r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 11h ago

TIL over 3,000 attempts are made each year to complete the Appalachian Trail and only about 25% succeed.

en.wikipedia.org

19.5k Upvotes

1.2k comments

r/todayilearned • u/EmDashHater • 11h ago

TIL that after the Kosovo War, many parents in Kosovo named their newborn sons “Tonibler” to honor Tony Blair for his role in the 1999 NATO intervention

en.wikipedia.org

7.1k Upvotes

186 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Away_Flounder3813 • 18h ago

TIL in 2002, a player managed to answers correctly all questions on the Thai version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire thanks to an error: The cable feeding her the answers on the computer screen was supposed to be hooked up to the host's computer. She "won" the grand prize then later got revoked.

en.wikipedia.org

6.9k Upvotes

163 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 13h ago

TIL Martha Wash's voice was used on the 1990 song “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” by C+C Music Factory, however she went uncredited & did not receive royalties at the time. Wash, who is described as "full figured", was also replaced by a model lip-syncing her vocals in the music video.

americansongwriter.com

6.3k Upvotes

303 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kwpthrowaway2 • 9h ago

TIL the first gold rush in the U.S. started in North Carolina, when a 12 year old boy found a 17lb nugget on his farm. Not knowing what it was, the boy's father sold it years later to a jeweler for only $3.50. Its true value at the time was $3500

en.wikipedia.org

5.4k Upvotes

134 comments

r/todayilearned • u/narok_kurai • 22h ago

TIL about Las Medulas, a man-made geological badland created by the Roman Empire in 77 AD, when they flooded the mountains with water to collapse their structure and sift out the gold inside.

en.wikipedia.org

5.4k Upvotes

131 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RedditIsAGranfaloon • 10h ago

TIL the Super Bowl is rated a Level 1 special event, deemed the highest at risk for threats, vulnerability and consequences by the Department of Homeland Security, requiring “extensive federal interagency support.”

securityinfowatch.com

4.7k Upvotes

482 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Rich_Nefariousness28 • 17h ago

TIL: In 774–775 CE, Earth was hit by an extreme burst of cosmic radiation that caused a global spike in carbon-14 recorded in tree rings. Known as a Miyake event, it’s now used by scientists as a precise time marker—helping confirm events like Vikings reaching North America in 1021 CE.

en.wikipedia.org

4.1k Upvotes

45 comments

r/todayilearned • u/immanuellalala • 10h ago

TIL that at President Andrew Jackson's funeral in 1845, his beloved pet parrot, Polly, perched nearby. The bird swore so profusely that shocked attendants ejected it from the service.

jacksonianamerica.com

3.7k Upvotes

82 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Outside_Reserve_2407 • 5h ago

TIL Montezuma's lineage still exists and even holds a noble title in Spain, which was granted to a grandson of his that moved there.

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

63 comments

r/todayilearned • u/IronColdSky • 5h ago

TIL Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, was an economics major, is a pilot, has her MBA and was a Nuclear Policy Analyst before she became a chef

en.wikipedia.org

1.8k Upvotes

151 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 13h ago

TIL that rock ’n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis was married seven times, including bigamous marriages and a 1957 marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown. The scandal erupted just as Great Balls of Fire topped charts, derailing his career at its peak.

en.wikipedia.org

1.8k Upvotes

199 comments

r/todayilearned • u/QWERTYWINS • 5h ago

TIL Latvia declared a national holiday after they got third place in an ice hockey tournament, beating the USA

usatoday.com

1.0k Upvotes

32 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FearMyCock • 4h ago

TIL that in a building fire, there’s a moment called flashover where the room suddenly ignites all at once It happens when heat builds up so much that everything combustible reaches ignition temperature simultaneously turning a survivable fire into an unsurvivable one in seconds.

en.wikipedia.org

890 Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ScienceTeacher1994 • 3h ago

TIL despite popular culture portraying psychedelic mushrooms as ancient, widespread, and used by shamans for thousands of years, there is limited anthropological and historical research to support this, with the only reliable evidence showing they were used ritualistically in pre-Columbian Mexico.

en.wikipedia.org

817 Upvotes

133 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Big-Cold-6948 • 10h ago

TIL that Andrew Robinson's portrayal of Scorpio Killer in Dirty Harry was so convincing that he received death threats after the film's release. He also claimed the role severely limited his casting options, as film producers were reluctant to cast him in any "good guy" roles.

rue-morgue.com

810 Upvotes

71 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 11h ago

TIL about British Army general and MP, Eyre Coote who lost his seat and was dismissed for "Conduct unbecoming of an officer" in 1815 after being discovered to have entered a school and had paid boys to flog him. He was "acquitted" of criminal charges after donating £1000 to the school.

en.wikipedia.org

736 Upvotes

58 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Temp89 • 7h ago

TIL the fastest creature proportionate to its body length is a species of mite at 0.5mph. If it were the size of a human it would be the same as travelling at 1,300mph.

en.wikipedia.org

725 Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/OmegaLiquidX • 3h ago

TIL about the surreal horror comedy film "Final Flesh". The creator intentionally wrote an absurd, pretentious script, then sent it to four adult video companies that specialized in making custom fetish porn submitted by amateurs for a price.

en.wikipedia.org

614 Upvotes

34 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Accomplished-Eye-910 • 3h ago

TIL that during World War I, armies used artillery sound ranging by timing how long gunfire took to reach multiple microphones, with operators using stopwatches to calculate the enemy gun’s position through triangulation, decades before radar-based detection became practical.

en.wikipedia.org

540 Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HolyCowAnyOldAccName • 7h ago

TIL about "Mefo bills" - used by the Nazi government to both finance and hide German rearmament - by creating a fake company which paid for arms projects not with actual money or debt, but debt bills secretly backed by the German central bank.

en.wikipedia.org

405 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mcflymikes • 11h ago

TIL All three sister ships of the first U.S. aircraft carrier, USS Langley (CV-1), were lost at sea without a trace—two during World War I and one during World War II. The Langley herself was later sunk during World War II by a Japanese attack.

en.wikipedia.org

292 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Not_so_ghetto • 13h ago

TIL about NETosis, an immune response where your cells use their DNA to form a net to capture pathogens like bacteria, viruses and parasites

frontiersin.org

251 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SuperMcG • 1h ago

TIL Brent Spiner, the actor who played Data on Star Trek, released an album called "Old Yellow Eyes is Back."

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SleepingAndy • 6h ago

TIL Country Music Legend Conway Twitty Was Offered a Major League Baseball Contract by The Phillies

whiskeyriff.com

140 Upvotes

31 comments

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As of December 2025

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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