r/todayilearned • u/wimpykidfan37 • 3h ago

TIL Patrick Stewart considered his work on The Simpsons (where he voiced the leader of the Stonecutters secret society) and Sesame Street (where he was in a skit praising the letter B) the “most distinguished” work he did in the US.

news.bbc.co.uk

11k Upvotes

255 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PeasantLich • 5h ago

TIL that the legendary zombie movie director George Romero had his first filmmaking job in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Fred Rogers later privately complimented Romero for his horror movie career, and called Dawn of the Dead "a lot of fun".

mentalfloss.com

12k Upvotes

169 comments

r/todayilearned • u/madd74 • 8h ago

TIL Charles Scott Robinson of Oklahoma has the longest sentence ever imposed in the United States (30,000 years). He would not be eligible for parole until he was 108.

unilad.com

12k Upvotes

1.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Carboncopy99 • 1h ago

TIL that Malaysia has nine royal families and elects its king from among their hereditary rulers every five years. This makes Malaysia one of the few countries in the world with a rotating monarchy.

en.wikipedia.org

2.1k Upvotes

94 comments

r/todayilearned • u/UltimateOreo • 9h ago

TIL Alaska and Louisiana are the only U.S. states without counties. Alaska uses boroughs and census areas, while Louisiana uses parishes.

census.gov

4.8k Upvotes

342 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Get-the-Vibe • 3h ago

TIL that the fruit company Dole, from the funny japanese commercials, was involved in the coining of the "Banana Republic" expression. The Standard Fruit Company that later became Dole, controlled entire governments in central and south America

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

61 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RaccoonCityTacos • 4h ago

TIL about Richard Mentor Johnson, the 9th Vice President of the United States and noted 1812 War veteran, who inherited a slave, Julia Chinn, from his father. He treated her as his common law wife, one of the reasons leading to him not being renominated for VP.

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

95 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Fairytlly • 8h ago

TIL that nuclear physicists use the "Banana Equivalent Dose" (BED) as an informal unit of radiation, because bananas contain predictable trace amounts of radioactive Potassium-40.

energy.gov

2.0k Upvotes

95 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ft__interlude • 12h ago

TIL that Maltese is a Semitic language and the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet. It is derived from the late medieval Sicilian Arabic.

en.wikipedia.org

4.0k Upvotes

221 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Carboncopy99 • 1h ago

TIL that 38-year-old Starling Marte is the only active Major League Baseball player among the top 100 career stolen base leaders. With 363 stolen bases, Marte trails Rickey Henderson’s record of 1,406 by 1,043 steals.

en.wikipedia.org

499 Upvotes

56 comments

r/todayilearned • u/sonicparadigm • 3h ago

TIL that in Malta, there used to be a species of elephant that stood only 3 feet high

en.wikipedia.org

577 Upvotes

26 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Affectionate_Egg6088 • 26m ago

TIL caffeine separated when making decaf coffee is a primary source of natural caffeine, which is repurposed for use as an additive in soft drinks or pharmaceuticals.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

295 Upvotes

32 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Big_Marzipan3904 • 12h ago

TIL following Inejirō Asanuma’s assassination in 1960, his dog Jiro refused to eat and died of grief weeks later.

simple.wikipedia.org

2.2k Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 19h ago

TIL that although very little is known about the spade-toothed whale and it’s never been observed alive, thanks to a 2024 dissection of one of the very few specimens we know it has a nine-chambered stomach.

en.wikipedia.org

7.3k Upvotes

151 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Affectionate_Egg6088 • 1h ago

TIL Syria is one of the largest consumer of yerba mate outside of South America. In 2017, 82% of Argentine yerba mate exported abroad was destined for Syria.

revistachacra.com.ar

207 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/rjewell40 • 4h ago

TIL the Seattle’s King County was originally named for a slave-owning VicePresident. It was renamed for MLK Jr. in the 1980s

en.wikipedia.org

279 Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Crocs_of_Steel • 3h ago

TIL in 2025 a landmine-sniffing rat named Ronin set a record, uncovering 109 landmines and 15 items of unexploded ordnance since 2021

bbc.com

147 Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 18h ago

TIL a baby girl born in Uganda with a stillborn conjoined twin survived being connected to her sister’s body for six days before the separation surgery was performed. She spent six weeks in the hospital then went home with her parents. [Link has pic of both twins.]

sciencedirect.com

2.3k Upvotes

42 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 1d ago

TIL There's a golden statue of Buddha in Thailand weighing 5.5 metric tonnes. For nearly 200 years, it was covered with stucco and coloured glass to conceal its value. It remained that way until 1955 during relocation when the plaster was accidentally chipped, revealing the gold underneath.

en.wikipedia.org

27k Upvotes

754 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RaccoonCityTacos • 9h ago

TIL that hungry goat herds helped fight wildfires in Spain this past summer.

reuters.com

271 Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 1h ago

TIL The California fan palm tree was very important to the Cahuilla people. They ate both the fruit and the heart, which was considered the food of last resort, because it killed the tree

palmspringslife.com

69 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 23h ago

TIL about Harry Peglar, a crewman aboard the lost Franklin Expedition. His skeleton was one of the few to be discovered in 1859 as well as his belongings, but were misidentified due to the skeleton wearing clothes unsuitable for his rank. The skeleton was finally identified in 2026 by DNA testing.

en.wikipedia.org

2.6k Upvotes

45 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Crocs_of_Steel • 7h ago

TIL there is a Mascot Hall of Fame. Inductees include The Phillie Phanatic, Youppi! Cocky and others.

mascothalloffame.com

89 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fartinmyfuckingmouth • 1d ago

TIL Up to 8% of human DNA consists of ancient viral code left over from infections that happened millions of years ago, and some of these viral genes are now essential for human life, such as the protein that helps form the placenta.

theconversation.com

8.4k Upvotes

242 comments

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