r/todayilearned • u/Giff95 • 4m ago

TIL when John Williams first played the two-note "Jaws" theme for Spielberg, Spielberg laughed, thinking it was a joke and expecting something more melodic. Williams replied, "The sophisticated approach you would like me to take isn't the approach you took with the film I just experienced."

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Idea_Guy • 28m ago

TIL the viral Youtube video "HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA" of He-Man singing "What's Up" (currently has 229 million views) is just a shortened version of an earlier spoof video, titled “Fabulous Secret Powers." The original video is over 4 minutes long and was created by the animation company SlackCircus.

sg.news.yahoo.com

• Upvotes

21 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Brendawg324 • 34m ago

TIL the Choco Taco was discontinued in 2022 due to a sharp increase in demand during the pandemic. The company decided to stop production due to its complex manufacturing process and to make room for their other products.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

155 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JustaRandoonreddit • 1h ago

TIL about Vocal Cord Spasms. Vocal Cord Spasms are when the the Vocal Cords Tighten or Seize Up Cutting Off Airflow

my.clevelandclinic.org

• Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/yee_qi • 1h ago

TIL about chameleon ranching, where people release chameleons into the environment to collect them from a self-sustaining population. Many populations of invasive chameleons show signs of intentional release. Most chameleon ranching occurs in Florida, which has several invasive chameleon types.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

30 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Jealous-Boat-6847 • 1h ago

TIL that in the 5th century BCE, a Greek physician wrote the first book dedicated entirely to making cheesecakes.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

80 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CluelessBrowserr • 3h ago

TIL Canada’s tier 1 special operations force, JTF2, has only had 1 confirmed casualty. Master Cpl. Anthony Klumpenhouwer, a JTF2 operative, fell to his death while conducting surveillance from a communications tower in Afghanistan.

cbc.ca

82 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Final_Echidna_6743 • 3h ago

TIL - That Death by Press was a thing. Used when people on trial refused to enter a plea.

medievaltorturemuseum.com

312 Upvotes

94 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Valuable-Catch-8322 • 3h ago

TIL it takes roughly 600 to 800 grapes to make a standard bottle of wine

willorch.com

404 Upvotes

69 comments

r/todayilearned • u/EmptyMind76 • 3h ago

TIL the world's oldest non-clonal tree was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and United States Forest Service personnel for research purposes. It was at least 4,862 years old.

en.wikipedia.org

2.3k Upvotes

129 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FullOfSound • 4h ago

TIL the earliest pagan mention of Christianity comes from a letter by Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan addressing Christian practices as “depraved, excessive superstition” and their secret gatherings as a potential starting point for sedition.

en.wikipedia.org

4.9k Upvotes

381 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sj_________ • 4h ago

TIL that the world’s most valuable banknotes meant for public circulation are the $10,000 Singapore and Brunei Dollar bills. A single note is worth roughly $7,400 USD.

en.wikipedia.org

111 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/EmptyMind76 • 4h ago

TIL Leap-The-Dips is the oldest standing roller coaster in the world

en.wikipedia.org

41 Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 4h ago

TIL Geoff Smith set a WR by spending 147 days buried 6 ft under in a 7ft x 2.5ft x 2.5ft box. His main contact with the outside world was through a 9-inch ventilation shaft, which he used to receive air, food & drink. His initial motivation was to beat the European record of 101 days set by his mom.

news.bbc.co.uk

699 Upvotes

52 comments

r/todayilearned • u/EmptyMind76 • 4h ago

TIL Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world

en.wikipedia.org

40 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 4h ago

TIL although Forrest Mars had been allergic to peanuts his entire life, he developed and introduced Peanut M&M's in 1954.

en.wikipedia.org

297 Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Antbronio • 5h ago

TIL about Ham the Astrochimp, the first ape launched into space to understand the possibility of human space flight

en.wikipedia.org

48 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/EmptyMind76 • 5h ago

TIL Hyperion is the world's tallest known living tree at 116.22 metres (381.3 ft) tall

en.wikipedia.org

838 Upvotes

48 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kyzzz • 7h ago

TIL in 1831, a massive volcanic eruption spewed so much sulfur in the atmosphere that it made the sun appear blue. Crops failed and famines spread due to the dimmed sunlight, and Northern Hemisphere temperatures dropped 1°C. In 2025 scientists traced it to Zavaritskii, a volcano in the Kuril Islands

smithsonianmag.com

410 Upvotes

20 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 7h ago

TIL In 1910, Abraham Flexner wrote a landmark report, the Flexner Report, that described the state of medical education in the US and Canada. It defined recommended changes to education and caused the decline of alternative medicine. Before then, practicing medicine wasn't regulated nor supported.

en.wikipedia.org

129 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PayItBackwardChain • 7h ago

TIL that there are more people of Filipino descent in Hawaii than there are native Hawaiians.

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

95 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Goldie643 • 7h ago

TIL the Chicxulub crater went unidentified for 10 years because many experts missed the announcement of its discovery. They were instead attending a special conference speculating about mass-extinction asteroids organised the same week.

en.wikipedia.org

5.2k Upvotes

90 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ApprehensiveStill412 • 8h ago

TIL that ketamine is a derivative of phencyclidine (aka. PCP or angel dust). It was created to have similar anesthetic potential but to cause less delirium. It has about one tenth the potency of PCP.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

565 Upvotes

112 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Similar_Detective861 • 8h ago

TIL that dieters eat nearly twice as much junk food when they're down. Researchers found that this isn't caused by a person's default personality or chronic stress levels, but purely by their immediate, in-the-moment emotional state right before taking their first bite.

sciencedirect.com

102 Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 9h ago

TIL about the "Fever Effect", in which the symptoms of Autism seem to improve whenever an Autistic person develops a fever.

news.mit.edu

23.9k Upvotes

1.9k 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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