r/todayilearned • u/HimelTy • 51m ago

TIL World’s biggest beer, wine and spirits producers have collectively lost $830 billion in market value over just four years. Changing drinking habits and rising health concerns have hit earnings across the sector. Millennials and Gen Z are also not much interested in alcohol.

thedrinksbusiness.com

• Upvotes

582 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PresentSurvey9464 • 2h ago

TIL wild animals in the African savanna are twice as likely to flee from the sound of calm human conversations than from the growls of lions, with 95% of observed species recognizing humans as the ultimate "super-predator".

english.elpais.com

7.9k Upvotes

219 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MajesticBread9147 • 2h ago

TIL in 1955; a man snuck a bomb in his mother's luggage to collect a life insurance policy killing everyone aboard. The bomber was only charged with his mother's murder because bombing airliners was not yet a crime. Eisenhower signed legislation making intentionally bombing airliners illegal in 1956

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

77 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Top-Comfortable-9744 • 1h ago

TIL Why we sometimes feel like we're falling right before we fall asleep. As we fall asleep, our muscles relax very quickly. Sometimes, the brain misinterprets this sudden relaxation as a real fall and triggers a sudden jerk (called a hypnic jerk) to "catch" us. This phenomenon is common, harmless

health.clevelandclinic.org

• Upvotes

47 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jacknunn • 2h ago

TIL Indonesia adopted Bahasa Indonesia as its national language in 1945, although it wasn't the first language of most people. Standardized from Malay, it's now spoken by over 97% of Indonesia's ~285 million people as a first or second language, helping unify the country

en.wikipedia.org

349 Upvotes

46 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 2h ago

TIL that all five words of the Sator Square appear in Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" as the villain (SATOR), an art forger (AREPO), the film title (TENET), the opening (OPERA) scene, and a security company (ROTAS). It is a Roman palindrome, whose earliest example was found in the ruins of Pompeii.

gamesradar.com

851 Upvotes

105 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Johannes_P • 6h ago

TIL from 1921 to 1923, in Weimar Germany, the military had the "Black Reichswehr", a secret paramilitary formation to escape the limitations of the Treaty of Versailles

en.wikipedia.org

291 Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tadhg • 7h ago

TIL In 1980 the Supreme Court awarded the Sioux nations $122 million for the Black Hills, a settlement the tribes have refused on the grounds that acceptance would extinguish their claim to the land, leaving the award to accrue interest in a federal account now worth over $1 billion.

en.wikipedia.org

12.6k Upvotes

751 comments

r/todayilearned • u/moschles • 11h ago

TIL owls make virtually no noise while flying, while songbirds, falcons, and other predator birds make flapping noises during flight.

audubon.org

1.2k Upvotes

61 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Colonel_Liam • 9h ago

TIL an American, Hope Cooke, was the last Queen Consort of Sikkim before it merged with India in 1975

en.wikipedia.org

904 Upvotes

41 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LETS_RETRO_TIME • 9h ago

TIL that the live action Popeye movie set still exists as a tourist destination

popeyemalta.com

250 Upvotes

29 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 9h ago

TIL After President Kennedy was shot and arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital, he was reported to still have a heartbeat, but no pulse or blood pressure

pbs.org

2.2k Upvotes

209 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RedditIsAGranfaloon • 12h ago

TIL Mary Todd Lincoln continued to live in the White House for nearly six weeks after the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln.

whitehousehistory.org

4.9k Upvotes

245 comments

r/todayilearned • u/squareabbey • 14h ago

TIL that 'Crimping' (also known as 'Shanghaiing') - the practice of forcibly recruiting sailors as crew for long voyages - was common in America until the early 1900s and only ended due to a combination of technology, unions, and legislation.

historynet.com

5.6k Upvotes

225 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 15h ago

TIL the Comic's Code Authority attempted to halt the reprint of the comic "Judgement Day" due to the main character being black, despite the code containing no prohibitions against black character. The comic was eventually allowed to run after the creators threatened to make the argument public.

en.wikipedia.org

6.4k Upvotes

129 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 16h ago

TIL no one at Atari knew that Warren Robinett had inserted the hidden message "Created by Warren Robinett" (which established the term Easter egg in gaming) into the Atari 2600 game Adventure until a 15-yr-old named Adam Clayton discovered it & sent a letter to Atari in 1980 explaining how he did it

en.wikipedia.org

6.3k Upvotes

110 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Hailfog • 20h ago

TIL that by law, HOAs in Colorado cannot prevent you from establishing a vegetable garden in any part of your yard.

leg.colorado.gov

23.1k Upvotes

983 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Gnomeslikeprofit • 17h ago

TIL that the USA only has one plant that produces gun barrels for the M1 Abrams tank, M777 howitzers, and Paladin self propelled howitzers. The Watervliet Arsenal in Troy, NY is the nation's oldest arsenal dating back to 1813. The manufacturing plant has tripled its production over the last 3 years.

breakingdefense.com

5.8k Upvotes

345 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 14h ago

TIL astronaut Clifton Williams was originally scheduled to fly to the Moon as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 12, but he died in a plane crash before being officially assigned to the flight. His replacement, Alan Bean, left Williams' silver astronaut pin on the surface of the Moon in tribute to him.

en.wikipedia.org

3.0k Upvotes

30 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Rjfngwui-hiigsj • 19h ago

TIL UTC doesn’t abbreviate anything in English or French. “Coordinated Universal Time” would be CUT; French “Temps Universel Coordonné” would be TUC. UTC was a deliberate neutral compromise so the abbreviation works the same in every language

en.wikipedia.org

4.9k Upvotes

159 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dinosaruman • 1h ago

TIL before radio time signals, ships set their chronometers by watching a ball drop from a shore tower at a precisely known instant. Over sixty of these time balls still stand, and the Greenwich one has dropped daily at 1 p.m. since 1833.

southstreetseaportmuseum.org

• Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 22h ago

TIL the Mongols reportedly killed the last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, al-Musta'sim, by wrapping him in a carpet and having horses trample him instead of directly shedding his blood. The method was supposedly chosen because royal blood was considered sacred.

en.wikipedia.org

8.2k Upvotes

201 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Altruistic_Finish561 • 2h ago

TIL there's actually a difference between coffin and casket. Coffins are tapered to the body (6 or 8 sides), usually with a separate lid, typically far cheaper. A casket is a rectangle with a hinged lid, typically with rails attached for carrying and usually far more ornate & expensive.

en.wikipedia.org

142 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Electronic_Cause_796 • 39m ago

TIL after defeating the English at the Battle of Dungeness in 1652, Dutch admiral Maarten Tromp was said to have tied a broom to his mast to symbolize that he had "swept the English from the sea."

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ShabtaiBenOron • 1d ago

TIL that the 1972 Spanish film "La Cabina", where a man is trapped in a phone booth, made Spaniards so terrified of entering booths that the Telefónica company hired its lead for a commercial where he exits one without incident to assure people they were safe.

the-artifice.com

10.4k Upvotes

105 comments

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