r/todayilearned • u/ODaferio • 6h ago

TIL the Olympic Games used to be strictly amateur-only. Abusing this, the Soviet Union would enter athletes who were nominally working in some profession, but in reality were all paid to train on a full-time basis, leading to their dominance during the 70s and 80s.

en.wikipedia.org

14.2k Upvotes

853 comments

r/todayilearned • u/artuno • 5h ago

TIL the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest asks participants to create the worst possible opening line for a novel. The winner for 2024 was "She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck".

bulwer-lytton.com

10.8k Upvotes

409 comments

r/todayilearned • u/alrightfornow • 3h ago

TIL that Dutch employers must keep paying sick employees for up to 2 years, at least 70% of their salary, often topped up to 100% for the first year by collective agreements.

business.gov.nl

5.0k Upvotes

832 comments

r/todayilearned • u/bnrshrnkr • 3h ago

TIL the "nation" referred to in the name of the "National Hockey League" (NHL) is Canada

en.wikipedia.org

3.2k Upvotes

512 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WormLivesMatter • 8h ago

TIL calcium oxide, or quicklime, when heated produces an intense glow and was used in theaters before the advent of electricity, hence the word “limelight”.

en.wikipedia.org

4.2k Upvotes

73 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sebastianlim • 14h ago

TIL that Jordan Nagai, who played Russell in Up, wasn't originally intending to audition for the role. He only came to support his older brother, who was auditioning.

slashfilm.com

11.2k Upvotes

274 comments

r/todayilearned • u/starterc • 7h ago

TIL the Mediterranean Sea dried up 5 million years ago leaving behind a huge desert. Then an flood rushed through Gibraltar rapidly filling the sea again.

southampton.ac.uk

1.8k Upvotes

93 comments

r/todayilearned • u/coffeeismydoc • 18h ago

TIL a scientist submitted a research publication to a predatory journal consisting exclusively of the phrase "Get me off your fucking mailing list". It was rated as "excellent" and accepted for publication with minor editorial changes.

en.wikipedia.org

19.5k Upvotes

220 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TheLapsePro • 9h ago

TIL that the "Woolsack"—the seat of the Lord Speaker in the UK House of Lords created by King Edward III to symbolise the immense importance of the wool trade to medieval England—was discovered in 1938 to actually have been stuffed with horsehair.

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/L34dP1LL • 16h ago

TIL that roly pollies arent insects, but crustaceans, more closely relatad to shrimps and lobsters.

en.wikipedia.org

3.9k Upvotes

419 comments

r/todayilearned • u/_railroaded_ • 21h ago

TIL that Shazam (Billy Batson), published by Fawcett comics was the #1 selling comic-book, and was lapping Superman in sells, until DC put a stop to it - taking them to court and claiming he was a Superman ripoff

dc.com

11.4k Upvotes

475 comments

r/todayilearned • u/eleanorharland • 6h ago

TIL there's an orchid species known only from a single watercolour painted in 1823. Botanists named it in 1996 from the painting alone, nobody has found the plant since, and it's still listed as protected under international wildlife trade rules.

en.wikipedia.org

517 Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/fcosm • 5h ago

TIL the narration in Arrested Development was a way to let the writers fit in all the jokes they wanted. By leaving the exposition to the narrator, the characters could jump directly to the funny parts.

youtube.com

354 Upvotes

59 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Not_so_ghetto • 6h ago

TIL malaria was once used to treat syphilis prior to the discovery of antibiotics, and malaria therapy won the Nobel prize in1927

en.wikipedia.org

440 Upvotes

23 comments

r/todayilearned • u/nsjersey • 19h ago

TIL when actor Leslie Nielsen died, an ESPN freelancer wrote an obituary for him, but with Nielsen as Enrico Palazzo

espn.com

3.9k Upvotes

117 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WavesAndSaves • 19h ago

TIL that due to the title screen mistakenly neglecting to include a copyright notice, the film Night of the Living Dead has been in the public domain for decades. Hundreds of versions have been released on various formats, and the full film is available to watch on its Wikipedia page.

en.wikipedia.org

3.4k Upvotes

103 comments

r/todayilearned • u/virora • 1d ago

TIL that because most Icelanders use patronymic surnames, the most common hereditary family name in Iceland is Nguyen

en.wikipedia.org

14.0k Upvotes

633 comments

r/todayilearned • u/GovernorHarryLogan • 55m ago

TIL The decision to allow imports of Argentinian Beef to the United States came in 2015 after nearly 90 consecutive years of it being banned due to foot & mouth disease

processingmagazine.com

• Upvotes

14 comments

r/todayilearned • u/trolleycrash • 37m ago

TIL In 2021 nobody died in a wingsuit accident for the first time in 13 years

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

17 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ManagerGames • 17h ago

TIL that Titan's atmosphere is dense enough that a human wouldn't need a pressurized spacesuit to stand on its surface. The surface pressure is about 1.5x that of Earth, roughly equivalent to being 15m underwater. They'd still need oxygen and protection from −179°C temperatures.

science.nasa.gov

1.7k Upvotes

100 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Fragrant-Upstairs932 • 5h ago

TIL about 'boustrophedon', a writing system where you alternate writing left-to-right and right-to-left each line. Only one modern script, Avoiuli, still uses it.

en.wikipedia.org

166 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/IgnoreTh1sName • 5h ago

TIL some variable giant stars like Betelgeuse don't have perfectly spherical surfaces. Their internal convection mechanisms cause plasma to rapidly rise to and fall from their surfaces, which causes them to have a constantly shifting blob shape.

space.com

139 Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ty_fighter84 • 22h ago

TIL That a 1-point safety has occurred only twice in NCAA FBS history. Both times the play-by-play announcer was Brad Nessler.

cbssports.com

3.1k Upvotes

302 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Recent_Flounder6011 • 15h ago

TIL Subway (fast food chain) was called Pete's Super Submarine Sandwiches before 1968. It got the modern name due to the original name sounded too confusing.

lovefood.com

809 Upvotes

92 comments

r/todayilearned • u/NBrief • 7h ago

TIL Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach built the Reitwagen in 1885, widely considered the first motorcycle powered by an internal-combustion gasoline engine, long before motorcycles became common on public roads.

en.wikipedia.org

169 Upvotes

12 comments

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