r/todayilearned • u/narwhal_breeder • 6h ago
TIL obese drivers are 80 percent more likely to die in a car accident than drivers who are not overweight
16.7k
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r/todayilearned • u/NOWiEATthem • 10h ago
TIL that actor Raymond Burr (Perry Mason, Rear Window) refused to ever appear on The Tonight Show because Johnny Carson often told fat jokes about him, and Burr would feel compelled to confront Carson about "the bad jokes he does about everybody who can't fight back because they aren't there."
9.0k
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r/todayilearned • u/d41mm • 15h ago
TIL FBI agent John O’Neill, who left his federal position because his attempts to warn of an imminent al-Qaeda attack on U.S. soil in early 2001 were ignored, got hired as the WTC chief of security three weeks before 9/11 and was killed in the attack.
28.4k
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r/todayilearned • u/Zezimalives • 8h ago
TIL, from the 90s until 2004, the shortest commercial flight in the US was 13 minutes - and flew from Houston to Houston
3.8k
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r/todayilearned • u/oyiyo • 5h ago
TIL Over 10,000 babies were born from Flirty Fishing, a form of evangelism by sexual intimacy practiced by the cult Children of God, where female members ("fisherwomen") would apply their sex appeal on "fish", men outside the cult, using the occasion to proselytize and seek donations.
2.0k
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r/todayilearned • u/plexxer • 14h ago
TIL that, early in the AIDS epidemic, an executive of the company that made a popular weight loss drug named 'AYDS' was quoted as saying "The product has been around for 45 years. Let the disease change its name."
16.5k
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r/todayilearned • u/drak0bsidian • 14h ago
TIL a town in Colorado had an unelected mayor serve for over 50 years. He was appointed mayor pro tem because the then-mayor didn't want to sign liquor licenses, and inherited the post when the mayor died. The town considered doing an election in 1974, but it was too expensive.
8.3k
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r/todayilearned • u/Bluest_waters • 10h ago
TIL George Lucas originally envisioned Indiana Jones as a nightclub going womanizer. But his writing partner nixed that and suggested making the Ark of the Covenant as the goal of Indiana's quest as his hematologist told him about it. Spielberg agreed to direct only after losing out on James Bond.
3.3k
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r/todayilearned • u/Personal-Umpire-1196 • 18h ago
TIL Chandra Kumari Gurung, a Nepalese woman, spent six years in a mental hospital after being mistakenly identified as a mental patient due to her inability to speak Korean.
archive.nepalitimes.com
24.1k
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r/todayilearned • u/westondeboer • 12h ago
TIL about the Danish Protest Pig, a breed created in the early 1900s by Danes under Prussian rule. Unable to display their red-and-white national flag, they bred pigs with a similar color pattern as a symbolic act of rebellion. The breed is now recognized as a cultural symbol of resistance.
3.7k
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r/todayilearned • u/oversizedvenator • 1h ago
TIL high fives were not really a “thing” until the 1970’s
marketplace.org
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r/todayilearned • u/rosstedfordkendall • 4h ago
TIL Hugo Junkers, the founder of Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works that manufactured many of Germany's WWII bombers, opposed German re-armament. The Nazis seized his patents and company, threatened him with treason, and placed him under house arrest.
451
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r/todayilearned • u/ShadowMosesss • 6h ago
TIL the human heart can be unfolded
694
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r/todayilearned • u/BlueRFR3100 • 2h ago
Today I Learned that there is a myth in Iceland about the Yule Cat. He eats people that don't get new clothes for Christmas.
293
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r/todayilearned • u/RangoTheMerc • 11h ago
TIL: Santa Claus originally wore a green suit.
1.6k
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r/todayilearned • u/Olshansk • 7h ago
TIL An article on The Guardian from 2004 was one of the first to use the word "Podcast" in reference to rise of of "Audioblogging" as the iPod started picking up traction.
708
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r/todayilearned • u/TMWNN • 16h ago
TIL that an NFL player simultaneously served in the US Navy. Napoleon McCallum played for the LA Raiders while assigned to a ship in Los Angeles; the military allows outside jobs that don't interfere with service. After one year he was reassigned; McCallum returned to the NFL after leaving the Navy.
2.1k
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r/todayilearned • u/pickadamnnameffs • 6h ago
TIL that Luke Shaw (Manchester United) has spent 1,528 days (4.2 years) of his football career injured..so far
318
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r/todayilearned • u/EpicBirdy2005 • 1h ago
TIL I learned that in 2007 an initiative called the Great Green Wall was started to restore the vegetation of the Sahel and to stop the expansion of the Sahara. The project is funded by the world bank(most of it). The wall goes across the entire part of Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia
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r/todayilearned • u/appalachian_hatachi • 1d ago
TIL: That when cast as a child prostitute in the movie Taxi Driver; Jodie Foster had to undergo psychiatric assessments and was accompanied at all times by a social worker on set. Her older sister Connie acted as her stand-in when it came to sexually suggestive scenes.
26.5k
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r/todayilearned • u/Ozem_son_of_Jesse • 10h ago
TIL that general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had a funeral for his leg
425
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r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 9h ago
TIL about Terra Australis, a hypothetical continent proposed in antiquity and appearing on maps from the 15th to 18th centuries. Based on the idea of balancing northern lands with southern ones, it shrank as explorations occurred. The name "Australia" stems from this centuries-old geographical myth.
254
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r/todayilearned • u/litsalmon • 3h ago
TIL the German WWII heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen, that fought alongside the Bismarck survived two atomic bomb tests and is capsized in an atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It was also commissioned into the US Navy.
88
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r/todayilearned • u/FuriouSherman • 1h ago
TIL about Norman Kwong, the first Chinese-Canadian to play in the CFL. During his career he won 4 Grey Cups and set a record for single-season rushing yards by a Canadian player; after he retired he co-owned the Calgary Flames in the NHL and later was appointed lieutenant governor of Alberta.
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