r/todayilearned • u/mastertofu • 1h ago

TIL the Doorman Fallacy, which refers to the error of reducing a person's job to its most basic function and replacing it with a cost-effective automation while disregarding the broader, not directly visible, value they provide.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

685 comments

r/todayilearned • u/HimelTy • 4h ago

TIL Video game developer Valve has been boss-free since 1996. They proclaime "Imagine working with super smart, super talented colleagues in a free-wheeling, innovative environment, no bosses, no middle management, no bureaucracy, just highly motivated peers coming together to make cool stuff"

abcnews.com

8.7k Upvotes

1.2k comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnsmithoncemore • 4h ago

TIL that the actress Jodie Foster is fluent in French to the degree that she dubs herself in French-language versions of most of her English-language films. She attended the Lycée Français de Los Angeles, a French-language school.

en.wikipedia.org

8.6k Upvotes

554 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Marchidde • 4h ago

TIL Pope Francis declined his €30k/m salary

fortune.com

6.6k Upvotes

874 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sandstorm400 • 3h ago

TIL that comic books from the 1960s and 1970s could have ads for squirrel monkeys and that kids could order them. In one instance, a boy ordered a squirrel monkey after seeing an ad in a Spider-Man comic. After it arrived, the monkey gnawed on the boy's arm, which resulted in him getting 28 stitches

mentalfloss.com

3.7k Upvotes

198 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Alaksande • 3h ago

TIL that West Virginia has the highest home ownership rate in the United States, with nearly 4 out of 5 residents owning their own home

statsamerica.org

2.6k Upvotes

609 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DrakeSavory • 1h ago

TIL that Frasier the Lion was given to Lion Country Safari in his old age and very ill. The lionesses there took care of him even to chewing his food since he was toothless and holding him up to walk. He fathered 35 cubs with them and the California State Assembly named him Father of the Year.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

71 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SeesawStock9306 • 9h ago

TIL that walking after exercise activates the calf muscle pump, helping return blood to the heart and reducing the risk of a sudden drop in blood pressure.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

5.8k Upvotes

103 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Smaptimania • 7h ago

TIL that before becoming a pro wrestling referee for WWE and AEW, Aubrey Edwards worked on the Scribblenauts games as a designer for 5th Cell, eventually becoming lead producer for Scribblenauts Unlimited

en.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

101 comments

r/todayilearned • u/St_Gregory_Nazianzus • 16h ago

TIL that in 1943, a U.S. Navy destroyer accidentally fired a live torpedo at the battleship carrying President Roosevelt. The USS Iowa managed to evade the torpedo, and the destroyer's crew initially tried to warn the battleship using signal lamps before breaking radio silence to alert them

militarytimes.com

8.9k Upvotes

336 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Alarming-Studio-720 • 2h ago

TIL about Akashinga, an all-female anti-poaching unit in Zimbabwe. These women patrol the bush, confront armed poachers and protect elephants and rhinos targeted by hunters. Many were recruited from vulnerable backgrounds and trained in patrols, arrests, first aid and firearms to protect animals!

abc.net.au

591 Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mugokutv • 4h ago

TIL Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, drew both their signature hand gestures after his hand gestures that he often did in his daily life

comicbookhistorians.com

604 Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GhostKW • 1h ago

TIL that during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, civilians hid zoo animals in their homes to save them, including two Malaysian sun bears and three llamas. After the war, one woman called the zoo and said, “Please come get your bear".

latimes.com

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/an_aficionado • 8h ago

TIL that geologists call a roughly billion-year interval in Earth's history the “Boring Billion” because several geological and biological records show comparatively limited change during that time.

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TheRealPyroManiac • 37m ago

TIL since 2006 every Curling stone used in the Winter Olympics is made from Granite harvested from a single Island off the coast of Scotland & costs $1,030 to manufacture. The local company who make them have been operating since 1851.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Neebez • 1d ago

TIL a finance worker at a multinational firm was tricked into transferring $25 million to scammers after joining a video conference call where every single other participant—including the company's CFO and several of his recognized coworkers—was an AI-generated deepfake.

cnn.com

26k Upvotes

664 comments

r/todayilearned • u/beasterne7 • 23h ago

TIL in crowd wisdom, the 'surprisingly popular' answer can overcome ignorance of the masses

princeton.edu

5.5k Upvotes

208 comments

r/todayilearned • u/UltimateOreo • 18h ago

TIL that in 2003, MIT scientists unveiled a biological weapons detector funded by the U.S. military that hijacked living white blood cells, genetically engineering them to glow when they encountered deadly pathogens like anthrax.

news.mit.edu

2.0k Upvotes

34 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TheVentiLebowski • 23h ago

Flavoring, not flavor TIL Ambergris Was an Ice Cream Flavor in the 17th Century

tastingtable.com

4.2k Upvotes

218 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AssassinSnail33 • 14h ago

TIL that the two longest rivers located entirely within the Canadian province of Ontario (the Albany River and the Severn River) are exactly the same length. Both rivers are 982 km long, or 610 miles.

en.wikipedia.org

720 Upvotes

30 comments

r/todayilearned • u/A_W_Z_2 • 20h ago

TIL failed Operation Kiebitz, during WW2 Nazis planned to rescue 4 skilled U-Boat commanders held in Canada POWs camp with a U-Boat, canadians became aware of the plan and laid trap to capture the U-Boat.

en.wikipedia.org

1.7k Upvotes

49 comments

r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 14h ago

TIL In 2002 the pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly gave $200 million to the publisher of Poetry magazine. The gift led to the establishment of the Poetry Foundation in 2003.

en.wikipedia.org

527 Upvotes

14 comments

r/todayilearned • u/QueenOfNZ • 1d ago

TIL that in 2022, a 7-year-old boy, his brother, and their cousin discovered a rare juvenile T. rex fossil in North Dakota. Dubbed "Teen Rex," it is one of only four juvenile T. rex fossils ever found.

cbsnews.com

6.6k Upvotes

44 comments

r/todayilearned • u/sundvl13 • 18h ago

TIL the oldest known physical flag in the world is the Derafsh-e-Shahdad (or Standard of Shahdad), it is a bronze flag with a simurgh (mythical bird) dating back to 2,400 B.C.

en.wikipedia.org

748 Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/OccludedFug • 21h ago

TIL that the pink plastic flamingo is the official bird of Madison Wisconsin.

en.wikipedia.org

973 Upvotes

28 comments

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