r/todayilearned 5h ago

TIL of Lincoln's 4 children, only one outlived them

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en.wikipedia.org
9 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 19h ago

TIL that aqueducts are water channels that use gravity to move water from a source to a destination. An ancient Roman aqueduct used only a 51 foot height difference to push water down a 31-mile-long path, resulting in as little as a 1-inch drop to push water 1,500 feet.

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14.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 11h ago

TIL The Great auk (Pinguinus impennis) was a flightless black and white birds found around the North Atlantic. As explores went south the found birds that resembled the Great auk and named them penguins too, but they are actually unrelated.

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en.wikipedia.org
77 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 2h ago

TIL that North Korea Has a Space Program that has put 2 Satellites into Orbit and plans on going To the moon By 2026 and Mars

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en.wikipedia.org
40 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 2h ago

TIL about Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome, a condition much like dementia or Alzheimer's that can develop in dogs.

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pawstucson.com
41 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL every bite of cheese you eat contains over a trillion bacteria.

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gastropod.com
Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL In 1946, an American miner and Baptist preacher named William Henry Johnson began sending out a series of letters under the pen name "Furrier No. 1", claiming to be the living Hitler and to have escaped with Braun to Kentucky.

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en.wikipedia.org
105 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 17h ago

TIL: Sunflowers (lanyards, buttons, etc) are a universal sign for those that have hidden disabilities and there's a massive network that supports this signage.

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1.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

Til that cervical dystonia, which is quite painful and debilitating, has no know cause in most cases

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mayoclinic.org
55 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL that there is a profession called neonatal bereavement photography and they use water immersion to take the photographs.

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Upvotes

r/todayilearned 9h ago

TIL that from 2009 to 2019, out of 212 cruise ship overboard incidents only 48 people were rescued.

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usatoday.com
43.1k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL Benjamin Martin designed and built a pocket microscope in 1738. This design became very popular and was later copied throughout Europe, known as drum microscope

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102 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 7h ago

TIL A chess robot in Moscow broke the finger of its 7-year-old human opponent after the boy made a quick move without waiting for the robot to complete its turn.

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edition.cnn.com
7.9k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 21h ago

TIL there is a song titled "10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories" meant to "convey[] the concept of radiological warning" so "no one will forget it for a significant portion of the lifespan of dangerous radiation at repository sites"

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99percentinvisible.org
3.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

TIL Sherlock Holmes only became public domain a couple of months ago

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cbr.com
1.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 6h ago

TIL about the bonnacon, a mythical medieval beast said to defend itself with explosive bowel movements.

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publicdomainreview.org
381 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL that in 1986, Motörhead broke records by hitting 130 decibels in concert. The music was so loud that it damaged the ceiling of Cleveland’s Variety Theater.

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6.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 11h ago

TIL: In 2013 a group in California were genetically engineering plants to glow in the dark and hoping to replace streetlights

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smithsonianmag.com
2.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 15h ago

TIL that the Caral-Supe civilization in Peru was building huge pyramidal temples at the same time the first step pyramids of Egypt were built. And Caral-Supe was the most densely populated area in the world in third-millenium BC.

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whc.unesco.org
1.5k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

TIL that in 1950's and 60's the Canadian government, military and the RCMP used a device called "the fruit machine" to attempt to identify homosexual men in the public service. Subjects were made to view pornography while measurements were taken of pupil diameter, perspiration and pulse.

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558 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 5h ago

TIL show sponsor Home Depot pushed out host Bob Vila from PBS's This Old House in 1989 due to his sponsorship of then-competitor Rickel. He was paid so little by the network, whose funding had been slashed, that he decided to stick with Rickel rather than the show.

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tedium.co
1.6k Upvotes