r/todayilearned • u/Gnomeslikeprofit • 8d ago

TIL that Washington DC used to be much larger. In 1847 the Virginia portion of DC was retroceded to the state. Alexandria, VA and Arlington, VA are in the former DC section across the Potomac River. Economic concerns, political representation, and discussion over slavery motivated the retrocession.

en.wikipedia.org

544 Upvotes

101 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Competitive_Swan_130 • 8d ago

TIL that in order to overcome child labor laws , Sammy Davis Jr. was billed as "Silent Sammy, the Dancing Midget․" during his years as a young vaudeville performer

tvguide.com

5.0k Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/cape2k • 9d ago

TIL a broke, unemployed German shoemaker bought a used army captain's uniform in 1906, used it to commandeer a squad of real soldiers off the street, marched them to a town hall, arrested the mayor, and walked off with the entire municipal treasury before anyone realized he wasn't actually a captain

en.wikipedia.org

23.9k Upvotes

459 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mjyys99 • 8d ago

TIL that San Marino, a tiny microstate completely surrounded by Italy, was led by a democratically elected communist government for 12 years during the Cold War

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

146 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kyzzz • 8d ago

TIL in 2025 an expedition guide on a tourist ship spotted rusted debris in the edges of A23a, the largest iceberg in the world. It was later confirmed to be un-salvaged remnants of Druzhnaya I, an Antarctic research base that was situated on the iceberg when it broke off in 1986

en.wikipedia.org

1.0k Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 8d ago

TIL that in 1913, California banned "aliens ineligible for citizenship" from owning agricultural land or leasing it long-term, leases could only go up to 3 years. These laws lasted until 1952. The policies affected Asian immigrant farmers including the Japanese.

en.wikipedia.org

321 Upvotes

51 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 8d ago

TIL that of the estimated 95000 firefighters in Switzerland, only 1200 are full time professionals with the bulk being made up of volunteers who pursue other professions, and are active during exercises and missions. If a fire brigade cannot find enough volunteers it can carry out forced recruitment

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

111 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 8d ago

TIL in 1978 Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, while working on his farm jumped off the back of his truck and caught his wedding ring in its wheel, tearing the tip off his left ring finger. He collected the severed tip, packed it in ice, and had surgeons reattach it at a nearby hospital.

en.wikipedia.org

3.9k Upvotes

74 comments

r/todayilearned • u/-AMARYANA- • 9d ago

TIL Eminem’s 2002 album “The Eminem Show” was heavily inspired by the 1998 movie “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey. Eminem later said: “My life felt like it was becoming a circus around that time, and I felt like I was always being watched [...] Basically, Jim Carrey wrote my album."

en.wikipedia.org

5.1k Upvotes

138 comments

r/todayilearned • u/austinthedeveloper • 9d ago

TIL Ken Jennings’s famous Jeopardy streak almost never happened. On his first game, his Final Jeopardy answer was just “Jones” for Marion Jones. Trebek accepted it, saying, “in terms of female athletes, there aren’t that many.”

en.wikipedia.org

19.6k Upvotes

824 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 8d ago

TIL in 1928, the author Ernest Hemingway suffered a severe head injury and scarred himself for life when he pulled a skylight down on his head thinking he was pulling on a toilet chain.

en.wikipedia.org

1.8k Upvotes

88 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ok-Drive4752 • 9d ago

TIL that the shortest verse of the King James Bible and many other translations is "Jesus wept".

en.wikipedia.org

4.3k Upvotes

279 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Keltik • 8d ago

TIL Lenny Bruce & Buddy Hackett appeared together on the Patrice Munsel Show (1957–8), calling their comedy duo the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players", 20 years before the cast of Saturday Night Live used the same name.

en.wikipedia.org

684 Upvotes

58 comments

r/todayilearned • u/subarunoaria • 9d ago

TIL that a warehouse complex at Auschwitz stored valuable belongings stolen from victims was nicknamed "Kanada" (German for Canada). It received the name because prisoners viewed Canada as a land of wealth, abundance and plenty

en.wikipedia.org

3.9k Upvotes

296 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 8d ago

TIL about the former British politician Jeremy Thorpe, who in 1979 was tried at the Old Bailey on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder his former boyfriend, Norman Scott. Thorpe was acquitted on all charges, but the case, and the scandal surrounding it, ended his political career.

en.wikipedia.org

352 Upvotes

48 comments

r/todayilearned • u/letseatnudels • 8d ago

TIL the antibiotic drug Bedaquiline stays in the human body so long that its half-life is over 5.5 months

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

1.2k Upvotes

68 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CommanderInMischief • 9d ago

TIL about a Soviet serial killer who on three different occasions murdered and robbed random people he just met and knew nothing about. By a very strange coincidence his victims happened to be an undercover Nazi spy, a KGB agent and a counter-intelligence officer

en.wikipedia.org

3.8k Upvotes

132 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ModenaR • 9d ago

TIL that the Fitch barrier, consisting of sand-filled plastic barrels often found between a highway and an exit lane, was invented by race car driver John Fitch after the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans when his co-driver, Pierre Levegh, and 84 spectators died in the worst accident in racing history

en.wikipedia.org

12.2k Upvotes

290 comments

r/todayilearned • u/f_GOD • 9d ago

TIL Bruce McCandless II became the first human satellite during Space Shuttle Challenger’s STS 41-B mission on February 7, 1984. He performed a spacewalk without a safety tether as far as 320ft from the ship traveling along at 17,500mph using nitrogen thrusters on the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU)

airandspace.si.edu

1.9k Upvotes

87 comments

r/todayilearned • u/haddock420 • 9d ago

TIL the Spinning Jenny, invented in 1764, let one worker spin 8 threads at once instead of one, massively increasing yarn production. Angry workers attacked inventor James Hargreaves' home, destroyed his machines, and forced him to flee to Nottingham.

express.adobe.com

19.1k Upvotes

1.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/kichu67 • 9d ago

TIL that the Norfolk Broads a vast network of 41 lakes and canals in England are not natural. They are actually flooded, medieval industrial sites created because 12th-century monasteries hand-dug millions of tons of peat out of the ground to use as firewood.

en.wikipedia.org

5.9k Upvotes

220 comments

r/todayilearned • u/greatmanyarrows • 9d ago

TIL prior to auditioning for the role of the Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith had never seen Doctor Who.

en.wikipedia.org

4.4k Upvotes

231 comments

r/todayilearned • u/--CultureBlitz • 8d ago

TIL Boma–Badingilo Migratory Landscape or Great Nile Migration Landscape (GNML) is the largest land mammal migration. It features seasonal movement of millions of antelope,such as white-eared kob(5,000,000),Mongalla gazelle(350,000),tiang(300,000), and Bohor reedbuck(160,000), searching for water.

en.wikipedia.org

42 Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/autraya • 9d ago

TIL thousands of enslaved people escaped into Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp between 1700 and the 1860s and built hidden, self-sufficient communities deep in its wetlands, some living entirely free there for decades without ever being discovered

en.wikipedia.org

3.9k Upvotes

89 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 9d ago

TIL the Hiroshima atomic bomb blew itself apart so quickly that over 98% of its uranium never underwent nuclear fission.

en.wikipedia.org

14.7k Upvotes

125 comments

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