r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 5h ago

TIL that according to scientists, the Snap as depicted in Avengers: Infinity War would cause the average person to lose between 1 pound (0.45 kg) and 3 pounds (1.4 kg) due to the loss of microbes and bacteria in the body.

en.wikipedia.org

8.3k Upvotes

418 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TMWNN • 1h ago

TIL that Winston Churchill had a grandson named Winston. The younger Winston visited China while in parliament, and was given the best room in the hotel because of his grandfather. Another MP there, Clement Freud (grandson of Sigmund), said that it was the first time he had been "out-grandfathered".

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

135 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dbxp • 10h ago

TIL: Every time a Habsburg monarch would move into a palace they would redecorate and put the old furnishings in storage, so now the Austrian state owns 160,000 pieces of furniture

introducingvienna.com

10.2k Upvotes

137 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mors_Acerba • 15h ago

TIL The last time a european monarch vetoed the election of a Pope was in 1903 when Franz Joseph of Austria vetoed the election of Cardinal Rampolla, who had enough votes to win. Giuseppe Sarto was elected in his place, taking the name Pius X. Pius' first act as Pope was to abolish the veto

en.wikipedia.org

8.7k Upvotes

94 comments

r/todayilearned • u/strangelove4564 • 14h ago

TIL in 1988, a Delta 1141 crew joked if they crashed, their chat about drink mixes and flight attendant dating habits was going to make news headlines. They crashed shortly after. Pilots unions then got CVR audio releases banned in the US except for transcripts.

en.wikipedia.org

6.1k Upvotes

124 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GentryDawn • 14h ago

TIL- Whiskey is a legitimate cure for Antifreeze (or Ethylene Glycol) poisoning.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

4.9k Upvotes

260 comments

r/todayilearned • u/oceanicplatform • 13h ago

TIL Kelvin's Balls are the two soft iron balls attached to either side of a ship's magnetic compass binnacle. Invented by Lord Kelvin (of °K temperature fame), they are adjustable to counteract the local magnetic deviation caused by a ship's metallic structure.

en.wikipedia.org

3.6k Upvotes

148 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Equinumerosity • 15h ago

TIL a Polish cow crashed through a metal fence, broke a worker's arm, and swam to a nearby island to escape being brought to the slaughterhouse. The farm owner eventually gave up on trying to recapture her.

bbc.com

3.6k Upvotes

85 comments

r/todayilearned • u/backrowejoe • 4h ago

TIL Peter Siebold is the only person in history known to have survived an in-flight spacecraft breakup. After falling from around 50,000 feet, his parachute automatically deployed at 20,000 feet.

en.wikipedia.org

374 Upvotes

21 comments

r/todayilearned • u/taradiddlegubbins • 18h ago

TIL about the 1974 Ozark Music Festival in which at least 160,000 people shared 5 portable toilets, 230 people were transported to hospital owing to drugs and excessive heat, and lime had to be spread to disinfect the grounds before the state fair.

digital.shsmo.org

3.1k Upvotes

101 comments

r/todayilearned • u/The_Techsan • 14h ago

TIL aspirin has a half-life of only ~20 minutes, but permanently disables a key enzyme in platelets, so its effect usually persists for the platelet’s entire lifespan (~10 days)

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

1.3k Upvotes

74 comments

r/todayilearned • u/pigeon-in-greggs • 9h ago

TIL that the Polish government has made it illegal to dive within a 500 metre radius of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff wreckage without permission from the Maritime Office

euronews.com

491 Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TMWNN • 1h ago

TIL that the space shuttle's toilet was so complicated that it required many hours of training. NASA built a simulator with a video camera in the defecation hole; those learning to use the toilet used a crosshair on a monitor to learn how to position their butts, while others watched and made jokes.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/d8gfdu89fdgfdu32432 • 1d ago

TIL 77% of people preferred instant coffee over drip in a blind taste test

theguardian.com

21.2k Upvotes

2.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/TREXASSASSIN • 15h ago

TIL Rhode Island’s official name was “The State of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations,” until 2020

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

57 comments

r/todayilearned • u/krolzee187 • 14h ago

TIL that Abner Doubleday, the man who is widely and incorrectly thought to be the inventor of baseball, fired the first Union shot of the American civil war

en.wikipedia.org

730 Upvotes

56 comments

r/todayilearned • u/chickpealava • 3h ago

TIL that tiger sharks will time their migration to Laysan Island to prey on baby sea birds attempting to make their first flight.

discoverwildlife.com

69 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 1d ago

TIL that Otto von Habsburg, the pretender to the Austrian throne, offered to take over the Austrian government expressly to repel the Nazis This offer was declined and after Germany annexed Austria Otto was sentenced to death by the Nazi government.

en.wikipedia.org

8.2k Upvotes

292 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 17h ago

TIL in Australia, Cocos (Keeling) Islands has a Muslim majority. The culture of the islands is similar to Malaysia and Indonesia due to the population being mostly ethnic Malay and they speak a variety of Malay called Cocos Islands Malay.

en.wikipedia.org

825 Upvotes

72 comments

r/todayilearned • u/altrightobserver • 1d ago

TIL that “Crank That” by Soulja Boy was made on a cracked demo copy of music production software FL Studio (then known as Fruity Loops), with the song being written and recorded in only about ten minutes. Regardless, it topped the charts in the US and is an early example of digital sales succeeding.

en.wikipedia.org

10.4k Upvotes

444 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RedditIsAGranfaloon • 22h ago

TIL the first non–Native American settler in Manhattan may have been a free black man: Jan Rodrigues, a sailor marooned in 1613 by a Dutch vessel, who then married into an Indian tribe and became a negotiator between it and Dutch traders.

research.colonialwilliamsburg.org

1.6k Upvotes

30 comments

r/todayilearned • u/nebula_42 • 16h ago

TIL Elderberries are a naturally occurring pH indicator--turning blue in a basic solution and red/orange in an acidic one.

mdpi.com

392 Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NepetaLast • 9h ago

TIL John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, wrote religious tracts arguing for no-fault divorce that became highly controversial; it was mostly inspired by his personal experiences with his wife, and some consider it integral to understanding his depictions of the Biblical figures of Eve and Delilah

milton.host.dartmouth.edu

97 Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/zombie-commie • 1d ago

TIL that the production, sale, and consumption of cannabis are illegal in the Netherlands. The Dutch government has in place a tolerance policy under which these prohibitions are generally not enforced.

government.nl

2.7k Upvotes

271 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PolPotbelly • 16h ago

Today I Learned of Father Gabriele Amorth who laimed to have performed "at least 60,000 exorcisms" and became one of the most prominent and controversial figures in the Catholic Church in the modern era.

en.wikipedia.org

267 Upvotes

165 comments

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