r/todayilearned
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u/admiralturtleship
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9h ago
TIL a family in Georgia claimed to have passed down a song in an unknown language from the time of their enslavement; scientists identified the song as a genuine West African funeral song in the Mende language that had survived multiple transmissions from mother to daughter over multiple centuries
harrisnecklandtrust.orgr/todayilearned • u/Flares117 • 5h ago
TIL: In 2011, a Florida senator tried to bring back dwarf tossing, which was made illegal decades prior, arguing that "In this economy, why would we want people from getting gainful employment". In 1989, dwarf tossing was made illegal after one dwarf died of alcohol poisoning.
r/todayilearned • u/UninsuredToast • 1h ago
TIL that scientists believe the earliest known ancestor of humans (and many others), Saccorhytus, was about a millimeter in size and lived between grains of sand on the ocean floor 540 million years ago. It also had a very large mouth, but surprisingly no anus
r/todayilearned
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u/Business_Reporter420
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18h ago
TIL in 2018, a middle school in Dallas organized an event called “Breakfast with Dads,” but saw that not all of the students have fathers or father figures to attend the event with. So, they put up a post on Facebook seeking around 50 volunteers. On the day of the event, 600 men showed up to help.
r/todayilearned • u/_thebaroness • 6h ago
TIL Ringo Starr had tuberculosis as a child and spent two years recovering in a sanitorium. To entertain himself he used a wooden bobbin to drum objects and developed his love of drumming.
r/todayilearned • u/whiskeyontherox • 17h ago
TIL humans can learn to observe their surroundings with echolocation. By snapping or clicking the tongue, humans can bounce sound waves off of nearby objects. The resulting echo reveals the approximate size and distance of the obstacle. Anyone with normal hearing can learn this skill.
r/todayilearned • u/Scruffy_Nerf_Hoarder • 7h ago
TIL that the US military's use of Native Americans as "code talkers" began during World War I, used more than the Navajo language, and wasn't declassified until 1968 because their codes had remained unbroken.
r/todayilearned • u/slumvillain • 3h ago
TIL about failed WW2 plot: Operation Pastorius. In which Americans were recruited by Nazis to sabotage the US from within.
r/todayilearned • u/HugoChavezEraUnSanto • 21h ago
TIL that India's Marine Commando Force was equipped with cyanide tipped crossbows as a silenced pistol alternative until the late 1980s.
r/todayilearned • u/mikaey00 • 6h ago
TIL that English speakers proposed abbreviating Coordinated Universal Time as CUT. French speakers proposed abbreviating it as TUC (for "temps universel coordonné"). Neither side got what they wanted, as the official abbreviation is "UTC".
r/todayilearned • u/JohnAdams4621 • 20h ago
TIL That First Lady Abigail Powers Filmore was the Teacher to 13th US President Millard Filmore Prior to marrying him
r/todayilearned • u/derstherower • 1d ago
TIL that George Washington only left the present-day United States one time in his life, when he traveled to Barbados with his brother in 1751.
r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 22h ago
TIL that the world’s largest Lego Titanic replica was built over an eleven month period by a ten-year-old autistic boy from Iceland.
r/todayilearned • u/hstarwood • 1d ago
TIL that the early 2000s Nickelodeon children's show, "LazyTown", was not only filmed in Iceland but also one of the most expensive children's show ever made (each episode cost nearly $1 million to make)
r/todayilearned • u/Bariadi • 1d ago
TIL about an expensive brothel in Paris called One-Two-Two with a pirate themed room that was fitted with a bed which mechanically swing like a boat with jets of water drenching the occupants mimicking sex in a leaky boat.
r/todayilearned • u/lazarus870 • 17h ago
TIL actor Telly Savalas won a spelling bee in 1934 but due to an oversight, he did not receive his prize until 1991, when it was awarded to him by the Boston Harold and the school principal
r/todayilearned • u/Adelu1219 • 5h ago
TIL Helen Keller was as a cofounder of the ACLU
aclumontana.orgr/todayilearned • u/OccludedFug • 1d ago
TIL Eminem holds the record for fastest rap verse, rapping 11 syllables per second, or 222 words in 30 seconds, in the third verse of his Godzilla.
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/DurhamOx • 3h ago
TIL that after the St Scholastica Day riots in Oxford in 1355, an annual penance of one penny per scholar killed was imposed on the townsfolk. The practice was not dropped until 1825.
r/todayilearned • u/Johannes_P • 1d ago
TIL in 1959, John Howard Griffin passed himself as a Black man and travelled around the Deep South to witness segregation and Jim Crow, afterward writing about his experience in "Black Like Me"
r/todayilearned
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u/SharkiBee
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1d ago
TIL that Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind had a different English dub back in the 80s called "Warriors of the Wind" and it was incredibly shortened. It was apparently so bad that Hayao Miyazaki adopted a "no cuts" clause for future English releases of Studio Ghibli films.
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/Sparxx_Interface • 6h ago
TIL of the six men that played The Three Stooges... Moe, Curly, and Shemp (Howard) were real life brothers.
r/todayilearned • u/charolastra_charolo • 1d ago
TIL that Sweden has a nationwide network of "Fritidsbanken," basically lending libraries of donated, used recreation equipment. Want to try a new sport, but not sure you'll like it? Borrow the equipment for free for up to two weeks.
r/todayilearned • u/Matuko • 1d ago
TIL that Shakespeare's last residence in Stratford-upon-Avon was demolished in 1759 by its owner, Francis Gastrell, because he was tired of tourists.
bbc.comr/todayilearned • u/ieatcavemen • 3h ago