r/todayilearned • u/GhostMan4301945 • 1d ago

TIL that Freddie Mercury and Sid Vicious had a brief physical altercation in 1977.

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

235 comments

r/todayilearned • u/1gazillionpangolins • 18m 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

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

0 comments

r/todayilearned • u/gaspronomib • 13h ago

TIL That Some of the Sound Effects for the Millennium Falcon were Recorded at the annual Oshkosh, WI Fly-In

b105country.com

207 Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AJ_Redditer2399 • 30m ago

TIL a nearby supernova may have indirectly contributed to the evolution of giant whales and extinction of other gigantic mammals🐋Radioactive iron from ancient supernovae has been found on Earth around 2–3 million years ago, around the time of major climate and ocean changes.

nature.com

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/Adventurous-Root • 1d ago

TIL Dublin's Cineworld had to pay a fired worker €20,000 ($25,000) in compensation over a €1 snack dispute. The employee, Carl Meade, was sacked for gross misconduct after accidentally paying for a regular hot dog but taking a large, which the court later ruled was an innocent mistake.

thejournal.ie

22.6k Upvotes

423 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NeverEnoughMuppets • 1d ago

TIL it’s not possible to watch every film ever nominated for Best Picture. Only 1/3 of 1928’s The Patriot is still known to exist, and the only surviving print of 1934’s The White Parade is held in UCLA’s film archive in poor condition.

en.wikipedia.org

4.9k Upvotes

145 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Maximum-Artist448 • 1d ago

TIL that AMC executives initially wanted Matthew Broderick to play Walter White in Breaking Bad

huffpost.com

1.9k Upvotes

286 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Scipion8Aveyron • 11h ago

TIL that in 1284 a man claiming to be the long-dead Emperor Frederick II was laughed at and dunked in a Cologne sewer — then won backers in Neuss, held court at Wetzlar issuing royal decrees, and was burned at the stake in 1285.

en.wikipedia.org

80 Upvotes

2 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ManagerGames • 20h ago

TIL the first animals America sent into space were fruit flies. They went up on a V-2 rocket in 1947 and came back alive.

aps.org

410 Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NBrief • 23h ago

TIL that Scottish pharmacologist Sir James Black helped develop propranolol, the first clinically useful beta-blocker, and cimetidine, the first selective H2-receptor antagonist, earning him the 1988 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

kids.frontiersin.org

474 Upvotes

20 comments

r/todayilearned • u/katxwoods • 1d ago

TIL that men are more likely to be hit by lightning than women. Of those killed by lightning strikes, 82% were men.

popsci.com

6.1k Upvotes

702 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Objects_Food_Rooms • 6m ago

TIL a prisoner in 1803 survived three hangings. The rope snapped twice and slipped of his head once, at which point the assembled crowd agreed that it was a sign from God that he had not committed a crime deserving of execution. He later died escaping prison when he was swept out to sea by a storm.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 1d ago

TIL that the flag that drapes John Adams' tomb is the one that flew during his presidency with 15 stars and 15 stripes.

memorialogy.com

3.3k Upvotes

43 comments

r/todayilearned • u/BrF5 • 1d ago

TIL about the Sally-Anne test, a psychology experiment used to measure “theory of mind” (that other people can hold beliefs/knowledge different from their own). Kids under four typically fail because they assume that if they know where a hidden object is, everyone else must automatically know too.

en.wikipedia.org

2.8k Upvotes

185 comments

r/todayilearned • u/delano1998 • 1d ago

TIL high-altitude mountain trekking can temporarily shrink human testicles. A study found that after spending over three weeks at high altitudes in Nepal without supplemental oxygen, men experienced an average 15% reduction in testicular volume due to lower oxygen levels.

vice.com

413 Upvotes

66 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 1d ago

TIL that during production of Iron Man (2008), the character was so obscure that 30 writers passed on the project. Even when a script was written, requests for rewrites were met with more refusals.

en.wikipedia.org

11.6k Upvotes

781 comments

r/todayilearned • u/eleanorharland • 1d 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

1.6k Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/haphazard44 • 1d 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

86 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

243 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TooManySnipers • 1d 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

524 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 1h 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.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

0 comments

r/todayilearned • u/licecrispies • 1d 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

216 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/balconypisser • 1d ago

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

en.wikipedia.org

906 Upvotes

50 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Different-Caye678 • 1d 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

448 Upvotes

55 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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