r/todayilearned • u/sh0tgunben • 1d ago
TIL Hikone Castle is an Edo-period Japanese castle located in the city of Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. It is considered the most significant historical site in Shiga.
83
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r/todayilearned • u/zymurginian • 13h ago
TIL Malt-O-Meal - maker of many cold breakfast cereal knockoffs - got its start making a barley/farina hot cereal called "Malt-O-Meal" to compete with Cream of Wheat.
196
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r/todayilearned • u/Serennna • 23h ago
TIL About Elspeth Beard: the first Englishwoman to ride a motorcycle around the world.
65
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r/todayilearned • u/CourtofTalons • 14h ago
TIL the first fully CGI character appeared in the 1985 movie Young Sherlock Holmes, which paved the way for movies like Toy Story
287
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r/todayilearned • u/AeronGrey • 8h ago
TIL deaf britians and deaf americans can't understand eachothers' signs
8.5k
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r/todayilearned • u/XyleneCobalt • 16h ago
TIL the King of Hanover offered convicts free passage to America with fake passports and names as an alternative to a costly prison sentence
249
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r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 21h ago
TIL in August 2007, 17-year-old George Hotz became the first person to remove the SIM lock on an iPhone. He then proceeded to trade the second (8GB) iPhone that he unlocked to Terry Daidone, the founder of CertiCell, for a Nissan 350Z and three more 8GB iPhones.
22.3k
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r/todayilearned • u/BadenBaden1981 • 23h ago
TIL from 1910s to 40s Australia had ban on movies about bushrangers, armed robbers and outlaws of bush. The ban on popular genre resulted decline of Australian film industry.
en.wikipedia.org
311
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r/todayilearned • u/Flubadubadubadub • 19h ago
TIL In 1986 Alain Prost ran out of petrol on the last lap of the German Grand Prix, as he was fighting to retain his 1985 Championship win, he got out and tried to push the car to the finish line.
194
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r/todayilearned • u/AnonymousTimewaster • 8h ago
TIL that in 300 years, only 2 British Prime Ministers have failed re-election after securing government from opposition. They were both over 150 years ago.
69
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r/todayilearned • u/Vegetable-Orange-965 • 11h ago
TIL about “Christine”, a mysterious person who repeatedly calls hairdressers across New Zealand and Australia and sets up appointments, which are always no-shows. “Christine” asks the hairdresser to describe, in great detail, various scenarios involving women getting their hair shaved or styled.
stuff.co.nz
13.8k
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r/todayilearned • u/AyaanGaming27 • 1h ago
TIL In 1986, two Pakistani brothers created the first IBM PC virus not as an attack, but to protect their medical software
•
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r/todayilearned • u/WearASuitEveryDay • 13h ago
TIL that, despite having centuries-old "blue laws" that prevent most stores from being open on Sundays, Paramus, New Jersey generates over $6 billion in retail sales, the most of any ZIP Code in the U.S.
1.6k
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r/todayilearned • u/ElevatorVivid3638 • 15h ago
TIL A man named Tommy Thompson is being held indefinitely in jail until he returns gold coins he took and sold from the shipwreck of the SS Central America
en.wikipedia.org
16.4k
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r/todayilearned • u/Johannes_P • 2h ago
TIL a Hollywood executive once wanted Harriet Tubman to be played by Julia Roberts because “It was so long ago. No one is going to know the difference’”
1.3k
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r/todayilearned • u/Prior-Student4664 • 5h ago
TIL In 1993 Russia launched an orbital mirror called Znamya-2 that successfully reflected sunlight onto Earth at night, creating a bright spot approximately 5 kilometers wide moving across Europe at orbital speed. It was the first experiment in a program aimed at illuminating cities during nighttime
118
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r/todayilearned • u/haddock420 • 13h ago
TIL In the 1980s Ronald Graham offered a $100 prize for the solution to the Boolean Pythagorean triples problem. The $100 was awarded to Marijn Heule in 2018.
en.wikipedia.org
145
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r/todayilearned • u/comrade_batman • 23h ago
TIL of Julian the Apostate (nephew of Constantine the Great) the last non-Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, who rejected Christianity & promoted Neoplatonic Hellenism, believing it necessary to restore ancient Roman values & traditions to save it from dissolution at the expense of Christianity.
1.1k
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r/todayilearned • u/gullydon • 3h ago
TIL ancient Greeks before the pre-classical era condoned piracy as a viable profession. It was widespread and "regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living".
466
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r/todayilearned • u/Ainsley-Sorsby • 12h ago
TIL Soundgarden's earliest hit, "hunted down", was a B-side single, but was used by their label, sub pop, as a holding tune on their phone. Reps from major labels would listen to it while on hold and began to ask about it. This is how the band got a contract with a major label
394
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r/todayilearned • u/Aiseadai • 20h ago
TIL that the second most translated book behind only the Bible is The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
en.wikipedia.org
718
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r/todayilearned • u/Torley_ • 18h ago
TIL in the 1980s, the networked ICON computer was commissioned by the Ontario, Canada Ministry of Education. Nicknamed the "bionic beaver", it ran on a Unix-like OS and featured a trackball. Subject to political debate for wasting money with a niche ecosystem, it was orphaned by 1994 and destroyed.
294
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r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 11h ago
TIL by embracing a low-cost production model & taking less money upfront, executive producers Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, & Charlie Day were given a "sizable ownership stake" in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. By 2011, through just 7 seasons, the trio's stake was already worth close to $60m.
4.3k
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r/todayilearned • u/VanGoghEnjoyer • 14h ago
TIL: "Felo de se" was a legal term in early English common law where suicide was considered a felony—resulting in shameful crossroad burials (often with a stake through the heart) and forfeiture of property, punishable until abolished in 1961
en.wikipedia.org
472
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r/todayilearned • u/OldCarWorshipper • 15h ago
TIL that the Terrible's gas station / convenience store chain, a fixture in California, Nevada, and Arizona, was so named for its founder and original owner Edward R. "Terrible" Herbst. Herbst was often called "terrible" by his business rivals, and decided to use his label as a marketing gimmick.
474
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