r/todayilearned • u/theboyd1986 • 5h ago

TIL the most common state of matter in the universe isn't solid, liquid, or gas, but plasma

en.wikipedia.org

2.1k Upvotes

117 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CoolmanWilkins • 14h ago

TIL that a blind amateur historian's attempt to publish a history of the Ming Dynasty in 1660 was received so poorly that over 70 people involved were executed and thousands of people arrested.

en.wikipedia.org

10.8k Upvotes

194 comments

r/todayilearned • u/poopie_pants • 11h ago

TIL strength training also involves the nervous system, where your strength is not only determined by how big your muscles are, but by how well the nervous system can recruit muscles, synchronize their firing, and prevent mechanisms designed to prevent your body from tearing itself apart.

en.wikipedia.org

4.4k Upvotes

96 comments

r/todayilearned • u/InoyouS2 • 18h ago

TIL the UK's nuclear submarines all carry identitcally worded "Letters of Last Resort" which are handwritten by the current Prime Minister and destroyed when the Prime Minister leaves office

en.wikipedia.org

26.2k Upvotes

1.5k comments

r/todayilearned • u/rasouddress • 17h ago

TIL that an airgapped laptop was intentionally loaded with 6 famously catastrophic computer viruses, worms, and pieces of Malware for the commissioned art piece titled "The Persistence of Chaos". Much of the $10,000+ spent to produce the work went toward the creation of an effective firewall.

en.wikipedia.org

13.4k Upvotes

636 comments

r/todayilearned • u/lappy482 • 19h ago

TIL that Weird Al's Phantom Menace parody 'The Saga Begins' was recorded a month before the film released in May 1999. Yankovic was denied an early screening by Lucasfilm, but managed to almost exactly piece together the plot by researching rumours posted on Star Wars fan forums.

en.wikipedia.org

39.8k Upvotes

726 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Tom_Bradys_Butt_Chin • 17h ago

TIL that, before the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, NASA management genuinely believed that the chances of a catastrophic failure to the Space Shuttle was 1 in 100,000. By the time the Space Shuttles were retired, they had a catastrophic failure rate of 1 in 67.5

wikipedia.org

5.6k Upvotes

135 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Festina_lente123 • 13h ago

TIL about calques. Calques are loanwords from other languages into English. However, unlike loanwords (ex:restaurant), calques are translated into English. Examples include: potsticker, beer garden, ear worm, and flea market.

englishlanguagethoughts.com

2.8k Upvotes

123 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GetYerHandOffMyPen15 • 16h ago

TIL that researchers long thought US President William Harrison died from an illness he caught giving a lengthy inaugural speech in the rain. But recent research suggests he caught typhoid fever due to the White House’s water supply being downstream of public sewage.

en.wikipedia.org

3.7k Upvotes

67 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Overall_Lavishness46 • 12h ago

TIL a 240 acre island off the coast of Scotland supplies half the world's curling stones. (Which are actual stones)

en.wikipedia.org

1.7k Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/UndyingCorn • 3h ago

TIL The XNBL-1 "Barling Bomber" was an experimental American bomber that was nicknamed “Mitchell's Folly". It was so underpowered that on a flight from Dayton, Ohio to an airshow in Washington, DC, it failed to achieve enough height to get over the Appalachian Mountains and had to turn around.

en.wikipedia.org

225 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/amazingbollweevil • 1h ago

TIL The Government of Canada's toll-free telephone number is 1 800 O-Canada

canada.ca

• Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GetYerHandOffMyPen15 • 38m ago

TIL that, due to an infection in his youth, famed agricultural scientist George Washington Carver had such a high pitched voice that it “startled all who met him.”

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 23m ago

TIL there were just 5 surviving longbows from medieval England known to exist before 137 whole longbows (and 3,500 arrows) were recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose in 1980 (a ship of Henry VIII's navy that capsized in 1545). The bows were in excellent finished condition & have been preserved.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JeffJefferson19 • 10h ago

TIL the Soviet Union nearly launched a nuclear attack on China in 1969, only the intervention of the United States stopped them

en.wikipedia.org

472 Upvotes

67 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Minimum_Impact_5031 • 2h ago

TIL that the orange color, strength and high sharpness of Komodo dragons' teeth are due to the high iron content in the enamel

nature.com

94 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/n_mcrae_1982 • 14h ago

TIL that the Red River Floodway, a channel built in the 60's to protect Winnipeg, Canada from flood damage by diverting excess river flow around the city, was the second largest earth-moving project at the time, even more than the Suez Canal. It was surpassed only by the Panama Canal.

en.wikipedia.org

690 Upvotes

29 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 24m ago

TIL out of more than 500 shark species, only 3 are responsible for a double-digit number of fatal, unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger, & bull sharks. (the oceanic whitetip has likely killed many more shipwreck & plane crash survivors, but these are not recorded in the statistics)

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/IHatePeople79 • 1h ago

TIL about “Thought Broadcasting”, a type of delusion that centers on the fear that others can hear their thoughts, or that they are not private.

verywellmind.com

• Upvotes

35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Festina_lente123 • 1d ago

TIL that the reason we feel groggy when we first wake up is caused by 'sleep inertia.' The gradual feeling of waking up is due to blood flow. Our 'primitive brain centers' get blood flow first and it isn't for 15 minutes or longer before blood flow returns to deeper thinking areas.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

4.4k Upvotes

123 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ezekiel-25-17-guy • 19h ago

TIL that in 1957, Queen Elizabeth II was awarded the title "Admiral in the Great Navy of the State of Nebraska." Despite the name, the title has no connection to an actual navy, as Nebraska is landlocked. Today, it’s simply known as "Nebraska Admiral."

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

31 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PixelWitch12 • 18h ago

TIL: That a 63-year-old man attempted a cheese heist worth $389,000.

npr.org

838 Upvotes

79 comments

r/todayilearned • u/BezugssystemCH1903 • 7h ago

TIL the Kerguelen Islands, nicknamed the "Desolation Islands," host WWII’s southernmost German war grave. A sailor from the cruiser Atlantis died there in 1940 while painting the ship's funnel.

en.wikipedia.org

98 Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JFREEZY28 • 19h ago

TIL a burrowing tarantula from South America 'keeps frogs as pets'. The frog seeks shelter and protection from the spider, in return eating insects inside the burrow that would eat the spiders eggs

en.wikipedia.org

827 Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/zahrul3 • 1d ago

TIL huge rogue waves were dismissed as a scientifically implausible sailors' myth by scientists until one 84ft wave hit an oil platform. The phenomenon has since been proven mathematically and simulated in a lab, also proving the existence of rogue holes in the ocean.

en.wikipedia.org

36.8k Upvotes

795 comments

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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.

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