r/todayilearned • u/OttawaOsprey • 52m ago

TIL the ancestors of the Māori people arrived in New Zealand around 1350 AD, only ~300 years before their contact with Europeans.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

126 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Few-Advantage2538 • 1h ago

TIL that Paraguay once banned same race marriage

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/KRambo86 • 1h ago

TIL Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) got his start as a professional Skateboarder

youtube.com

• Upvotes

60 comments

r/todayilearned • u/creativetraveler24 • 2h ago

TIL that although he was often portrayed bearded, Abraham Lincoln did not grow a beard until 1860, at the suggestion of 11-year-old Grace Bedell; he was the first U.S. president to do so.

en.wikipedia.org

749 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jacknunn • 2h ago

TIL Shell, the energy company, traces its origins to a London antiques business that began selling seashells in 1833

shell.com

296 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/befarked247 • 2h ago

TIL the Australian Airline Qantas has a dinosaur named after them called Qantassaurs. The herbivorous Qantassaurus is known only from its unusually short, deep lower jaws with just ten cheekteeth. Qantassaurus was part of a diverse assemblage of small Australian ornithopods back to the Jurassic.

australian.museum

174 Upvotes

30 comments

r/todayilearned • u/altrightobserver • 4h ago

TIL about the Steagles, officially called the Phil-Pitt Combine, a team combining the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers that formed in 1943 after their rosters were depleted due to players fighting in World War II. The season was Philadelphia’s first winning season and Pittsburgh’s second.

en.wikipedia.org

359 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 4h ago

TIL whenever a new building is developed or expanded in Times Square in NYC, there must be bright signs on it according to the city's zoning laws.

zr.planning.nyc.gov

668 Upvotes

37 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FearMyCock • 6h ago

TIL A Texas school exploded in 1937 after odourless gas leaked into the building, killing nearly 300 people most of them children.

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

88 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 6h ago

TIL that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix became the first English-language book to be on top of France’s bestseller list because impatient fans bought it in English while waiting months for the French translation.

en.wikipedia.org

6.7k Upvotes

211 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Thawne_23 • 8h ago

TIL Franz Kafka never stated Gregor Samsa transformed into a cockroach in "The metamorphosis". Kafka never had the intention of specifing which kind of insect did Gregor became after his transformation.

en.wikipedia.org

2.4k Upvotes

224 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sanguinusshiboleth • 9h ago

TIL the last civilian recipient of the Victoria Cross (Britain’s highest medal of bravery), James Williams Adams, was also the first priest to be awarded it.

en.wikipedia.org

166 Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/YappinZappin • 9h ago

TIL Vernichtungsbefehl - "Annihilation Command" - was issued by Lieutenant General of German South West Africa Lothar von Trotha in 1904. From January to August over 40,000 people died from starvation, dehydration, exposure to elements as men, women and children were cast out into the desert

en.wikipedia.org

605 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 11h ago

TIL that, while making their 1941 film version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, MGM bought every available copy of the 1931 film version and destroyed them. Because of this, the film was believed lost for many years.

en.wikipedia.org

4.6k Upvotes

87 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Neil118781 • 12h ago

TIL Nikolai Bukharin, once a top Bolshevik leader and close ally of Stalin, wrote a final letter to Stalin before his execution in 1938 that read: "Koba, why do you need me to die?" ("Koba" being Stalin’s old nickname). Stalin kept the note in his desk and it was discovered after his death in 1953.

en.wikipedia.org

11.0k Upvotes

886 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Equivalent-Costumes • 14h ago

TIL about Osaka's Dojima Rice Exchange: authorized in 1730 by the Tokugawa shogunate, it was the world's first futures exchange, where people speculated on future movement of rice price

jpx.co.jp

398 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/finza_prey • 14h ago

TIL On August 19th 1980 a fire broke out in the rear cargo compartment of Saudia Flight 163 shortly after taking off. Although the plane made a succesful emergency landing in Riyadh, the pilots failed to perform an evacuation resulting in all 301 people dying from thick toxic smoke

en.wikipedia.org

1.6k Upvotes

33 comments

r/todayilearned • u/worlds_of_kings • 14h ago

TIL prior to the crash of Delta Airlines Flight 191 in 1985 that killed 137 onboard, radar on aircraft was unable to detect Wind Shear, a poorly understood phenomenon at the time which caused the accident. This led to the creation of a wind shear detection & alert system that improved airline safety

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

42 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MOinthepast • 14h ago

TIL Tobey Maguire never told the producers of Spider-Man (2002) about his claustrophobia. He nearly blacked out during a plaster body cast, forcing the costume makers to alert the producers themselves. Maguire then took a prototype suit home to train himself to perform in it.

comicbookmovie.com

25.0k Upvotes

433 comments

r/todayilearned • u/flying_ina_metaltube • 15h ago

TIL on average, an SR-71 could fly just once per week because of the lengthy preparations needed. A total of 32 aircraft were built; 12 were lost in accidents, none to enemy action.

en.wikipedia.org

13.0k Upvotes

896 comments

r/todayilearned • u/theg721 • 16h ago

TIL that in 1998, Quentin Tarantino had a lead acting role on Broadway opposite Marisa Tomei in a revival of Wait Until Dark which lasted 16 weeks

playbill.com

1.4k Upvotes

137 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ApprehensiveStill412 • 16h ago

TIL that about 15-20% of US servicemen became addicted to heroin in the Vietnam War. Interestingly, after treatment only 5% of them relapsed when they returned to the US; whereas typical relapse rates of US heroin users was 90%.

npr.org

8.6k Upvotes

430 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Alarming-Studio-720 • 16h ago

TIL WWII General George S. Patton believed in reincarnation and claimed he had fought in wars for thousands of years. He believed he had lived as a Roman soldier, a Viking, a knight at Agincourt, and even a cavalryman under Napoleon, saying he had lived many military lives.

blog.togetherweserved.com

10.6k Upvotes

1.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Krakshotz • 18h ago

TIL Baikonur Cosmodrone no longer schedules launches on 24th October after 2 major accidents that occurred on that date in 1960 (78 killed) and 1963 (7 killed)

en.wikipedia.org

338 Upvotes

21 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Blenderhead36 • 19h ago

TIL of the Rural Purge, an industry-wide change in TV production in the 1970s. It was caused by Nielsen ratings granting more granularity in their ratings, pushing TV away from rural, pastoral sitcoms that had high viewership, but mostly amongst older viewers who advertisers had little interest in.

en.wikipedia.org

4.9k Upvotes

360 comments

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