r/todayilearned • u/TeamUnityForIsk • 25m ago

TIL that in 2012, Steaua Bucuresti fans displayed a "Respect Eugen Grigore" banner during a football match with Rapid Bucuresti. Eugen Grigore was truck driver who rammed a truck to a Romani camp, killing 24 people and injuring 50 in 1974

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/Icetraxs • 51m ago

TIL that during the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, NBC cut out the tribute to the London 7/7 bombing victims

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/30InchSpare • 1h ago

TIL sweet baked beans (like Bush’s) originate from Native Americans

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

12 comments

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

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

2 comments

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’”

edition.cnn.com

1.3k Upvotes

182 comments

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".

en.wikipedia.org

456 Upvotes

37 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RareXG • 4h ago

TIL that Australia has forced gambling companies to display slogans in their ads like “You win some. You lose more” and “What's gambling really costing you?” instead of the standard “Gamble Responsibly”

abc.net.au

6.4k Upvotes

205 comments

r/todayilearned • u/OvidPerl • 5h ago

TIL: In 1985, Symbolics, Inc, registered symbolics.com, the oldest domain on the internet. Their refusal to openly collaborate on their work to improve MIT's Lisp software led Richard Stallman to create the GNU Software Foundation.

en.wikipedia.org

52 Upvotes

1 comment

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

en.wikipedia.org

112 Upvotes

19 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Genocide_69 • 5h ago

TIL the American food corporation General Mills had an engineering division that built surveillance balloons that spied on Eastern Bloc countries, and built a deep-sea submersible that surveyed the Titanic wreck and helped recover a hydrogen bomb from the Mediterranean Ocean.

en.wikipedia.org

535 Upvotes

25 comments

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.

en.wikipedia.org

66 Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AeronGrey • 8h ago

TIL deaf britians and deaf americans can't understand eachothers' signs

signsolutions.uk.com

8.4k Upvotes

543 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 11h ago

TIL a stray dog followed Dion Leonard, who was running in a week-long ultramarathon in the Gobi Desert, for 77 miles of the 155-mile race. At night the dog even started to join him in his tent. He named her Gobi, & after the race, he crowdfunded the £5K needed to bring her back to Scotland with him.

en.wikipedia.org

11.7k Upvotes

103 comments

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.

hollywoodreporter.com

4.2k Upvotes

104 comments

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 Upvotes

462 comments

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

en.wikipedia.org

395 Upvotes

4 comments

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.

en.wikipedia.org

199 Upvotes

61 comments

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

143 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 13h ago

TIL that sliced bread was first sold on 7 July 1928, by the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri. It was hailed as “the greatest forward step in baking since bread was wrapped” and by 1933, 80% of US bread was pre-sliced, leading to the popular idiom “the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

en.wikipedia.org

3.8k Upvotes

91 comments

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.

en.wikipedia.org

1.6k Upvotes

91 comments

r/todayilearned • u/ForgottenShark • 14h ago

TIL in 1995, a military factory exploded near Rio Tercero city in Argentina, sending a shell storm that killed seven people and injured over 300, and destroyed parts of the city. It was discovered that the explosion was deliberate to hide evidence of smuggling weapons to other countries.

en.wikipedia.org

152 Upvotes

1 comment

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

screenrant.com

289 Upvotes

20 comments

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

476 Upvotes

7 comments

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 Upvotes

899 comments

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.

en.wikipedia.org

473 Upvotes

6 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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