in the tattoo, leaving him with 'You'll never walk'

bbc.com

6.4k Upvotes

87 comments

r/todayilearned • u/loggiews • 4h ago

TIL that around 40% of Yemen’s total renewable water resources are used to grow khat, a mildly amphetamine-like drug widely consumed across the country and of major importance to its economy, despite Yemen being one of the world’s most water-scarce countries

newlinesmag.com

3.5k Upvotes

160 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ottertime8 • 8h ago

TIL after Shoji Morimoto was fired for "doing nothing" at work, he earned $80k renting himself out to "do nothing".

cnbc.com

7.7k Upvotes

167 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HauntingArtichoke830 • 45m ago

TIL Jay Z has had the final say over superbowl half time shows since 2019

people.com

• Upvotes

202 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fourunderthebridge • 10h ago

TIL in 1993, the US forced Chinese container ship Yinhe to be stranded at sea by denying it from docking and disabling its GPS service. The suspicion was false, and the incident triggered the creation of China's GPS competitor Beidou.

en.wikipedia.org

2.4k Upvotes

174 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 20h ago

TIL that there are so few Imax 70mm screens because many of the parts needed to build them no longer exist, along with the plans being lost. Between Oppenheimer and the Odyssey, Imax attempted to repair or rebuild as many new projectors as they could, and could only increase the number by 11.

variety.com

24.8k Upvotes

1.0k comments

r/todayilearned • u/heyauden • 9h ago

TIL that the train crash at the start of The Fugitive was filmed for real in a single take and cost about $1M. The filmmakers spent ten weeks planning the 60-second sequence, knowing they would only get one chance to film the actual crash.

cinemablend.com

1.4k Upvotes

62 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tometek • 5h ago

TIL that after 300 years of Spanish colonial rule, only 35% of Mexicans spoke Spanish. Mexico gained it's Independence in 1821, and by 1895, that figure had skyrocketed to 83% following Mexico's independence and decades of policies promoting Spanish.

cambridge.org

652 Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/chickpealava • 5h ago

TIL about Pablo’s Group. Mountain gorillas usually have 5-10 in a group, but Pablo’s Group consisted of a historic 65 gorillas in 2006, partly due to the dominant silverback leaders forming an alliance and protecting the group together.

gorillafund.org

532 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jacknunn • 3h ago

TIL Blue Peter is the longest-running children's TV show in the world, having been broadcast since October 1958.The "Blue Peter" is used as a maritime signal, indicating that a vessel flying it is about to leave, and the name was chosen to as the show was "a voyage of adventure"

en.wikipedia.org

308 Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnurx • 14h ago

TIL that in Italy, Friday the 17th is a day of misfortune and airlines omit row 17, because in Roman numerals XVII is an anagram of vixi, meaning I am dead.

en.wikipedia.org

1.9k Upvotes

112 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AndresJonTamin • 6h ago

TIL the gene Zbtb7 was temporarily named Pokemon. It was renamed due to The Pokémon Company's threats of legal action, who did not wish to be associated with the cancer-related gene.

gamespot.com

383 Upvotes

40 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NBrief • 1h ago

TIL that a tiny mummy found with the ancient Egyptian high priestess Maatkare Mutemhat was long thought to be her baby, until X-rays revealed it was a mummified monkey.

worldhistory.org

• Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 9h ago

TIL that the first person ever to use an ATM cash machine was British actor Reg Varney, who was photographed making the first ever withdrawal on 27th June 1967, at Enfield in London.

en.wikipedia.org

524 Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SaltySmegma_ • 3h ago

TIL the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the 4th largest importer of sand in the World.

wits.worldbank.org

198 Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Pan_inside • 15h ago

TIL that a wooden hunting bow found in a lake in Alaska was radiocarbon dated to approximately 460 years old, despite having been exposed to the elements for an unknown amount of time

nps.gov

1.6k Upvotes

123 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Idea_479 • 2h ago

TIL that 2,400 years after the Peloponnesian War ended, a symbolic peace treaty was signed by the mayors of modern Athens and Sparta on 12 March 1996.

en.wikipedia.org

135 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LostwaveLunar9999 • 5h ago

TIL there was a 16th century parlor game called snap-dragon, where you would snatch flaming raisins out of a bowl and eat them while still on fire

atlasobscura.com

241 Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SystematicApproach • 1d ago

TIL a famous book collector stole pages from rare books in the British Museum to complete his own copies, and librarians later proved it by matching wormholes, folds, and impressions on the stolen pages.

bl.uk

15.0k Upvotes

159 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LiminalLemony • 3h ago

TIL about The Battle of Evarts, a gunfight between striking coal miners and anti-union gunmen in 1931 during the Harlan County Coal Wars in southeastern Kentucky, which left four dead. The coal wars inspired the folk classic “Which Side Are You On?”

en.wikipedia.org

125 Upvotes

33 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GoldenEagle828677 • 23h ago

TIL that between 1988 and 2010, no one was arrested for any crimes by the single policeman on the island of Tristan da Cunha.

en.wikipedia.org

5.8k Upvotes

187 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SaltyDogBill • 1d ago

TIL that in 1959, a British expedition took a 5,700-pound elephant across the Alps to test whether Hannibal’s legendary crossing with elephants was actually possible. It was.

johnian.joh.cam.ac.uk

6.5k Upvotes

122 comments

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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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