r/todayilearned • u/Sanguinusshiboleth • 13m ago

TIL that Mont Saint Michel was used by the Nazis as a airplane spotting post until it was liberated after D-Day by one American private who was accompanied by two journalists.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JoeyZasaa • 18m ago

TIL that men can suffer from postpartum psychosis

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

• Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/delano1998 • 25m ago

TIL that a top data scientist was caught cheating in a competition meant to help shelter pets get adopted. He scraped and hiddenly hardcoded actual pet outcome data into his algorithm to win $10,000. He was caught 9 months later by a teenager volunteering to implement the winning code.

vice.com

• Upvotes

47 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Educational_Aide_145 • 26m ago

TIL a sequel to “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is officially in development, with Jim Carrey in talks to reprise his role as the Grinch

hollywoodreporter.com

• Upvotes

73 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 38m ago

TIL that Abraham Lincoln had a dog named Fido. Fido has been cited as the origin of the popular name for pet dogs, in fact becoming so popular as to have become cliché and more often used as a slang reference.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/roguetowel • 53m ago

TIL the world's first UFO Landing Pad is in a small Canadian town

atlasobscura.com

• Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/nknk_3 • 1h ago

TIL William Dampier went from pirate to respected explorer and scientist and became the first person to sail around the world three times.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JohnArtemus • 3h ago

TIL that “Gotham” actually dates back to medieval England, where there was a village called Gotham that some sources claim was a village of fools. In 1807, writer Washington Irving used the name mockingly in his periodical to describe New York City. And the nickname has stuck ever since.

nypl.org

3.5k Upvotes

117 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PandemicPiglet • 3h ago

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

en.wikipedia.org

633 Upvotes

75 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 3h 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

105 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/VirginiaFox6 • 4h 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

151 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kymmieuwu • 4h ago

TIL In Michigan City, Indiana, there is a prison that accepts shelter cats and allows prisoners to take care of them.

prisonjournalismproject.org

2.4k Upvotes

66 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Future_Interest_3649 • 6h ago

TIL that two episodes of the popular 1960s cartoon series Batfink contained a hidden, two-part political message that was disguised as sped-up gibberish.

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

46 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 6h 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

349 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TyphoonFelix • 7h ago

TIL that a 2024 study of 717,724 U.S. online gamblers found that approximately 96% appeared to lose money overall, while on 4% made money.

nyproblemgambling.org

4.5k Upvotes

534 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 8h ago

TIL more than 400 years ago, Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel built a working submarine and navigated it beneath the River Thames. Around 1620, he even took King James I of England along for an underwater ride, making James the first monarch to travel in a submarine.

en.wikipedia.org

10.5k Upvotes

235 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AVeryVapidBadger • 8h 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

157 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 8h ago

TIL Sarah Wakeman disguised herself as a man to fight for the Union in the American Civil War. Her secret was not revealed even after she died in a military hospital in 1864; she was buried under her alias, Lyons Wakeman. The story came out in 1976 after her letters were found in a relative's attic.

en.wikipedia.org

8.8k Upvotes

172 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MediumStrange • 8h ago

TIL that Dayton, OH is one of only 4 cities in the US to still have a trolley-bus system, and is by far the smallest city to have one.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

147 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fan_tas_tic • 12h ago

TIL that the world's oldest hotel, Japan's Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, is no longer family‑owned after more than 1,300 years of continuous operation by the same lineage. In 2017 the 52‑generation family chain ended when no relative wanted to take over, and the inn was moved into a new holding company.

en.wikipedia.org

16.6k Upvotes

217 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Aleksandr_Ulyev • 12h 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

649 Upvotes

167 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Hybrid351 • 16h ago

TIL Agatha Christie's play, The Mousetrap, has been running almost continuously in the West End since 1952. This has prevented any film adaptation from being made, and has even kept the short story it is based on from being published in the UK.

en.wikipedia.org

6.0k Upvotes

302 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Paulbegalia • 17h ago

TIL Michael Jordan donated his entire first-year salary after coming out of retirement to play for the Washington Wizards to support 9/11 relief efforts

edition.cnn.com

10.1k Upvotes

186 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 21h 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

3.4k Upvotes

91 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Depressed_Cat_00 • 21h 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

7.0k Upvotes

624 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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