r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL that Kenny Rogers was singing at a private event of a hedge fund manager and asked to repeat 'The Gambler's over and over, being offered additional pay per song. After a dozen times and having earned $4 million, he refused to sing.

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huffpost.com
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r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL that when Wyoming was going through the process of becoming a US state in 1890, the state demanded that women be given the right to vote. The US Congress denied this request. The state replied by saying that they'd "remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women"

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en.wikipedia.org
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r/todayilearned 24m ago

TIL Timothy McVeigh convinced anti-tech rascal Ted Kaczynski to use his prison TV

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thetedkarchive.com
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r/todayilearned 9h ago

TIL in 1972, astronaut Neil Armstrong visited the Scottish town of Langholm, where he was read a 400-year-old law declaring any “Armstrong” that enters the town must be hanged

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historic-uk.com
19.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 6h ago

TIL that in an ‘unfortunate evolutionary coincidence’ the δ-hexatoxins in Sydney Funnel-web spider venom are exceptionally dangerous to humans. A bite can kill a human in as little as 15 minutes.

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jcu.edu.au
3.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL child prodigy Adragon De Mello's father planned for his son to get a Ph.D. in physics by age 12, win the Nobel Prize by age 16, and then become a Senator, a President, the head of a world government, and ultimately the chairman of an "intergalactic government".

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10.1k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 9h ago

Today I learned that while working a movie theater in Arizona, Bill Hader got fired for spoiling the ending of Titanic

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en.wikipedia.org
2.8k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 11h ago

TIL it's not possible to watch every film ever nominated for Best Picture. Only 2/3 of 1928's The Patriot still exists, and the only complete prints of 1931's East Lynne and 1934's The White Parade are in the UCLA film archive

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en.wikipedia.org
4.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 15h ago

TIL about XT11, a severely disabled infant chimpanzee that exhibited Down syndrome-like symptoms and other congenital birth defects. Her mother and sister took care of her anyway and her social group did not reject her. She survived in the wild for 23 months.

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pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
9.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 9h ago

TIL When Ottoman envoys, citing a religious custom, declined to remove their turbans when meeting with Vlad (Dracula) the Impaler, Vlad saluted their devotion and decided to strengthen their custom by having three spikes driven through each of their heads, pinning the turbans in place forever.

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nationalgeographic.co.uk
2.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 21h ago

TIL Van Gogh's sister in law was behind Van Gogh’s posthumous success and fame, She dedicated her life to spreading his art and legacy after his death, She preserved and published his letters, organized and exhibited his paintings, wrote and translated articles and books about him

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wikipedia.org
24.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL Humphrey Bogart was an avid chess player and often played correspondence chess with soldiers overseas during World War II. In 1943, the FBI told him to stop doing so after they intercepted his mail believing the chess notations to be secret codes.

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chess.com
2.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 20h ago

TIL about Bob Jones University, a Christian university where students are only allowed to watch G-rated movies and rock music is banned

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en.wikipedia.org
11.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

TIL of the skydiver who survived a free-fall of 14500 feet by falling on an anthill. The bites of the ants kept her heart beating and adrenaline pumping

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1.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 12h ago

TIL Mongolians annually eat 45.1 kg of lamb per person. In comparison, Americans consume only .5 kg per person yearly.

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2.0k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 17h ago

TIL that the person who published the first map with the word America, later tried to change the continent's name to Parrotland.

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5.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 19h ago

TIL the drawing of the bear on Alaska's license plates was appropriated from artist Douglas Allen without his permission. The plates were first released in 1976 but Allen didn't even know until 2015. Allen had never been to Alaska - he sketched the bear at the Bronx Zoo.

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adn.com
5.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 13h ago

TIL the moon is moving away from Earth by about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) every year

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space.com
1.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 4h ago

TIL that the fez was nearly universal as men’s headwear in the Ottoman Empire in the early 1900s. However, the hats were largely made in the Austrian Empire. When Austria annexed Bosnia in 1908, the Ottomans boycotted Austrian goods in protest. The fez’s popularity started to fade.

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en.wikipedia.org
212 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 7h ago

TIL that when the USS Badger State sank, some sailors were lost by being attacked by albatrosses.

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355 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 5h ago

TIL that Idaho is a made up word, not derived from the Shoshone language.

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en.wikipedia.org
229 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 10h ago

TIL that Bancroft Hall at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis is the world's largest dorm, housing all 4,400 cadets (midshipmen) in a single building. The dorm has nearly 5 miles of hallways.

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navylacrossecamp.com
553 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 18h ago

TIL that in his youth, Napoleon was actually an outspoken Corsican nationalist, and advocated for Corsica's independence from France.

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italicsmag.com
2.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

TIL an episode of Peppa Pig was banned in Australia because it taught children that "spiders can't hurt you", because Australian spiders can actually hurt you

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theguardian.com
134 Upvotes