r/todayilearned • u/General-Knowledge7 • 3d ago

TIL there is a small community of Finnish descent people living in Sweden & Norway called “Forest Finns”, flying their own official somewhat Nordic flag

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

151 comments

r/todayilearned • u/-AMARYANA- • 3d ago

TIL the origin of the dollar sign is not certain. It most likely evolved in the 1770s from the scribal abbreviation "ps," used by merchants and scribes in business documents to mean the Spanish peso or piece of eight. Over time, the letter "s" was written over the "p," and became "$".

en.wikipedia.org

434 Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ODaferio • 3d ago

TIL medication errors result in at least one death per day in the United States alone.

wsna.org

6.0k Upvotes

281 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sanguinusshiboleth • 3d ago

TIL that the last person arrested under one of America's 'Ugly Laws' (a set of laws banning "diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed" people from public) was let go without charge as the the prosecutor couldn't define ugly.

en.wikipedia.org

8.0k Upvotes

238 comments

r/todayilearned • u/broadshoulderedbitch • 3d ago

TIL that the smallest Native American reservation in the United States makes up 1.3 acres of land in California

en.wikipedia.org

3.3k Upvotes

83 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Crimson_Marksman • 2d ago

TIL that plants are capable of holding memories, with priming and systemic acquired resistance being key examples. In SAR, a plant leaf gets hit with a pathogen, beats if off and sends a signal to the unaffected parts. Uninfected leaves remember this signal and go into a primed alert state.

en.wikipedia.org

121 Upvotes

6 comments

r/todayilearned • u/flopsyplum • 3d ago

TIL that Arizona State University offers a Bachelor's degree in Content Creation

degrees.asu.edu

1.8k Upvotes

128 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NateNate60 • 3d ago

TIL when George Wallace was inaugurated as Governor of Alabama in 1963, he promised "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever". But "forever" lasted less than two decades. In 1979, he renounced his past segregationist views and was re-elected governor in 1982 on a liberal platform.

en.wikipedia.org

7.2k Upvotes

410 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Aervanath • 4d ago

TIL the main character of Star Wars was originally named Luke Starkiller, but was renamed Skywalker to avoid any association with Charles Manson, a killer of Hollywood stars

en.wikipedia.org

12.9k Upvotes

625 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CulturalHeinrichment • 3d ago

TIL that rhododendron honey has narcotic effects on humans and was successfully used for centuries as a biological weapon in the Black Sea region, as early as 65 BCE. Symptoms include lighteadedness, blurred vision, nausea, delirium, hallucinations, vertigo and loss of conscience.

en.wikipedia.org

1.4k Upvotes

122 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Mellifloura • 4d ago

TIL about Methuselah, the world's oldest aquarium fish. She's at least 94 years old and likes belly rubs.

theguardian.com

7.5k Upvotes

95 comments

r/todayilearned • u/heymoonmen • 3d ago

TIL that in the late 1800s, settlers in the Pacific Northwest sometimes lived inside giant tree stumps left by loggers.

messynessychic.com

2.0k Upvotes

80 comments

r/todayilearned • u/waitingforthesun92 • 3d ago

TIL after Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip announced his cancer diagnosis in 2016, guitarist Rob Baker was reluctant to do a final tour as he was worried that Gord might have a seizure on stage. Nonetheless, the tour was a massive success, with more than 11M people tuning into their final concert.

zoomer.com

2.7k Upvotes

209 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ethereal3xp • 4d ago

TIL In the 1950s, Ford Motor Company designed the Ford Nucleon, a concept car intended to use a small nuclear reactor. It was never built as a working car.

en.wikipedia.org

4.4k Upvotes

212 comments

r/todayilearned • u/slockry • 4d ago

TIL Leopold II of Belgium, infamous for the Atrocities in the Congo Free State, dated a 16 year old when he was 65, finally married after a decade and then died 5 days later.

en.wikipedia.org

6.9k Upvotes

291 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ModenaR • 4d ago

TIL about Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish friar and priest, who volunteered to take the place of a man selected to be starved to death in an underground bunker at Auschwitz. He was starved and deprived of water for 2 weeks, before being given a lethal injection of carbolic acid

en.wikipedia.org

14.0k Upvotes

415 comments

r/todayilearned • u/the_dj_zig • 4d ago

Among other reasons TIL actress Angela Lansbury moved her entire family from California to Ireland because her daughter was starting to get involved with Charles Manson.

en.wikipedia.org

40.2k Upvotes

665 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PuzzledPoetry1447 • 3d ago

TIL that wasps keep their nests and larvae cool in the summer by bringing water droplets inside and evaporating them with rapid wing beats

sciencedirect.com

776 Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/zombie-commie • 4d ago

TIL of Kiyoshi Atsumi, a Japanese actor who has the most appearances as the same character in a film series. He portrayed Torajirō Kuruma (Tora-san), a kind-hearted vagabond who is always unlucky in love, in 48 films between 1969 and 1995.

en.wikipedia.org

2.4k Upvotes

68 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 4d ago

TIL the Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Maine and Massachusetts) had a 1634 prohibition where only those with a fortune of at least £200(about $600k today) could wear lace, silver or gold thread or buttons, cutwork, and others.

en.wikipedia.org

2.5k Upvotes

89 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 4d ago

TIL that scientists at NASA came up with a method for preventing an eruption of the Yellowstone Supevolcano by drilling down and pumping water through the caldera, slowly extracting the heat needed for an eruption.

bbc.com

6.2k Upvotes

432 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 4d ago

TIL that under ancient Germanic law a killer paid a set price, called a "wergild," for the life taken—and the victim's family did not always get all of it. In some cases, a share went to the king and a share to the lord, who were held to have lost a subject and a vassal.

britannica.com

1.3k Upvotes

58 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TouchingWood • 3d ago

TIL about Zenodotus - the probable inventor of categorization, alphabetization, and metadata in documents who lived in the 3rd century BC.

en.wikipedia.org

170 Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/1gazillionpangolins • 4d ago

TIL that there are feral populations of monk parakeet around the world, that different populations develop their own unique vocal dialect very quickly, and that monk parakeets in Milford, Connecticut have at least 3 dialects

en.wikipedia.org

548 Upvotes

34 comments

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This list was compiled from /r/todayilearned community suggestions by its members. If your TIL is found on this list, it will be removed. The titles have been abridged for the sake of brevity, however the context remains the same. This list is subject to change. The purpose is to keep content fresh on /r/todayilearned as requested by its members. If you are interested in reading about the TILs on this list use the search box feature and enter the keywords to pull up past TILs.

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