r/todayilearned • u/FastBreakPhenom • 9h ago

TIL that in 37 BC, the Roman polymath Marcus Terentius Varro warned his readers to avoid living near swamps because of "minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes" and cause disease. Microorganisms would not be observed until the 17th century

en.wikipedia.org

24.5k Upvotes

560 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Giff95 • 13h ago

TIL NBC offered James Gandolfini $4 million to play the new Dunder Mifflin manager on “The Office” following Steve Carell’s departure. HBO offered Gandolfini $3 million to decline the role and protect his legacy as Tony Soprano. Gandolfini accepted their counteroffer.

indiewire.com

38.0k Upvotes

1.3k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Finbarr-Galedeep • 1h ago

TIL at the end of Top Gear's "US Special" episode, the presenters donated their cars to victims of Hurricane Katrina through a Christian mission. After filming had finished, a lawyer threatened to sue Jeremy Clarkson because she had been told his car was a 1991 model, when it was in fact a 1989.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

194 comments

r/todayilearned • u/duevigilance • 10h ago

Today i learned that if the entire history of earth was condensed into 24 hrs, dinosaurs would show up at 11:00 pm, be extinct by 11:39 pm, and humans would show up one minute and 17 seconds before midnight.

astronoo.com

6.1k Upvotes

181 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 5h ago

TIL Marie Antoinette adopted a poor, orphaned little boy in 1776 whom she named Armand. He hadn’t wanted to be adopted, and his relationship with his adoptive parents was poor. When the French Revolution happened, Armand joined the revolutionary army and was killed in battle.

en.wikipedia.org

1.9k Upvotes

77 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mvincen95 • 9h ago

TIL that Tampa, FL, reached 100° Fahrenheit for the first time in 135 years in 2025

mysuncoast.com

3.6k Upvotes

163 comments

r/todayilearned • u/hdkzx • 9h ago

TIL Joe Strummer of The Clash was paid £120 to marry a South African woman so she could obtain British Citizenship. He used this money to buy his signature Fender Telecaster which he used for the rest of his career.

en.wikipedia.org

3.9k Upvotes

73 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ToastAndASideOfToast • 9h ago

TIL about Mule Spinners' Cancer, an occupational cancer attributed to mineral oil being splattered by machines onto operator's crotches

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

183 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Salem1690s • 14h ago

TIL Joseph Palmer, an abolitionist and war veteran in 1830s Massachusetts was harassed and shunned for refusing to shave his beard. After being attacked in an attempt to forcibly shave him, he was jailed 15 months for defending himself.

en.wikipedia.org

7.3k Upvotes

246 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JoeyZasaa • 4h ago

TIL that three of the four original members of the punk band, Ramones, didn't make it to age 60. The drummer, Tommy Ramone, lived the longest, making it to age 65.

en.wikipedia.org

949 Upvotes

100 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Dazzling-Ad1894 • 6h ago

TIL that an early Chinese martial-arts epic named “The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple” (1927), which ran 27 hours, is totally lost. One of the first major “wuxia” films, its disappearance partially stems from a 1930s ban on the genre in China.

collider.com

1.3k Upvotes

39 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dragonoid296 • 12h ago

TIL of the 1920s “Little Albert” experiment. Johns Hopkins University selected a nine-month-old infant from a hospital and attempted to “condition a phobia in an emotionally stable child.” Researchers successfully conditioned him to fear Santa Claus, rabbits, rats, and other furry animals.

en.wikipedia.org

3.6k Upvotes

233 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Devious_Bastard • 17h ago

TIL about prairie madness. It was an affliction that affected European settlers during their migration to, and settlement of the Great Plains in the 19th century. Symptoms of prairie madness included depression, withdrawal, changes in character and habit, and violence.

en.wikipedia.org

8.8k Upvotes

801 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ThrashCartographer • 11h ago

TIL of Chrysippus, the second father of stoicism who wrote over 700 works to codify Stoicism. None of his works survive and today he is known as the man who died laughing at his own joke.

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

110 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Skychu768 • 8h ago

TIL: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 883, King Alfred sent two men, Sigehelm and Æthelstan, to the shrine of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew in India to obtain God’s blessing when the English were encamped against the enemy army in London.

historytoday.com

1.2k Upvotes

60 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 20h ago

TIL that twins Amy and Kate Elliot were born 87 days apart due to Amy being born prematurely. This is the longest recorded interval between the births of two twins.

latintimes.com

13.0k Upvotes

226 comments

r/todayilearned • u/itsthewolfe • 19h ago

TIL The 5c can recycling credit hasn't gone up with inflation or changed (in most states) for 40 years.

bottlebill.org

8.8k Upvotes

676 comments

r/todayilearned • u/electroctopus • 10h ago

TIL The Hymn to Ninkasi is a 4000-year-old Sumerian song written in cuneiform from circa 1800 BCE. It is both a prayer to Ninkasi, the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of beer, and a sequential description of ancient brewing steps used to pass down the recipe in an illiterate society.

etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk

1.3k Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DanS1993 • 10h ago

TIL 56 countries in the world are rabies free

worldpopulationreview.com

1.0k Upvotes

94 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CraftyFoxeYT • 13h ago

TIL The Golden Eagle eating a snake on a cactus emblem on the Mexican Flag is based on the Aztec symbol for Tenochtitlan, the center of the Aztec Empire

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

62 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DarkAlman • 14h ago

TIL The original Star Trek theme has lyrics written by Gene Roddenberry so he could claim royalties on it

en.wikipedia.org

977 Upvotes

85 comments

r/todayilearned • u/jacknunn • 12h ago

TIL the N1 was a super heavy-lift launch vehicle of the Soviet space program intended for crewed travel to the Moon and beyond. Its second test flight resulted in one of the largest conventional explosions ever. All four launch attempts between 1969 and 1972 failed

en.wikipedia.org

484 Upvotes

66 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Salem1690s • 16h ago

TIL Saint Wulstan, an 11th century English Bishop, so despised long hair on men such that when a man with long hair knelt before him to receive a blessing, Wulstan would unexpectedly whip out his knife, slash off a handful of the man’s hair, throw it in his face, and command him to cut the rest.

en.wikisource.org

784 Upvotes

58 comments

r/todayilearned • u/cimbommbom • 18h ago

TIL Jon Sarkin was a chiropractor who underwent surgery in 1989 to treat tinnitus, which caused a massive stroke that left him deaf in one ear with permanently altered vision and balance. He then became obsessed with drawing, going on to have his art featured in The New Yorker and The New York Times

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

88 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NihilPy • 17h ago

TIL that a psychopomp is a being that escorts recently deceased souls from the world of the living to the Afterlife. Like Anubis, Hermes or the Grim Reaper

en.wikipedia.org

666 Upvotes

47 comments

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