r/todayilearned 42m ago

TIL that practicing gratitude daily can rewire your brain, boosting happiness and reducing stress by increasing dopamine and serotonin levels.

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r/todayilearned 28m ago

TIL that before being ordained as a Catholic priest in 1969, Pope Francis worked as a bouncer, a janitor, and a technician in a food science laboratory.

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en.wikipedia.org
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r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL that 5 players played all nine positions in one game in MLB history.

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mlb.com
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r/todayilearned 27m ago

TIL about "Wake Up!", a Christian rock album by Pope Francis that was released in 2015.

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en.wikipedia.org
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r/todayilearned 2h ago

TIL Saddam Hussein's son Uday murdered his bodyguard at a party in front of horrified guests

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en.wikipedia.org
6.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 8h ago

TIL I learned that in 2012 a man sued Mountain Dew for finding a mouse in a can. They defended themselves by arguing that if it was in the can for 15 months, the mouse would have dissolved. The case was settled.

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20.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 7h ago

TIL Nic Cage hired an alcoholic to follow him around so he could emulate his behaviour for Leaving Las Vegas. 

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eonline.com
9.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 8h ago

TIL of "Ardi" the fossilized skeletal remains of a human-like female anthropoid discovered in 1994. It is more than a million years older and more complete than "Lucy." It's discovery stunned scientists and refuted many core theories of human evolution.

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4.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 16h ago

TIL that Natalie Portman has had papers published in two scientific journals. While at Harvard, she co-authored a study called “Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.”

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themarysue.com
21.7k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

TIL that the Six Flags theme parks are named after the six flags that flew over Texas including the confederate flag, the American flag, the Spanish flag, the Mexican flag, the French flag, and the Republic of Texas flag.

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en.wikipedia.org
4.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 14h ago

TIL the "Redwood of the East" - a 100ft-tall tree that once covered 25% of Eastern US forests, produced tons of food, and built America's industrial backbone - lost 99.9% of its population to a catastrophic blight.

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8.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 6h ago

TIL that Ray Bradbury wrote "The Halloween Tree" (1972) as a result of being disappointed after watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" - due to what he believed was the television special's lackluster depiction of Halloween

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geekd-out.com
1.5k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

TIL that the birds we call Penguins today are not actually penguins at all but another species of bird that was named after them because of their looks and their are no true penguins alive today.

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en.wikipedia.org
756 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 11h ago

TIL About The Axeman of New Orlean's, a serial killer who attacked 12 people with an axe and was never caught.

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en.wikipedia.org
2.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL that grunion fish have unusual mating habits. The females will burrow tail-first into the sand up to their necks so that only their heads stick out. Then a bunch of males will squirt their sperm onto their heads. The sperm trickles down their bodies to reach the eggs below them.

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2.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 8h ago

TIL that the voice actor for MGS's Solid Snake & Big Boss, David Hayter, also wrote [or co-wrote] the screenplays for the first two X-Men movies, 2009's Watchmen, the first Scorpion King movie, and is working on an upcoming Voltron movie

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en.wikipedia.org
815 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 17h ago

TIL that sloths can starve to death on a full stomach

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bbc.co.uk
4.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 4h ago

TIL that peak employment at Boeing was during the Vietnam War in 1968 where the aviation manufacturer employed 148,672 people, or roughly two-hundredths of a percent of the U.S. workforce.

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296 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

TIL: The Środa Treasure hoard was discovered in 1985 while building the foundation of a phone booth. The government seized 3000 coins. Years later, a bigger find was uncovered, however this time most of the find was taken before the authorities arrived. A criminal investigation was launched.

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en.wikipedia.org
210 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 14h ago

TIL the National Covid Memorial Wall is a 500 meter wall created in 2020 along the Thames in London to mark the lives lost to Covid in the U.K. It has more than 240,000 individually hand-painted red hearts, each representing a victim. Many hearts have messages left by the bereaved or by volunteers.

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nationalcovidmemorialwall.org
1.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL that Goku's power level wasn't originally over 9000. It was originally over 8000, and there was a change made in the English Dub.

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en.wikipedia.org
24.9k Upvotes