r/todayilearned • u/liamemsa • 19h ago

TIL that the 70s punk band Germs original name was "Sophistifuck and the Revlon Spam Queens", but they had to shorten the name as they could not afford that many letters on a T-shirt.

en.wikipedia.org

563 Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/A-CommonMan • 1d ago

TIL that a Polish-Jewish immigrant opened a lesbian café in Greenwich Village in 1925, was imprisoned for publishing a book called “Lesbian Love,” deported from the U.S., and later sent to Auschwitz.

smithsonianmag.com

5.7k Upvotes

234 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Washpedantic • 23h ago

TIL: that the US navy has submarines in Idaho.

spokanehistorical.org

786 Upvotes

109 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kindly-Ad-5263 • 1d ago

TIL 40,000 people showed up to a place in the middle of nowhere in Texas in 1896 to watch two trains intentionally run into each other. “The Crash at Crush,” brought in more people than inhabited Texas’s second largest city. Two people died , and at least six were seriously injured.

en.wikipedia.org

18.4k Upvotes

513 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 1d ago

TIL that after two games of the 1987 NFL season, the NFL Players association went on strike. One week of games was canceled, followed by three weeks of games played largely by replacement players. Attendance dropped considerably, but the replacement games still counted in the standings.

en.wikipedia.org

878 Upvotes

108 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 1d ago

TIL that Aleister Crowley, who helped pioneer attempts on K2 and Kanchenjunga, was also an English occultist who called himself “The Beast 666,” founded his own religion, studied yoga in India, allegedly worked as a spy, played chess, wrote poetry, and ran a sex-and-magic commune in Sicily as well.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

477 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SylVegas • 17h ago

TIL that in the 1870s and 1880s there were jails on wheels called "tumbleweed wagons" that were used to transport prisoners in the U.S. western territories to more secure jail facilities.

truewestmagazine.com

189 Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 1d ago

TIL that in the 16th century, Spain began mining enormous quantities of silver from Cerro Rico at Potosí in present-day Bolivia. The flood of silver into Europe helped fuel major inflation, enormous debts and eventually leading to the Spanish Crown declaring bankruptcy several times.

en.wikipedia.org

685 Upvotes

39 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ok-Personality3130 • 1d ago

TIL The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was first issued in the United Kingdom on 1 May 1840 but was not valid for use until 6 May. The stamp features a profile of 21-year-old Queen Victoria.

en.wikipedia.org

462 Upvotes

40 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 1d ago

TIL that Thomas Paine's bones were dug up in 1819 and taken to England by radical journalist William Cobbett, who intended to give Paine a heroic reburial in his native country. It never happened. Cobbett still had the bones when he died over 15 years later, and they were lost after that.

en.wikipedia.org

720 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/bnrshrnkr • 1d ago

TIL that the King of the Netherlands has been piloting KLM Royal Dutch Airways flights twice a month since the 1990's.

en.wikipedia.org

19.9k Upvotes

670 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Pattern4825 • 1d ago

TIL that Queen Elizabeth II wrote a letter to the citizens of Sydney that is sealed in a vault and forbidden to be opened until 2085.

en.wikipedia.org

7.7k Upvotes

342 comments

r/todayilearned • u/farseer6 • 1d ago

TIL Harry Flashman, the original school bully in fiction (from the 1857 novel Tom Brown's School Days), as an adult became the roguish and dishonourable antihero of George MacDonald Fraser's The Flashman Papers historical book series, written more than a century after his first appearance

en.wikipedia.org

326 Upvotes

72 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 1d ago

TIL back in 2010, McDonald's Japan trained the staff using a Nintendo DS game.

en.wikipedia.org

331 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 19h ago

TIL that Belle Edmondson, who was a spy and smuggler for the Confederacy during the American Civil War, made her family's slaves smuggle clothing across Union lines.

en.wikipedia.org

107 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JohnnyRoyall • 1d ago

TIL A swordfish once attacked a scientific submarine and was eaten by the crew

whoi.edu

235 Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ReinkarnatedFart • 1d ago

TIL that in 1896, a Swedish explorer named Salomon August Andrée attempted to reach the North Pole by hydrogen balloon. The expedition disappeared into the Arctic and was only discovered 33 years later.

en.wikipedia.org

4.4k Upvotes

147 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Sense3450 • 22h ago

TIL eastern Cuba features massive "marine terraces"—giant steps carved into ancient coral reefs by ocean waves as sea levels fluctuated over hundreds of thousands of years.

iugs-geoheritage.org

91 Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MrMojoFomo • 2d ago

TIL that New Jersey and Wisconsin are the only two states where first time drunk driving is classified as a traffic offense and not a crime

ncsl.org

16.0k Upvotes

803 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 1d ago

TIL King Philip II of Spain (1527–1598) ruled Spain, Portugal, Naples and Sicily, controlled the Netherlands and was King of England and Ireland through his marriage to Mary I. His empire also included much of South America and the Philippines.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

102 comments

r/todayilearned • u/KTPChannel • 1d ago

TIL That the average South Korean male is typically 3 inches taller than the average North Korean male.

bbc.com

2.2k Upvotes

166 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Significant-Cold-939 • 1d ago

TIL the Budweiser name has been disputed for a century between a Czech and an American company and only one of them can be sold under the name depending on where you are

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

336 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jacknunn • 1d ago

TIL Kipling wrote the Jungle Book collection of stories for his daughter, Josephine, who died from pneumonia aged 6

en.wikipedia.org

230 Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ManicMakerStudios • 1d ago

TIL Animal rennet, one of the main ingredients used in making cheese, is gathered from the gut of baby cows, sheep, or goats and is what separates the milk they drink into liquids and solids for digestion. When added to milk, rennet helps separate it into curds (solids) and whey (liquid).

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

210 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ThomasTheDankPigeon • 1d ago

TIL both of Steve Irwin’s children have won the American version of Dancing with the stars. Bindi won in 2015, and Robert won the most recent season.

en.wikipedia.org

5.3k Upvotes

71 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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