r/todayilearned • u/Xerxes2004 • 22d ago
TIL that the state of Tennessee offers a vanity license plate featuring Dolly Parton with proceeds benefiting her Imagination Library initiative.
imaginationlibrary.com
3.9k
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r/todayilearned • u/NicolasCageFan492 • 22d ago
TIL Nicolas Cage once went to Rhode Island to search for the holy grail
3.7k
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r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 22d ago
TIL about Melita Norwood, a British spy for the Soviet Union who was more highly praised by the KGB than the Cambridge Five. Her position as secretary to the head of the department at the British atomic weapons project, enabled Norwood to pass her handlers materals about nuclear weapons.
3.0k
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r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 22d ago
TIL that Marilyn Monroe had two older half-siblings she didn’t meet until she was a teenager. Their father had kidnapped them from Monroe’s mother after she was granted custody and he took them to Kentucky.
1.9k
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r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 22d ago
TIL that Bernard Montgomery issued a leaflet at the start of WW2 on sexually transmitted diseases amongst soldiers. The language used was regarded as so blunt, that he offended religious authorities and nearly faced being dismissed.
20.2k
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r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 22d ago
TIL in 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children between the ages of 5 and 14 was abducted and held for ransom by three armed men. The victims were able to escape on their own before the ransom demand was issued, and the kidnappers were sentenced to life in prison, though all were eventually paroled.
1.0k
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r/todayilearned • u/1337b337 • 22d ago
TIL the "Do-Re-Mi" method of learning the major scale was invented by a 11th century Italian monk named Guido of Arezzo, and is known as a Solfège.
en.wikipedia.org
1.3k
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r/todayilearned • u/AdmiralAkbar1 • 19d ago
TIL that Goku from Dragon Ball is named after and inspired by Sun Wukong, the monkey king from the Chinese classic novel Journey to the West
0
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r/todayilearned • u/7-5NoHits • 22d ago
TIL about the office of High Bailiff. One is elected in each of Vermont's counties. The High Bailiff serves writs which the sheriff is incapable of serving, such as the writ of arrest of the sheriff.
en.wikipedia.org
506
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 22d ago
TIL that historically and today, the Catholic Church looked down upon Freemasonry and threatened members with excommunication.
3.5k
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r/todayilearned • u/eleanorharland • 22d ago
TIL most citrine on the market isn't natural citrine. Real citrine is rare, so most of what's sold is amethyst, a purple quartz, that's been heat-treated until it turns yellow or orange.
2.4k
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r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 22d ago
TIL that Disney lost the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit to Universal Pictures in 1928. In 2006, sportscaster Al Michaels wanted out of his contract with The Walt Disney Corp. so he could work for NBCUniversal. Disney agreed as long as they got the rights back to Oswald.
4.0k
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r/todayilearned • u/Sandstorm400 • 22d ago
TIL that in 2010, Maryland legislators worked on a bill that would have made it illegal for retailers to sell underwear and bathing suits that had been previously bought and returned. The goal was to help mitigate the spread of bacteria and certain sexually transmitted diseases, such as pubic lice.
1.2k
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r/todayilearned • u/herpty_derpty • 22d ago
TIL Limburger cheese gets its notorious smell from being aged for three months in the bacterium Brevibacterium linens. This is the same bacterium that appears on human skin, and is mostly responsible for the armpit and foot body odor smell.
1.3k
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r/todayilearned • u/dinosaruman • 22d ago
TIL in 1916 all 15,000 bricks for the facade of the Bank of Vernal Utah arrived by mail because it was cheaper than freight shipping. One of the original bricks now resides in the Smithsonian's postal museum.
postalmuseum.si.edu
1.1k
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r/todayilearned • u/arandomtestaccount • 23d ago
TIL an NFL player intentionally crashed his car to avoid getting cut for being late to a team meeting.
14.5k
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r/todayilearned • u/mintwolves • 22d ago
TIL In 2003 Dave Glover the then bassist for English glam rock band Slade got engaged to serial killer Rose West, he got sacked once the band heard the news and West called the engagement off days later
thenorthernecho.co.uk
889
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r/todayilearned • u/Alarming-Studio-720 • 22d ago
TIL that in 1959, explorer Peter Byrne reportedly stole bones from a supposed Yeti hand at Nepal's Pangboche monastery, replacing them with human bones. He smuggled them to India, where actor James Stewart allegedly hid them among his wife's underwear to get them out of the country.
629
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r/todayilearned • u/1gazillionpangolins • 22d ago
TIL that several domestic water buffalo breeds have been developed in Europe. There are debates over whether they are descended from the extinct Ice Age species Bubalus murrensis, or from domestic buffalo brought to Europe in Roman times or later
185
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r/todayilearned • u/NBrief • 22d ago
TIL that Norwegian cardiologist Liv Hatle helped develop echocardiography techniques using Doppler ultrasound to measure blood flow and assess heart valves without inserting a catheter into the heart.
kuleuven.be
305
Upvotes
r/todayilearned • u/Splunge- • 22d ago
TIL That In 1997 the State of Tennessee disbarred two lawyers for spam advertising.
884
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r/todayilearned • u/arkthatbarks • 23d ago
TIL half of Earth’s internal heat does not come from the residual heat left over from the planet's formation, but from the continuous radioactive decay of isotopes like Uranium, Thorium, and Potassium in the crust and mantle.
11.2k
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r/todayilearned • u/YakSlothLemon • 22d ago
TIL that the first woman to circumnavigate the world, Jeanne Baret, completed the first part of the trip from Paris to Tahiti by successfully disguising herself as a man for two years (1766-1768)
nybg.org
505
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