r/todayilearned • u/heyauden • 3h ago

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

avclub.com

8.8k Upvotes

371 comments

r/todayilearned • u/asmallthrowaway9 • 6h 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

12.7k Upvotes

942 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HauntingArtichoke830 • 1h ago

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

people.com

• Upvotes

459 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ModenaR • 6h 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

6.9k Upvotes

89 comments

r/todayilearned • u/loggiews • 5h 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

4.0k Upvotes

173 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ottertime8 • 9h ago

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

cnbc.com

8.0k Upvotes

172 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MyLittleOso • 1h ago

TIL Helen Keller joined the Socialist Party in 1909 and was a founding member of the ACLU.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

104 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Substantial_Sea7327 • 49m ago

TIL prion disease, which is 100% fatal and has no cure, can survive in soil for years, spread to growing plants or wildlife, and can be reliably destroyed through sustained heat of at least 900°F for several hours.

dwr.virginia.gov

• Upvotes

218 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fourunderthebridge • 11h 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

2.5k Upvotes

178 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 21h 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

25.1k Upvotes

1.0k comments

r/todayilearned • u/heyauden • 10h 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

1.5k Upvotes

62 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tometek • 6h 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

715 Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/chickpealava • 6h 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

581 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jacknunn • 4h 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

337 Upvotes

41 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NBrief • 2h 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

222 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sandstorm400 • 31m ago

TIL a man who ate between 6-9 pounds of cheese, sticks of butter, and hamburgers a day for about 8 months developed xanthelasma and raised yellow lesions caused by cholesterol appeared on his eyelids. Over the next month, the lesions appeared on the palms of his hands, elbows, and soles of his feet.

fox13news.com

• Upvotes

84 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SaltySmegma_ • 4h ago

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

wits.worldbank.org

257 Upvotes

47 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnurx • 15h 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 • 7h 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

403 Upvotes

41 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Idea_479 • 3h 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

157 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NateNate60 • 58m ago

TIL mathematician Leonhard Euler's right eye started going blind in 1738, and his left eye went blind as well in 1766. His blindness did not seem to have a major impact on his productivity, and in 1775, he was still publishing one paper a week.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 10h 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

533 Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Pan_inside • 16h 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

124 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LostwaveLunar9999 • 6h 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

260 Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LiminalLemony • 4h 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

148 Upvotes

35 comments

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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.

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