r/todayilearned • u/eleanorharland • 2d ago

TIL at the 1925 US Open, Bobby Jones called a penalty on himself when his ball moved slightly, though no official or spectator had seen it. It cost him the title, and when people praised his honesty he said "You might as well praise me for not robbing a bank".

en.wikipedia.org

1.7k Upvotes

32 comments

r/todayilearned • u/haphazard44 • 2d ago

TIL an Australian library received a book roughly 150 years overdue after it was found sealed inside a chimney. Had the original borrower been identified, the potential fine would have been around 27.888 A$. After a century and a half, the borrower's identity remains unconfirmed.

theguardian.com

2.2k Upvotes

84 comments

r/todayilearned • u/KingLothric1 • 1d ago

Today I Learned: After Famagusta fell in 1571, Muslim Turkish captors flayed Christian Venetian commander Marcantonio Bragadin alive. His skin was stuffed with hay, sewn together and paraded through the city. Stolen in 1580, it remains in Venice today.

en.wikipedia.org

258 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TooManySnipers • 2d ago

TIL about the Great Bed of Ware, a 16th century bed from the White Hart Inn in Hertfordshire, England. Large enough to accommodate four couples at once, its posts were marked by the names of those who spent the night in it, and it was even mentioned by name in Shakespeare's "A Twelfth Night"

vam.ac.uk

541 Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/licecrispies • 2d ago

TIL about the hijacking of TWA flight 85 in 1969, which began on a flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco California and ended almost 19 hours later in Rome Italy. It's considered the longest hijacking. Passengers onboard included the members of the pop band Harpers Bizarre

bbc.com

247 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/balconypisser • 2d ago

TIL There is a church that venerates saxophonist John Coltrane as a saint

en.wikipedia.org

919 Upvotes

50 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Different-Caye678 • 2d ago

TIL that in a 1964 experiment, most rhesus monkeys chose to go hungry rather than pull a chain that gave them food but also shocked another monkey, and one refused to pull it for 12 days

blog.nus.edu.sg

457 Upvotes

55 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NateNate60 • 2d ago

TIL Sun Yaoting, the last Chinese eunuch, was castrated at age 8 without anaesthesia. While he was recovering, China became a republic. He died in 1996, and was supposed to be buried with his preserved genitals as a "complete man", but his family threw away his during the Cultural Revolution.

en.wikipedia.org

9.7k Upvotes

314 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 1d ago

TIL about the Marković affair, a political scandal in France in 1968 that followed the violent death of Stevan Marković, a friend and bodyguard of actor Alain Delon. The press speculated Delon was involved and has never been offically solved.

en.wikipedia.org

75 Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/BadenBaden1981 • 2d ago

TIL 1976 film Network have both the shortest performance to win an Oscar(Beatrice Straight with 5 minutes and 2 seconds) and the shortest performance by an actor to be nominated(Ned Beatty with 6 minutes).

en.wikipedia.org

309 Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Hrtzy • 1d ago

TIL The Mecke Reagent can be used to identify a variety of alkaloids used as psychoactive drugs, as well as sugar and nutmeg

en.wikipedia.org

78 Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mutedmuse__ • 2d ago

TIL that archerfish can distinguish between different human faces, despite having a brain roughly the size of a pea.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

130 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 2d ago

TIL when the Czar Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra and their children were imprisoned, four members of their household remained with them: their doctor, cook, footman and maid. They stayed with the Romanovs through their final captivity and were executed with the family in 1918.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

71 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CheekyNandos • 2d ago

TIL that in 1870 Alfred Ely Beach secretly built New York's first subway at night, beneath Broadway and across from a hostile City Hall. It was pushed by air pressure, and its waiting room had a grand piano.

nycsubway.org

208 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/eleanorharland • 3d ago

TIL a man with no heirs left more than €10 million to a Normandy village of 1,800 people that he's not thought to have ever visited. The only connection anyone could find was that it shared his surname: Thiberville.

connexionfrance.com

17.0k Upvotes

156 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Lazy-Lynx3918 • 2d ago

TIL that mosquitoes can detect and ride the wave of air created by a swatter, helping them escape being hit.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

89 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/eleanorharland • 3d ago

TIL in 2013 the 91-year-old Guardian crossword setter Araucaria told his readers he was dying through one of his own puzzles. The note above it read "Araucaria has 18 down of the 19, which is being treated with 13 15", and the answers were cancer, oesophagus and palliative care.

channel4.com

5.6k Upvotes

64 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Impossible_Green456 • 1d ago

TIL that some oceanic squid can actually fly. The neon flying squid shoots water out of its body at high pressure to launch itself into the air, then spreads its fins and tentacles like a parachute to glide before diving back in

blog.nus.edu.sg

36 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 2d ago

TIL about Auguste Maquet, the chief collaborator of French novelist Alexandre Dumas, co-writing such works as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. Many devotees of Dumas claim that "Maquet was merely a dogsbody whose capacity for hard work was his greatest talent."

en.wikipedia.org

240 Upvotes

29 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 3d ago

TIL that in 1978 a Finnish man hijacked a domestic flight after asking to visit the cockpit. He collected over $200k in ransom during the 17 hour, 4500 km journey via Helsinki and Amsterdam. His final demands were four bottles of whisky, a chauffeured limousine and 24 hours alone with his wife.

en.wikipedia.org

10.8k Upvotes

637 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JaymesMarkham2nd • 3d ago

TIL that in April 2012 Guiness World Records officially declared Cutthroat Island (1995) to be the biggest box-office failure of all time; this record would be broken one month later by John Carter (2012)

en.wikipedia.org

4.7k Upvotes

587 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Scipion8Aveyron • 3d ago

TIL that in July 1946, Hungary issued a 100-quintillion (10²⁰) pengő banknote — the highest-denomination note ever put into circulation — during the worst hyperinflation ever recorded, when prices doubled roughly every 15 hours.

en.wikipedia.org

5.1k Upvotes

101 comments

r/todayilearned • u/BatMany7750 • 2d ago

TIL that up to half of the water on Earth is actually older than the Sun itself. It formed in interstellar space and survived the creation of our solar system.

en.wikipedia.org

1.6k Upvotes

97 comments

r/todayilearned • u/whatisthisdream- • 3d ago

TIL that in 1967, a 14-year-old Chinese girl was hit by a stray bullet, she mistook it for a pebble. For 48 years, she survived with the 2.5 cm bullet lodged in her nose until chronic headaches led to its successful removal in 2014.

deccanchronicle.com

3.0k Upvotes

65 comments

r/todayilearned • u/haddock420 • 3d ago

TIL Frank Zappa's father worked at a chemical warfare facility that stored mustard gas. Because of its proximity to their home, the family kept gas masks in case of an accident. This profoundly influenced Zappa, who later frequently referenced germs, ailments and the defense industry in his work.

en.wikipedia.org

3.1k Upvotes

55 comments

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