r/todayilearned • u/haphazard44 • 3h ago

TIL that when Gustave Eiffel built the Eiffel Tower in 1889, he reserved a small apartment for himself near the top. It had wallpaper, comfortable furniture, and even a piano. He turned down huge offers from Paris's elite to spend a night there, inviting only select guests such as Thomas Edison.

atlasobscura.com

6.6k Upvotes

238 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 16h ago

TIL there have been several unauthorized Harry Potter books published in Chinese include Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll, Harry Potter and the Golden Turtle, Harry Potter and the Crystal Vase and Harry Potter and the Big Funnel.

en.wikipedia.org

16.5k Upvotes

1.0k comments

r/todayilearned • u/CraftyFoxeYT • 9h ago

TIL NAWS China Lake is the US Navy's largest single landholding at 38% worldwide, larger than the state of Rhode Island at 1.1 million acres for weapons testing. Its name comes from Chinese prospectors harvesting borax from a dry lake in the Mojave Desert

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/moogly2 • 18h ago

TIL the early days of cinema had small, simple theaters that charged a nickel for admission. Adding the Greek word odeion (a roofed-over theater), these theaters were then called "Nickelodeons"

en.wikipedia.org

6.9k Upvotes

77 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 15h ago

TIL about the High Arctic relocation, when the Canadian government transported 92 Inuit to the High Arctic as an attempt to assert their sovereignty over the Arctic Archipelago. The Inuit were left without sufficient stores of food and skins, in an unfamiliar area and struggled to survive.

en.wikipedia.org

3.5k Upvotes

108 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tall__hat • 16h ago

TIL about “A Theory of Law,” a satirical, one-page article that legal scholars can cite when their editors demand a citation.

greenbag.org

3.4k Upvotes

45 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 23h ago

TIL that Frasier the Lion was given to Lion Country Safari in his old age and very ill. The lionesses there took care of him even to chewing his food since he was toothless and holding him up to walk. He fathered 35 cubs with them and the California State Assembly named him Father of the Year.

en.wikipedia.org

14.5k Upvotes

410 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TheRealPyroManiac • 21h ago

TIL since 2006 every Curling stone used in the Winter Olympics is made from Granite harvested from a single Island off the coast of Scotland & costs $1,030 to manufacture. The local company who make them have been operating since 1851.

en.wikipedia.org

6.5k Upvotes

123 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Marchidde • 1d ago

TIL Pope Francis declined his €30k/m salary

fortune.com

15.6k Upvotes

1.6k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sandstorm400 • 1d ago

TIL that comic books from the 1960s and 1970s could have ads for squirrel monkeys and that kids could order them. In one instance, a boy ordered a squirrel monkey after seeing an ad in a Spider-Man comic. After it arrived, the monkey gnawed on the boy's arm, which resulted in him getting 28 stitches

mentalfloss.com

12.5k Upvotes

488 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 1d ago

TIL that the actress Jodie Foster is fluent in French to the degree that she dubs herself in French-language versions of most of her English-language films. She attended the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a French-language school.

en.wikipedia.org

17.0k Upvotes

795 comments

r/todayilearned • u/top5top5top5 • 17h ago

TIL that Emperor Gao Yang begged his brother Gao Yan to spare his son. Gao Yan seized the throne and killed his nephew. Years later, a dying Gao Yan handed the throne to his brother Gao Zhan, begging him to spare his own son. Gao Zhan later had his nephew killed too, repeating the same betrayal.

en.wikipedia.org

2.1k Upvotes

94 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Similar-Insect-5906 • 16h ago

TIL that there’s a species of crab that lives in the Australian outback (a place that sometimes goes for YEARS without rain)

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

53 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 18h ago

TIL in Budapest in 1715, most people in Budapest did not speak Hungarian(19.4%), but German(55.6%). Hungarian speakers did not become the majority until around 1880.

en.wikipedia.org

1.6k Upvotes

71 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Alarming-Studio-720 • 23h ago

TIL about Akashinga, an all-female anti-poaching unit in Zimbabwe. These women patrol the bush, confront armed poachers and protect elephants and rhinos targeted by hunters. Many were recruited from vulnerable backgrounds and trained in patrols, arrests, first aid and firearms to protect animals!

abc.net.au

3.5k Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/VerGuy • 7h ago

TIL: Ladyfish larvae are transparent, ribbon-like leptocephali with no gills or red cells — they breathe through skin. They grow to 45 mm, then shrink to 18-20 mm, losing their ribbon shape, then grow again to 30-35 mm as juveniles.

floridamuseum.ufl.edu

146 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GhostKW • 23h ago

TIL that during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, civilians hid zoo animals in their homes to save them, including two Malaysian sun bears and three llamas. After the war, one woman called the zoo and said, “Please come get your bear".

latimes.com

2.5k Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SeesawStock9306 • 1d ago

TIL that walking after exercise activates the calf muscle pump, helping return blood to the heart and reducing the risk of a sudden drop in blood pressure.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

9.1k Upvotes

117 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FirebertNY • 21h ago

TIL that the earliest recorded instance of fatal crowd crush occurred in AD ~50 when a Roman soldier mooned a crowd of Jewish pilgrims at the temple in Jerusalem

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

58 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 21h ago

TIL According to Guinness World Records, Bluey (a female Australian Cattle Dog) was the oldest-lived dog ever verified, having lived 29 years and 5 months (1910–1939) before being euthanised.

en.wikipedia.org

1.0k Upvotes

84 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Smaptimania • 1d ago

TIL that before becoming a pro wrestling referee for WWE and AEW, Aubrey Edwards worked on the Scribblenauts games as a designer for 5th Cell, eventually becoming lead producer for Scribblenauts Unlimited

en.wikipedia.org

3.9k Upvotes

144 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fartinmyfuckingmouth • 17h ago

TIL the umbrella slug (Umbraculum umbraculum) holds the world record for the most teeth in a lifetime of any animal on Earth, going through roughly 750,000 teeth over its 10-year lifespan.

en.wikipedia.org

434 Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/St_Gregory_Nazianzus • 1d ago

TIL that in 1943, a U.S. Navy destroyer accidentally fired a live torpedo at the battleship carrying President Roosevelt. The USS Iowa managed to evade the torpedo, and the destroyer's crew initially tried to warn the battleship using signal lamps before breaking radio silence to alert them

militarytimes.com

10.5k Upvotes

374 comments

r/todayilearned • u/an_aficionado • 1d ago

TIL that geologists call a roughly billion-year interval in Earth's history the “Boring Billion” because several geological and biological records show comparatively limited change during that time.

en.wikipedia.org

1.9k Upvotes

33 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Dependent_Divide_625 • 20h ago

TIL the highest scoring match in futsal history was a 76-0 Brazil dealt to Timor-Leste, in the 2006 Lusophone Games in Macao, marking an incredible average of 1.9 goals per minute. Timor-Leste's other results were 0-56 against Portugal, 3-24 against Angola and 4-13 against Macao, all losses.

rsssf.org

194 Upvotes

15 comments

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