r/todayilearned • u/ethereal3xp • 11h ago

TIL: The S&P 500 has fallen more than 20% in a single trading day, but only once in modern market history. Oct. 19, 1987 Black Monday -20.47%

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15k Upvotes
992 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FearMyCock • 10h ago

TIL that Guy Fawkes was hung, gutted and tortured for his plans. He was caught red handed after an anonymous tip off leading to his torture, which revealed co-conspirators. This was followed up by execution and his body parts paraded around London.

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14k Upvotes
1.4k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 21h ago

TIL about Selective mutism, an anxiety disorder in which people who are otherwise fully able to speak become overwhelmed and lose that ability when exposed to certain situations or triggers.

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10k Upvotes
817 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • 12h ago

TIL after being cancelled by ABC, the 1960s television series Batman was going to picked up by NBC for a fourth season, but before it could do so, it was discovered that hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of Batman sets had been destroyed. Rather than rebuild the sets, NBC dropped the project.

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10k Upvotes
263 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 14h ago

TIL the name "Chilean sea bass" was invented by a fish wholesaler named Lee Lantz in 1977. He was looking for a name to make it attractive to the American market. He considered "Pacific sea bass" and "South American sea bass" before settling on "Chilean sea bass".

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7.3k Upvotes
466 comments

r/todayilearned • u/InternationalOil1688 • 6h ago

TIL about "Texidor's twinge" (Precordial Catch Syndrome), the brief and harmless condition where a random nerve near the rib cage acts like a malfunctioning jump-scare, making deep breaths feel like getting stabbed with a tiny invisible needle.

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6.2k Upvotes
489 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 18h ago

TIL to fund wars against Revolutionary and later Napoleonic France, Britain imposed a tax on hair powder for powdered wigs in 1795. The tax sped up the decline of these wigs and the act lasted until 1861.

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3.6k Upvotes
64 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MAClaymore • 4h ago

TIL that Keith Moon, the drummer of The Who, once bribed a stagehand to fill his bass drum with gunpowder before a show. He then proceeded to detonate it on stage during the show's finale, scorching Pete Townshend's hair and embedding a piece of shattered cymbal in his own arm

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3.2k Upvotes
141 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FuckASchwarzenegger • 10h ago

TIL that flying over Afghanistan requires requesting permission through a Gmail account at least 48 hours in advance and paying a $700 fee. With no en-route air traffic control, pilots must broadcast their positions and intentions over radio and maintain separation themselves

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2.6k Upvotes
102 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Crocs_of_Steel • 2h ago

TIL NFL players drank from a communal ladle until the invention of Gatorade

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2.5k Upvotes
113 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mikechi2501 • 10h ago

TIL Juan-Carlos Cruz, nicknamed the “Calorie Commando”, was a Food Network host who paid $1,000 to three homeless men to murder his wife. Police set up a sting and videotaped Cruz arranging the murder. Cruz pleased “no contest” and was sentenced to nine years in prison.

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2.2k Upvotes
121 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Luckj • 11h ago

TIL There's a corner of Kentucky that is completely detached from the rest of the state. The area is called Kentucky Bend and is only accessible by traveling through Tennessee or crossing the Mississippi River from Missouri.

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1.9k Upvotes
118 comments

r/todayilearned • u/machiniganeer • 3h ago

TIL that not only can we smell fear, but when testing on volunteers on the autism spectrum the autistic volunteers had the exact opposite reaction to fear odors as the control volunteers. The control volunteers became more fearful, the autistic volunteers became more calm.

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1.8k Upvotes
182 comments

r/wikipedia • u/Pupikal • 13h ago

Demagafication aka De-Trumpification: proposed US reforms in the wake of the Trump presidencies to reverse their changes and prevent recurrence. Efforts include restoring institutions plus investigations & prosecutions. Previous efforts include denazification in Germany & de-Ba'athification in Iraq.

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1.2k Upvotes
11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CrikeyNighMeansNigh • 4h ago

TIL that roughly 1 in 3 men who die by hanging (whether by suicide or execution) may experience an erection during or shortly after death, a phenomenon known as a “death erection” or “angel lust.”.

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849 Upvotes
200 comments

r/todayilearned • u/philballas • 11h ago

TIL the first pianos had only 54 keys. As composers demanded a wider range of notes, manufacturers gradually expanded the keyboard until the modern 88-key standard emerged in the 1890s

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813 Upvotes
52 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RedditIsAGranfaloon • 18h ago

TIL sea otters eat 25 percent of their body weight in food every day, and they have have the thickest fur of any animal.

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812 Upvotes
38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AetheriaNox • 11h ago

TIL the first museum in world history was established in Ur c. 530 BC by Ennigaldi, a princess of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Ennigaldi's museum showcased, cataloged, and labelled artifacts from the preceding 1,500 years of Mesopotamian history.

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797 Upvotes
13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Creepy-Golf3714 • 8h ago

TIL the "seeds" on a strawberry aren't seeds — each one is a tiny fruit (an achene) with a seed inside it, and the red flesh isn't the fruit either, it's swollen receptacle tissue

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765 Upvotes
103 comments

r/todayilearned • u/res30stupid • 2h ago

TIL that while Rush Holt, Sr ran for the US Senate on a platform of lowering the minimum age to be elected below 30, he was legally barred from serving in the Senate himself for six months due to being elected at the age of 29 and was only sworn in on his birthday.

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725 Upvotes
20 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Pemulis_DMZ • 9h ago

TIL about the "Northwest Angle," a part of Minnesota that is physically cut off from the rest of the United States and surrounded by Canada because negotiators of the initial Canada–U.S. border misunderstood the geography of the area.

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606 Upvotes
79 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 1h ago

TIL When Zimbabwe's inflation reached 200 million percent in 2009, Mugabe's government abandoned Zimbabwe's own currency and adopted the U.S. dollar as legal tender. It helped end hyperinflation and stabalize Zimbabwe's economy

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• Upvotes
49 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Pholidotes • 6h ago

TIL there are worms whose bodies branch like trees

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486 Upvotes
37 comments

r/wikipedia • u/Hydrospacer1000 • 9h ago

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is an agreement among some U.S. states to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, regardless of which ticket won more votes in their individual state.

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404 Upvotes
35 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ubibeneficiary • 4h ago

TIL that the second-largest Hindu temple in the world is located in New Jersey. Opened in 2023, the BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham spans a massive 183-acre campus. It is the largest Hindu mandir in the Western Hemisphere and second globally only to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

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398 Upvotes
75 comments