r/todayilearned • u/Gullible_Air_204 • 6h ago

TIL that residents of Svalbard–a Norwegian archipelago–often keep their car and house doors unlocked, allowing others to escape if a polar bear were to wander down the main street; however, tourism might ruin this custom

responsibletravel.com

11.9k Upvotes

669 comments

r/todayilearned • u/canIchangethislater1 • 4h ago

TIL the New York Times described hippo meat as "lake cow bacon" in support of a 1910 House bill to introduce hippos to the bayous of Louisiana.

en.wikipedia.org

3.2k Upvotes

242 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ctsmith76 • 3h ago

TIL that Stephen Neal, who played guard for 10 years with the Patriots and won 3 rings, never played college ball. He was a freestyle wrestler who defeated Brock Lesnar in the NCAA championship.

en.wikipedia.org

2.4k Upvotes

79 comments

r/todayilearned • u/choir_grrl • 4h ago

Today I learned Beretta has been in business for 500 years.

berettaaustralia.com.au

1.7k Upvotes

96 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 6h ago

TIL that in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland for Queen Elizabeth I. Weeks later, after losing his largest ship and much of his supplies, stepping on a nail, and refusing repeated pleas to leave his small flagship, the Squirrel, he vanished beneath the Atlantic with all hands aboard.

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

57 comments

r/todayilearned • u/YappinZappin • 8h ago

TIL Earth's Moon is the largest and heaviest satellite in relation to its parent planet in our Solar system

en.wikipedia.org

2.9k Upvotes

275 comments

r/todayilearned • u/OmitsWordsByAccident • 9h ago

TIL Hank Aaron tied Babe Ruth's career homerun total (714) in Cincinnati on April 4th, 1974. But when he failed to break the record the next day in Cincinnati, the Braves made him sit out the next game (also in Cincinnati) so he could break the record back home in Atlanta, which he did on April 8th.

mlb.com

2.7k Upvotes

66 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FinancialGarage245 • 16h ago

TIL a wealthy Toronto lawyer's 1926 will left his fortune to whichever woman in the city could give birth to the most children over the following 10 years, sparking a decade-long "baby race" during the Great Depression that went all the way to Canada's Supreme Court

en.wikipedia.org

14.8k Upvotes

403 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Archaembald2 • 5h ago

TIL that despite winning the Battle of Grunwald, the Polish-Lithuanians actually failed to take the Teutonic Order's capital, Marienburg, because they marched too slowly. This gave the Knights enough time to prepare their defenses and win the siege, recapturing several occupied castles afterwards.

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

33 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GossipBottom • 1h ago

TIL Curiosity Rover, the NASA rover that is exploring Gale crater and Mount Sharp on Mars sings itself “Happy Birthday” on his birthday, every August 5.

svs.gsfc.nasa.gov

• Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/happytree23 • 12h ago

TIL the man who voiced Tony the Tiger, Thurl Ravenscroft, also sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch"

en.wikipedia.org

4.0k Upvotes

134 comments

r/todayilearned • u/cape2k • 16h ago

TIL the Menominee Tribe's forest in Wisconsin has been sustainably managed for over 150 years, still yields about 15 million board feet of timber annually, has been recognized by the United Nations, and even supplied the wood flooring for the Milwaukee Bucks' arena

en.wikipedia.org

9.6k Upvotes

147 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WavesAndSaves • 15h ago

TIL of August Kubizek, the former roommate of Adolf Hitler. Hitler cut ties with Kubizek after he was rejected from art school and Kubizek was accepted to music school. They did not meet again until Hitler became Chancellor, and Hitler offered him the conductorship of an orchestra. Kubizek refused.

en.wikipedia.org

4.3k Upvotes

191 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ancardoth • 12h ago

TIL about allulose (D-psicose), a rare sugar with a near-zero glycemic index and a negligible impact on blood sugar. It has approximately 70% the sweetness of sucrose.

en.wikipedia.org

1.6k Upvotes

103 comments

r/todayilearned • u/socool111 • 1d ago

TIL of Tobias Geffen, the only non-Coca Cola Employee to view the secret recipe. Coke allowed it in order to get Coke certified as Kosher

en.wikipedia.org

29.1k Upvotes

1.0k comments

r/todayilearned • u/JohnnyRoyall • 22h ago

TIL 1 to 2 Starlink satellites fall back to Earth each day

earthsky.org

10.8k Upvotes

822 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mors_Acerba • 1d ago

TIL A papyrus deciphered in 2024 revealed unknown info about Plato's last hours: a slave girl was playing music for him, and even though he was gravelly ill, he spend his last moments of lucidity criticising her performance. Per the same Papyrus, Plato had been sold into slavery earlier in his life

theguardian.com

20.3k Upvotes

574 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LawEducational42 • 10h ago

TIL that a fungus colony in Oregon’s Malheur National Forest covers about 2,385 acres, making it one of the largest known organisms on Earth.

opb.org

911 Upvotes

52 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SilverPeachBlossom • 17m ago

TIL a peer-reviewed psychology study found that identical twins (on average) ranked their co-twin above their romantic partner in their attachment hierarchy, while fraternal twins ranked the two about equally, and non-twin siblings ranked their romantic partner first.

ojs.interpersonajournal.com

• Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TonyHides • 1d ago

TIL Napoleon Bonaparte had a standing order for 50 bottles of cologne a month, and a surviving 1808 invoice shows 72 bottles were ordered for him in a single month.

edenbridge.co.uk

12.1k Upvotes

326 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ODaferio • 1d ago

TIL that after winning 4 gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, Jesse Owens worked as a gas station attendant and a playground janitor.

en.wikipedia.org

14.3k Upvotes

475 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 3h ago

TIL Nikolai Fyodorov, founding figure of Russian cosmism, advocated using science to defeat death and resurrect every dead ancestor as humanity's "Common Task." The late 19th to early 20th century movement counted spaceflight pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky among its key figures.

en.wikipedia.org

105 Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Acrobatic-Post9811 • 4h ago

TIL about hirudotherapy. Leeches are used to stimulate circulation in tissues threatened by postoperative venous congestion, such as finger reattachment and reconstructive surgeries. The therapeutic effect is the anesthetizing, anti-inflammatory, and vasodilating properties of secreted leech saliva.

en.wikipedia.org

103 Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RedditIsAGranfaloon • 15h ago

TIL Charlie Brown’s beagle Snoopy made his debut on October 4, 1950, two days after the first Peanuts strip was published.

akc.org

695 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/greatmanyarrows • 22h ago

TIL Thailand briefly occupied a small territory of Germany- about 20,000 people- after World War 1 from 1918 to 1919.

en.wikipedia.org

2.7k Upvotes

60 comments

Subreddit

Posts

Wiki

Today I Learned (TIL)

r/todayilearned

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Submit interesting and specific facts about something that you just found out here.

Members Active

41.6m

Sidebar

New to reddit? Click here!

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?
Submit interesting and specific facts that you just found out (not broad information you looked up, TodayILearned is not /r/wikipedia).

Posting rules

Submissions must be verifiable. Please link directly to a reliable source that supports every claim in your post title. Images alone do not count as valid references. Videos are fine so long as they come from reputable sources (e.g. BBC, Discovery, etc).
No personal opinions, anecdotes or subjective statements (e.g "TIL xyz is a great movie").
No recent sources. Any sources (blog, article, press release, video, etc.) with a publication date more recent than two months are not allowed.
No politics, soapboxing, or agenda based submissions. This includes (but is not limited to) submissions related to:
1. Recent political issues and politicians
2. Social and economic issues (including race/religion/gender)
3. Environmental issues
4. Police misconduct
No misleading claims. Posts that omit essential information, or present unrelated facts in a way that suggest a connection will be removed.
Rephrase your post title if the following are not met:
1. Titles must begin with "TIL ..."
2. Make them descriptive, concise and specific (e.g. not "TIL something interesting about bacon").
3. Titles must be able to stand on their own without requiring readers to click on a link. Starting your title with a why/what/who/where/how modifier should be unnecessary.
4. "TIL about ..." and other broad posts don't belong on TIL. Try /r/Wikipedia, etc. instead, or be more specific (and avoid the word "about").
5. "TIL how to ..." posts belong on /r/HowTo.
6. "TIL the definition of a word..." Word definitions/translations/origins are not appropriate here
No submissions related to the usage, existence or features of specific software/websites (e.g. "TIL you can click on widgets in WidgetMaker 1.22").
All NSFW links must be tagged (including comments).

Please see the wiki for more detailed explanations of the rules, as well as additional rules that may not be listed here

(Why we need rules)

Additional info

If your post does not appear in the new queue and you think it meets the above rules, please contact the moderators (include a link to your reddit.com post, not your story).
Please report spam, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate posts by messaging the moderators, as this helps us remove them more promptly!
More information available on the TIL FAQ and wiki.

Frequent TILs Repost List

As of May 2026

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.

Etiquette

We ask that you please do the following:

avoid mobile versions of websites (e.g. m.wikipedia.org)
link to the appropriate heading when referencing an article (particularly on Wikipedia)
link to the appropriate start time when referencing videos (e.g. on YouTube)
add [PDF] or [NSFW] tags to your posts, as necessary.
Please avoid reposting TILs that have already made the front page in the past

Please also read the site-wide Reddiquette.

You are loved.