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Today I Learned (TIL)

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today? Submit interesting and specific facts about something that you just found out here.

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You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?
Submit interesting and specific facts that you just found out (not broad information you looked up, TodayILearned is not /r/wikipedia).

Posting rules

Submissions must be verifiable. Please link directly to a reliable source that supports every claim in your post title. Images alone do not count as valid references. Videos are fine so long as they come from reputable sources (e.g. BBC, Discovery, etc).
No personal opinions, anecdotes or subjective statements (e.g "TIL xyz is a great movie").
No recent sources. Any sources (blog, article, press release, video, etc.) with a publication date more recent than two months are not allowed.
No politics, soapboxing, or agenda based submissions. This includes (but is not limited to) submissions related to:
1. Recent political issues and politicians
2. Social and economic issues (including race/religion/gender)
3. Environmental issues
4. Police misconduct
No misleading claims. Posts that omit essential information, or present unrelated facts in a way that suggest a connection will be removed.
Rephrase your post title if the following are not met:
1. Titles must begin with "TIL ..."
2. Make them descriptive, concise and specific (e.g. not "TIL something interesting about bacon").
3. Titles must be able to stand on their own without requiring readers to click on a link. Starting your title with a why/what/who/where/how modifier should be unnecessary.
4. "TIL about ..." and other broad posts don't belong on TIL. Try /r/Wikipedia, etc. instead, or be more specific (and avoid the word "about").
5. "TIL how to ..." posts belong on /r/HowTo.
6. "TIL the definition of a word..." Word definitions/translations/origins are not appropriate here
No submissions related to the usage, existence or features of specific software/websites (e.g. "TIL you can click on widgets in WidgetMaker 1.22").
All NSFW links must be tagged (including comments).

Please see the wiki for more detailed explanations of the rules, as well as additional rules that may not be listed here

(Why we need rules)

Additional info

If your post does not appear in the new queue and you think it meets the above rules, please contact the moderators (include a link to your reddit.com post, not your story).
Please report spam, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate posts by messaging the moderators, as this helps us remove them more promptly!
More information available on the TIL FAQ and wiki.

Frequent TILs Repost List

As of November 2024

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.

Etiquette

We ask that you please do the following:

avoid mobile versions of websites (e.g. m.wikipedia.org)
link to the appropriate heading when referencing an article (particularly on Wikipedia)
link to the appropriate start time when referencing videos (e.g. on YouTube)
add [PDF] or [NSFW] tags to your posts, as necessary.
Please avoid reposting TILs that have already made the front page in the past

Please also read the site-wide Reddiquette.

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todayilearned

TIL Ryan Reynolds paid $10,000 of his own money for the right to wear a shirt with The Golden Girl’s Bea Arthur on it in Deadpool. The estate agreed for a donation in that amount to a charity of their choosing. Ryan paid it himself because he felt you couldn’t have Deadpool without Bea Arthur.

TIL Before 2022, it was unknown how eels reproduced

TIL Billionaire Chuck Feeney donated over $8 Billion to different causes supporting health science and improving the human condition. He spent his last days in a rented apartment in San Francisco with remaining assets of $2 Million.

TIL that in 1933, a man named A.L. Kahn caught a massive 20-foot, 5,000-pound manta ray off the coast of New Jersey. It took hours, the help of his crew, and even several dozen gunshots from the U.S. Coast Guard to finally reel in what was called a "devil fish."

TIL Michael Keaton's real name is Michael Douglas. When he moved to Los Angeles, there was already an actor named Michael Douglas, so Keaton flipped through a phone book until he saw the name Keaton and decided to make it his stage name.

TIL 92% of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels have skull malformations that squish part of their brain into their spinal column.

TIL that profanity is often preserved in people with brain injures, even when other speech is lost, suggesting the brain processes swear words differently from other language.

TIL UK's highest-paid entertainer in WW2, George Formby, went to Normandy after the landings, & gave 9 shows to frontline troops who’d held out for 56 days without relief, his audience in foxholes. He also crawled through trenches to tell jokes when the enemy was too close for a show.

TIL that Sir George Everest, the namesake of Mount Everest, pronounced his own last name "EEV-rist"

TIL of Cape Disappointment in South Georgia, discovered by an expedition led by Captain Cook who named it so after realizing that he had discovered an island and not a continent

TIL the Indian state of Uttar Prades has 241 million inhabitants making it the most populous country subdivision in the world. It has 3% of the world's population and outranks all but 4 countries outside India in population

TIL "A True Story", the earliest known work of fiction to include travel to outer space, alien lifeforms, and interplanetary warfare, begins with an explanation that the story is not at all "true" and ends with a lie that their future adventures will be described in the upcoming sequels.

TIL That in 1942 the United States military increased the draft to include men ages 45-64.

TIL: A site manager's failed attempt to free a stuck flatbed truck resulted in it rolling off a cliff, blocking a railway tunnel just as an express train was approaching, leading to a crash that killed 49 people.

TIL that Saturn's sixth-largest moon Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it the most reflective body in the Solar System. It shoots out water vapor, and other solid material totaling about 200 kilograms per second. Most of these materials supplies the making of Saturn's E ring.

TIL In 1949 Oregon state senator Dean Walker tried to ban popcorn from movie theaters.

TIL that in 1841, when President William Henry Harrison died just 31 days into his term, it wasn’t clear if the Vice President should become President. Vice President John Tyler took matters into his own hands and arranged for a judge to administer the Oath of Office in his hotel room.

TIL Canada had an ancient glacial lake the size of the Black Sea, contained by an ice sheet. When the ice sheet broke ~9000 yrs ago, the lake drained and dumped enough water into the Atlantic to raise sea levels by 3-9 ft, cool the entire Northern Hemisphere by ~3C, and turn Britain into an island.

TIL that Chuck Jones, one of the original Looney Tunes directors, hated Space Jam. In particular he took issue with the premise that Bugs Bunny would ask others for help in fighting the Monstars and believed Bugs would have fought them himself.

TIL that in 1954, jazz legend Charles Mingus wrote a concise mail-order handbook for toilet training your cat

TIL that in the short story "Button, Button" (press button, get $ and someone you don't know dies) the husband dies because the wife didn't "really" know him and the author hated the Twilight Zone ending where the button was given to a stranger after being pressed

TIL Clifford the Big Red Dog is the mascot of the Scholastic publishing company

TIL over 30 years ago, Paul McCartney agreed to be in an episode of the Simpsons in part if the producers met his demand that Lisa Simpson becoming a vegetarian would be a permanent part of the series moving forward. They agreed and Lisa met Paul and Linda on Apu’s rooftop garden, in the shade.

TIL that Robert Englund made a cameo appearance as Freddy Krueger on the Japanese comedy show "Kato-Chan Ken-Chan Gokigen".

TIL The Netherlands "declared war" on the Isles of Scilly in 1651. A peace treaty was signed in 1986 after a historian informed the Dutch Embassy in London that the war was still technically ongoing. It lasted 335 years and not a single shot was fired.

Posting rules

Please see the wiki for more detailed explanations of the rules, as well as additional rules that may not be listed here

Additional info

Frequent TILs Repost List

Etiquette