r/todayilearned
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u/fromnighttilldawn
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3h ago
TIL: an Italian former porn star, Carlo Masi, quit porn to do research in applied mathematics, got his PhD, taught real analysis, became a professor, and then got sacked for being a former porn star. He sued and won against the university.
r/todayilearned • u/incockneato • 9h ago
TIL Shel Silverstein wrote extensively for Playboy, frequented the Playboy mansion and slept with "hundreds, perhaps thousands of women".
r/todayilearned • u/nowuff • 11h ago
TIL Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States as an independent sovereign nation
r/todayilearned
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u/NegativeBee
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18h ago
TIL Thomas Jefferson was so impressed by macaroni and cheese during a visit to Paris that he wrote down the recipe and instructions on pasta extrusion, imported a pasta maker, macaroni, Parmesan, and made it at his home. He served it at a state dinner in 1802.
r/todayilearned • u/iambeno • 17h ago
TIL - The miscarriage rate is higher than people perceive. On average 12.5% of women who know the are pregnant have a miscarriage within the first 23 weeks of pregnancy.
r/todayilearned • u/ComfortableTrash5372 • 20h ago
TIL Willie Nelson smoked weed at the White House with Jimmy Carter’s son
r/todayilearned • u/tom275bo • 1d ago
TIL in 1996, a 21-year-old man burst into a New Zealand radio station, took the manager hostage and demanded that Kermit the Frog's rendition of Rainbow Connection be played.
r/todayilearned • u/jdward01 • 23h ago
TIL that Walt Disney World began as "The Florida Project". Dummy corporations were used, by Walt Disney Productions, to buy up 27,000 acres of land to avoid bursts of land speculation in the Orlando area. Early rumors assumed possible development by NASA, Ford, the Rockefellers, and Howard Hughes.
r/todayilearned • u/Madbrad200 • 10h ago
TIL of Cáin Adomnáin, dubbed "Europe's first human rights treaty". Created in the year 697, was a set of laws - which kings across Ireland and parts of Scotland mutually agreed to follow - that guaranteed the safety of non-combatants in warfare.
r/todayilearned • u/autumn-knight • 1d ago
TIL William Bligh was not only overthrown as Governor of New South Wales in Australia’s only military coup but was previously overthrown as Captain in the famous mutiny on the HMS Bounty.
r/todayilearned • u/Pfeffer_Prinz • 19h ago
TIL in the 1920s, Coco Chanel accidentally got a tan, and helped inspire the trend of sunbathing. Soon "sunlight therapy" was prescribed for almost every ailment from fatigue to tuberculosis. Before this, tanned skin was associated with the lower classes who work outside, and fair skin was revered.
r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • 1d ago
TIL a special law in the UK was created to ensure that the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital will forever be able to collect royalties from stage performances, audiobooks, book releases, etc. of Peter Pan in the UK. This is the only work with an 'exception' to copyright laws.
r/todayilearned • u/jamescookenotthatone • 57m ago
TIL In the West the largest meal of the day has historically been eaten at midday. It was not until Napoleon's empire there was the "abominable habit of dining as late as seven in the evening" as British travelers reported. The British adopted later dinners by 1850 from changes in work schedules.
r/todayilearned • u/zhuquanzhong • 8h ago
TIL Hou Jing, a general during the China's North-South period, seized control of the government of the Liang dynasty by rebelling. After that, in an act of vanity, he gave himself the title of "General of the Universe, Past, Present, and Future, Commander of all Forces in the Six Directions".
r/todayilearned • u/Themakia • 1d ago
TIL the milky way was named as such because of Hera's breaskmilk...An infant Hercules tried to nurse from her, and she threw him off. Allowing some milk to splash and creating the galaxy and all its stars...
r/todayilearned • u/ThoDoh • 4h ago
TIL that some medieval monks interpreted the scriptural Nemo Deum vidit (“No one hath seen God”), along with many other references to No-one in the Bible, to mean that Nemo was a certain person. Everything impossible, inadmissible, inaccessible is, on the contrary, permitted for Nemo.
artandpopularculture.comr/todayilearned • u/SuperCrappyFuntime • 1d ago
TIL In 2012, a solar Coronal Mass Ejection that might have taken the world 4 to 10 years to recover from missed Earth by about 9 days
r/todayilearned • u/dakp15 • 1d ago
TIL about the Davy Crockett - a tripod mounted gun developed by the US during the Cold War. It fired a tactical nuclear warhead with a range of up to 4 miles and a yield that caused fatal radiation within a radius of a quarter of mile
r/todayilearned • u/racc15 • 1d ago
TIL about William Duell, a criminal, who was hanged in 1740. His body was sent to be dissected for medical purposes. However, he started breathing and was revived by the staff. His sentence was commuted, and he was exiled to North America where he died at an old age.
en.wikipedia.orgr/todayilearned • u/Apiperofhades • 10h ago
TIL James Hepburn was the third husband of Mary Queen of Scots. He fled to Denmark to escape arrest, but he was imprisoned in Malmo castle. Years after his death, it was found the sea air preserved his body, and his corpse put on display in a museum.
nationalgalleries.orgr/todayilearned • u/IAmTiborius • 1d ago
TIL that when former White House press secretary James Brady died in 2014, his death was ruled a homicide because it was ultimately caused by a gunshot wound he sustained in 1981, during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan
r/todayilearned • u/WhatA_Nerd • 15h ago
TIL children were most prone to lead poisoning because lead chips and toys with lead dust tasted "sweet".
r/todayilearned • u/penguinopusredux • 6h ago
TIL the Japanese government launched Sake Viva, a contest to encourage young people to drink more and so boost tax revenues.
r/todayilearned • u/LarryOtter1988 • 2h ago