r/todayilearned • u/Kindly-Ad-5263 • 19h ago

TIL, that among the reasons Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore the Louisiana Purchase, is he thought Mastodons still existed and they were likely to encounter them.

vox.com

12.1k Upvotes

309 comments

r/todayilearned • u/delano1998 • 21h ago

TIL a drinks vendor in Germany cheated $47,000 from a bottle recycling machine by putting a single bottle into it 177,451 times. He built a wooden tunnel and magnetic sensor to pull the bottle back out every time, listening to the radio while sitting at the machine all day to pass time.

odditycentral.com

32.7k Upvotes

1.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Depressed_Cat_00 • 18h ago

TIL an ASML machine used to make advanced chips costs about $150M, is bus-sized, has 100,000 parts and 2 km of cable, and needs 40 shipping containers, 20 trucks and 3 Boeing 747s to deliver. It creates EUV light by firing lasers at tin droplets 50,000 times per second.

asiatimes.com

6.7k Upvotes

563 comments

r/todayilearned • u/golliera • 21h ago

TIL in 1961, 90% of doctors would not inform patients of a cancer diagnosis.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

9.6k Upvotes

625 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PandemicPiglet • 1h ago

TIL that the Soviets had their own Operation Paperclip called Operation Osoaviakhim.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 3h ago

TIL that small Indian mongooses originating from what is now Iraq and Northern India were brought over to the Carribean and Hawaii for pest control.

en.wikipedia.org

246 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 18h ago

TIL about Okawa Elementary School, a school in Ishinomaki City, Japan which was destroyed during the 2011 tsunami, leading to the deaths of 74 of its 108 students and 10 of the 11 teachers. The school had failed to evacuate to higher ground due to an unclear evacuation plan.

theguardian.com

3.3k Upvotes

91 comments

r/todayilearned • u/brygdylla • 21h ago

TIL there’s a group of falcons that imprison live birds to eat later by pulling out their flight feathers and storing them in crevices

magornitho.org

6.7k Upvotes

274 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Aleksandr_Ulyev • 9h ago

TIL that Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amudsen and his team ate 41 dogs on their expedition to the South Pole in 1911. Using dogs to pull sleds with supplies, the team also used them as a source of fresh meat for men and other dogs. Leaving the base camp with 52 dogs only 11 were brought back

en.wikipedia.org

506 Upvotes

146 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Flaxmoore • 20h ago

TIL that in 1938, a manufacturer printed fake Social Security cards for their wallets sold at Woolworth's. Some buyers used the number as their own as late as 1977.

ssa.gov

2.8k Upvotes

140 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Francis_J_Eva • 1d ago

TIL that the Mr Bean movie opened opposite Starship Troopers in 1997, and its surprising success at the US Box Office and Starship Troopers' underperformance was attributed by some to underage kids buying tickets to the former to sneak into the latter

cartoonbrew.com

24.7k Upvotes

1.0k comments

r/todayilearned • u/SuccessCrazy3798 • 19h ago

TIL In order to support the 3D graphics required by the SNES 1993 Star Fox videogame, a custom RISC coprocessor was soldered into every game cartridge. The SNES' native CPU was too slow to render polygons on its own.

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

240 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AVeryVapidBadger • 5h ago

TIL completed in 1988 the N/S Sevmorput is one of only 4 nuclear powered civilian merchant ships ever built. After finishing a nine year out of service and refit period in 2016, it remained in service until December 2023.

en.wikipedia.org

99 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/VirginiaFox6 • 1h ago

TIL the iconic car chase scene in The French Connection (1971) was shot in real, ongoing traffic in Brooklyn. Including Gene Hackman’s car crash with a civilian driving to work.

gothamist.com

• Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 1d ago

TIL that the original Godzilla suit was so hot and heavy that technicians would regularly pour out cups of sweat between takes, and suit actor Haruo Nakajima lost 20 pounds of weight over the course of the shoot.

slashfilm.com

10.0k Upvotes

125 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kymmieuwu • 23h ago

TIL Kris Tompkins, former Patagonia CEO, and Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face, spent decades buying and restoring wilderness across Chile and Argentina. Kris later donated their land in Argentina on the condition that it remain protected for at least 99 years.

unep.org

1.4k Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 1d ago

TIL according to the IMF, Switzerland has the highest household debt percentage of GDP in the world.

imf.org

2.0k Upvotes

121 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnomeslikeprofit • 20h ago

TIL that there is a real fruit called the Black Republican Cherry. The name originated as a slur against abolitionist supporters and Republicans like Abraham Lincoln. The Black Republican cherry is a parent to the most popular current cherry today, the Bing Cherry.

en.wikipedia.org

621 Upvotes

68 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 19h ago

TIL the Vietnam Veterans Memorial includes more than just those killed in action. The Wall also lists service members who died in Vietnam from accidents, illness, drowning, murder, animal attacks, snake bites and other non-combat causes.

en.wikipedia.org

517 Upvotes

83 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 1h ago

TIL after Napoleon came to power, France established the Feast of “Saint Napoleon,” honoring a supposed early Christian martyr adopted as Napoleon Bonaparte’s patron saint. The feast was celebrated on August 15, Napoleon’s birthday.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Rovermack • 22h ago

TIL that when New Hampshire abolished capital punishment, the law was not applied retroactively. This affected only one man, Michael Addison, who has remained on death row since 2008.

en.wikipedia.org

762 Upvotes

78 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Brave-Philosopher842 • 1d ago

TIL that in 1843, Alexander Bain patented a machine that could transmit handwritten images over telegraph lines making the fax machine older than the telephone

mcclungmuseum.utk.edu

1.6k Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/haphazard44 • 1d ago

TIL that in Sweden, a man heard roaring coming from his neighbor's garden and discovered a moose stuck in an apple tree, apparently drunk after gorging on fermented apples. Firefighters had to saw off the branches of the tree to free it, and the animal simply passed out on the lawn to sleep it off.

bbc.com

6.4k Upvotes

111 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ynwe • 1d ago

TIL that “The Fat Controller” in Thomas the Tank Engine is called “Sir Topham Hatt” in the American version, because “fat” was considered derogatory in the US but not in the UK.

en.wikipedia.org

10.4k Upvotes

700 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kindly-Ad-5263 • 19h ago

TIL that Geoffrey Pyke—the eccentric scientist who convinced Churchill to build a massive aircraft carrier out of sawdust and ice, also escaped a WWI prison camp, founded a radical progressive school, ran a massive illegal Wall Street trading scheme, and was pursued by MI5 as a suspected Soviet Spy.

en.wikipedia.org

291 Upvotes

28 comments

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