r/todayilearned 4d ago

ANNOUNCEMENT: We, as a subreddit, have decided we will be going dark on June 12th for 48 hours in support of the community protest (details at the link)

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2.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL that Varina Davis, the First Lady of the Confederate States of America, was personally opposed to slavery and doubted the Confederacy could ever succeed. After her husband’s death, she moved to New York City and wrote that “the right side had won the Civil War.”

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36.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL that when a Roman legion was pulled out of Caledonia ~90AD, they were ordered to destroy the entire garrison and leave nothing of use. They broke every ceramic jar, burned everything flammable, and took great care to hide 7 tons of handmade nails. The nails were not discovered until 1961.

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9.7k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 12h ago

TIL: that babies are not born with the bacteria that causes cavities (S. mutans) and that the bacteria is transferred from someone else through saliva exchange. Parents who share food, cups, kisses, & lick pacifiers can transfer their bacteria and increase the baby’s chances of developing cavities.

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6.1k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 6h ago

TIL During the American Revolution the British captured Penobscot Bay and the Colonies sent an armada to take it back. All 44 of ships of the American Armada and hundreds of men were lost in the attack, making it the largest naval defeat in American history until Pearl Harbor, 162 years later.

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1.1k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 15h ago

TIL that Shaquille O'Neal was offered and declined the role of John Coffey in The Green Mile.

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7.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 9h ago

TIL Elton John has frequently said that without songwriter Bernie Taupin there would be no Elton John. The have been collaborating on music for 56 years, since Elton was 20 and Bernie was 17. A few songs of Taupin’s: Crocodile Rock, Candle in the Wind and Rocket Man.

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1.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 20h ago

TIL: The "Leatherman" was a person dressed in a leather suit who would repeat a 365 mile route for over 30 years. He would stop at towns for supplies and lived in various "Leatherman caves". When archeologists dug up his grave in 2011, they found no remains, only coffin nails.

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22.5k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL "DARVO" is a reaction pattern recognized by some researchers as common when abusers are held accountable for their behavior: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender. It was first theorized in 1997 by Jennifer Freyd who called it "frequently used and effective."

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6.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL Cuban high jumper Javier Sotomayor cleared 6 feet when he was 14. He cleared 7 feet when he was 16, and is the only human in history to jump 8 feet. His best jump of 8 feet 1/4 inch (2.45 m) has been the world record since 1993.

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Upvotes

r/todayilearned 22h ago Brighten My Day

TIL Diogenes was a Greek philosopher who was known for living in a ceramic jar, disrupting Plato's lessons by eating loudly, urinating on people who insulted him, and pointing his middle finger at random people.

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25.9k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL depression can and has been transferred from humans to mice through gut microbiome

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4.7k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 21h ago Narwhal Salute

TIL the force needed to use an English longbow effectively means that skeletons of longbowmen surviving from the period often show enlarged left arms and bone spurs in the arms and shoulders

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9.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL Jeff Bezos' biological father was a unicycle hockey player called Ted Jorgensen and the president of the world's first unicycle hockey club.

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7.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

TIL that around 60,000 Australian soldiers and 3,900 New Zealand soldiers fought in the Vietnam war alongside the USA between 1962/64 -1972

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335 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL that the last Great Auk egg ever was accidentally cracked in the struggle to strangle its parents

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Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL that in 2014 an 8 year old girl found her entire family dead after they were poisoned by gas from rotting potatoes

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397 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

TIL there is a Mount Kennedy in Canada, named after the president JFK a year after his assassination. Canada selected it because it was close to the US-Canada border and it serves as a symbol of the two nations' friendship.

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246 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL the snowiest place on Earth is in Japan, in Aomori and the surrounding area, known for having some of the heaviest snowfall in the world.

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4.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL: Scotland chose the unicorn as its national animal. In Celtic mythology, the fictional creature is connected with both chivalry and dominance as well as purity and innocence.

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Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL that Thomas Edison developed the concrete to build Yankee Stadium in 1922 before his company went bankrupt shortly after completion.

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2.7k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL Rockall is an uninhabited islet in the United Kingdom's exclusive economic zone (EEC). In 1997 the British recognized Rockall wasn't an island and gave up all EEC claims it could have made, Rockall is the only case of a state voluntarily downgrading an insular feature to "a rock".

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3.8k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 21h ago

TIL Barbara Eden spoke real Farsi when meeting Larry Hagman’s character in the first episode of I Dream of Jeannie, and her dialect was coached by a UCLA professor

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978 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

TIL that Dracula was heavily inspired by Henry Irving, Bram Stoker’s employer. Stoker was close friends with Irving, who was described by others as “a self-absorbed and profoundly manipulative man.”

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116 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 21h ago

TIL the first railroad fatality was William Huskisson, who crossed tracks to shake hands with the Duke of Wellington

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653 Upvotes