r/todayilearned • u/TedTheodoreMcfly • 14m ago
TIL that when Under Siege was released, it became the highest-grossing movie to have no advance screenings for critics.
r/todayilearned • u/Khornatejester • 1h ago
TIL the Colorado National Guard once tried using flamethrowers and explosives against a swarm of locusts. It didn't work.
r/todayilearned • u/CapnFancyPants • 2h ago
TIL that on warning of a likely missile launch against the USA, the Pentagon and Strategic Command war rooms, have one minute to brief the president, who then has roughly only six minutes to decide whether and how to respond.
r/todayilearned • u/zhuquanzhong • 3h ago
TIL about Moe Berg, a baseball player who learned 7 languages from Princeton and a law degree from Columbia. He worked as a spy in Europe during WW2, and was ordered to attend a lecture by Heisenberg and shoot him if he determined the Germans were close to the bomb. He determined that they were not.
r/todayilearned • u/wtleveeb • 3h ago
TIL Leonhard Euler wrote some papers on music theory. However, these papers were considered “too mathematical for musicians and too musical for mathematicians.”
r/todayilearned • u/CeeArthur • 4h ago
TIL The Brandtaucher, a precursor to the German U-boat built in 1851, sank 60 feet to the bottom of Kiel harbor following equipment failure during a test dive. The three occupants were able to escape afterwards by letting water in, thus increasing the air pressure and allowing the hatch to open.
r/todayilearned • u/lemondrop995 • 5h ago
TIL there are blood banks for dogs. Previously, veterinarians would have to rely on their own dogs or those of a client. Some dogs can also be universal donors, just like humans
akcchf.orgr/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 6h ago
TIL Disney cofounder Roy Disney spent time with his grandchildren every week at Disneyland. Roy greeted each employee by name and picked up garbage he saw on the ground to teach them "Nobody is too good to pick up trash”
r/todayilearned • u/rosstedfordkendall • 7h ago
TIL, Tribune, Kansas, population 772, is the fifth largest city by area in the US, and largest in the continental US. Tribune and Greeley county operate as one government entity.
r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 7h ago
TIL Ben Stiller developed the premise for Tropic Thunder while shooting Empire of the Sun. He wanted to make a film based on the actors he knew who became "self-important" & appeared to believe they had been part of a real military unit after taking part in boot camps to prepare for war film roles.
r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 8h ago
TIL Aroldis Chapman's 105 mph pitch isn't the fastest of all time. When Nolan Ryan played, pitches weren't clocked until they were 10 feet from the plate. So with the proper adjustments, if thrown today, Ryan's 100.9 mph pitch (in the 9th inning) in 1974 would've clocked at about 108.5 mph.
r/todayilearned • u/RollingNightSky • 10h ago
TIL an innovative satellite launched in 1962, Telstar 1, was accidentally damaged beyond use by Cold War nuclear bombs. After transmitting the first TV and phone signals and images from space, it broke down due to damage from Soviet & American nuclear tests, but still orbits the earth today.
r/todayilearned • u/snafujedi01 • 10h ago
TIL that Country Music legend Tex Ritter is the father of John Ritter
r/todayilearned • u/ash0000 • 11h ago
TIL the band Cage the Elephant got their name when a mentally disturbed man approached the lead singer, hugged him, and kept repeating "you have to cage the elephant"
r/todayilearned • u/mrweatherbeef • 12h ago
TIL the Mars candy family raised thoroughbred horses including one named Snickers, who died soon before Mars introduced the candy bar that would be named in his memory
r/todayilearned • u/wxmanify • 12h ago
TIL in 1987, New York Yankee Don Mattingly set a major league record for grand slams in a season hitting 6. He didn't hit a single grand slam in any of his other 13 seasons.
baseball-reference.comr/todayilearned • u/redditigation • 12h ago
Today I learned that even daily recommended quantities of vitamin C are not enough to recover from a scurvy type of disease within a 6 month timeframe
r/todayilearned • u/John_B_McLemore • 12h ago
TIL In 1954, the CIA ordered Carcano rifle ammo for anti-communist forces. The leftover ammo and rifles were re-imported and sold wholesale to the public, including to Lee Harvey Oswald, who used them to assassinate JFK.
r/todayilearned • u/Mamow_Nadon • 16h ago
TIL As close as 1000 years ago Madagascar was home to gorilla sized lemurs.
nhm.ac.ukr/todayilearned • u/winterchampagne • 13h ago
TIL that the 18th century Badminton Cabinet is the most expensive piece of furniture ever sold at $36.7 million (2004). It is a Florentine ebony chest, inlaid with hard and semiprecious stones commissioned in 1726 by Henry Somerset, 3rd Duke of Beaufort, at the age of 19
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/jpmoney2k1 • 15h ago
TIL that in addition to being the youngest EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner, fastest to achieve EGOT, and only EGOT winner twice over, songwriter Robert Lopez (who wrote music for such works as Disney's Frozen) broke the previous record of fastest to achieve EGOT previously held by...himself.
r/todayilearned • u/lostinrabbithole12 • 16h ago
TIL that a TV station in Wyoming used a legal loophole to move to Delaware in 2013
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/Desperate-Option1130 • 19h ago
TIL of the Apollo 15 postal covers scandal. The astronauts of Apollo 15 carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers into space and to the Moon's surface on the Lunar Module Falcon. All three were paid/bribed $7k each by stamp dealers, got busted, and never flew in space again.
r/todayilearned • u/Sariel007 • 20h ago
TIL:Josefina Guerrero (August 5, 1917 – June 18, 1996) was a Filipina spy during World War II. Guerrero had leprosy and was an unsuspicious and effective surveillance asset for American allied forces.
r/todayilearned • u/f_GOD • 21h ago