One thing about knowledge is that it shouldn’t be gatekept. And on Reddit’s Today I Learned community, it isn’t.

Here, millions of people come together to share the most surprising, obscure, and fascinating facts they’ve just discovered. Some change how we see the world, while others are simply entertaining—but all of them prove there’s always more to learn.

So here’s your daily dose of curiosity. Keep the cycle going and pass your favorites along!

#1

TIL After Joan of Arc was executed on charges of heresy, her mother spent 25 years clearing her name. She convinced the pope to reopen Joan’s case and attended the retrial despite being in her 70s and in poor health. The retrial ended with Joan’s complete acquittal.

Image credits: Ill_Definition8074

#2

TIL In Japan, the Johatsu, meaning “evaporated people”, choose to abandon their current lives – due to family strain, work pressure or any other reason. So-called ‘night moving’ companies help them disappear without a trace and start a new life somewhere else.

Image credits: RebelGrin

#3

TIL Danny Trejo has a clause in his movie contracts that requires his villainous characters to die by the end of the film. He wants children to learn that crime doesn’t pay.

Image credits: Level_Cash2225

#4

TIL about Andrew Carnegie, the original billionaire who spent 90% of his fortune creating over 3000 libraries worldwide because a free library was how he gained the education to become wealthy.

Image credits: Headpuncher

#5

TIL George Washington decided to step down after two terms because he feared he might die in office and Americans would then view the presidency as a lifetime appointment.

#6

TIL that in 1997 Mattel released Share a Smile Becky, a disabled Barbie doll, only to discontinue it when the wheelchair couldn’t fit through the front door of the Barbie Dreamhouse.

Image credits: cryptonemonamiter

#7

TIL that a US developer who outsourced his job to China for a fifth of his salary was repeatedly named as star employee before getting caught.

Image credits: Forgotthebloodypassw

#8

TIL: Phossy Jaw used to be a common affliction among workers in the matchstick industry for decades which destroys the bones of the jaw. While the cause was linked to the use of white phosphorus within 5 years, it took almost a century of strikes, bans, and taxes to stop its use in the industry.

Image credits: Flares117

#9

TIL about skeuomorphism, when modern objects, real or digital, retain features of previous designs even when they aren’t functional. Examples include the very tiny handle on maple syrup bottles, faux buckles on shoes, the floppy disk ‘save’ icon, or the sound of a shutter on a cell phone camera.

Image credits: Festina_lente123

#10

TIL that a Swedish man survived in his car for 60 days, only drinking melted snow, after being snowed in with temperatures dropping as low as -30°C. However, due to the “igloo effect,” the insulation from the snow helped keep him alive.

Image credits: dtdowntime

#11

TIL in 2017 a couple survived a wildfire in California by jumping into a neighbors pool and staying submerged for 6 hours. They came up for air only when they needed to, using wet t-shirts to shield their faces from falling embers.

Image credits: GoinThruTheBigD

#12

TIL that 11-year old Ted Danson and his friends chopped down a bunch of billboards around Flagstaff, AZ, because they obstructed views of nature. He was caught when his father, a museum curator, learned that billboards for the Museum of Northern Arizona were spared.

#13

TIL in 2013 a woman went to pick up a friend in Brussels (less than 90 miles from her home), however because of a GPS error, she ended up in Croatia after driving 900 miles across five international borders. She realized she took a wrong turn two days after leaving. Her son had reported her missing.

Image credits: tyrion2024

#14

TIL that Weird Al’s Phantom Menace parody ‘The Saga Begins’ was recorded a month before the film released in May 1999. Yankovic was denied an early screening by Lucasfilm, but managed to almost exactly piece together the plot by researching rumours posted on Star Wars fan forums.

#15

TIL huge rogue waves were dismissed as a scientifically implausible sailors’ myth by scientists until one 84ft wave hit an oil platform. The phenomenon has since been proven mathematically and simulated in a lab, also proving the existence of rogue holes in the ocean.

#16

TIL Marcus Licinius Crassus, often called “the richest man in Rome,” formed the first fire brigade, saving burning buildings only if owners sold at a low price. Otherwise, he let them burn. The buildings would then be leased back to the former owners.

Image credits: RandomUwUFace

#17

TIL Tasmanian Devil’s give birth to between 30 and 40 offsprings but the mother only has four teats. The first four to attach to teats survive, the others perish.

Image credits: Potatoe_expert

#18

TIL a Jets player who won in Super Bowl 3 lost his super bowl ring shortly after while surfing. It was found in the ocean by a lifeguard who was snorkeling 40 years later and returned to him.

#19

TIL Linda Chase left her roommate’s dead body in the recliner chair where he died for 18 months. She talked to him and watched NASCAR on TV with him. After police performed a welfare check and found the body, Linda’s only explanation was that she didn’t want to be alone.

Image credits: Ill_Definition8074

#20

TIL in 2000 a Mexican woman performed an hour-long C-section on herself with a kitchen knife after 12 hours of constant pain. After 3 attempts to cut open her abdomen, she made a 17cm vertical incision (a typical one is 10cm & horizontal). But despite no medical training, both mom & child survived.

Image credits: tyrion2024

#21

TIL One of the early Spanish explorers of the American Southwest met a man who they called “the Turk”, who told them stories of rich lands to the east. He would later reveal that he made it up to draw them away from Pueblo civilizations so they would die of starvation in the plains.

#22

TIL the reason that purple has traditionally been associated with royalty was because, in Ancient Rome, the only source of purple was milking and fermenting the liquid from a snail. It took 12,000 snails to produce 1 gram of dye! This made the Caesars declare it their exclusive color.

#23

TIL that when scientists transferred the gut microbiome of a schizophrenic human into mice, the mice started exhibiting schizophrenic-like behaviours.

#24

TIL ecologist Suzanne Simard wanted to know why the forest got sick every time the foresters killed the birch trees, thought to harm fir trees. She discovered that birch trees actually pass nutrients to fir trees underground via a complex fungal network and were maintaining balance in the ecosystem.

#25

TIL that there are more ethnic Norwegians living in USA than in Norway.

#26

TIL in 2010 a doctor and his son just happened to be walking by an apartment building in Paris when a 15-month-old boy fell 80ft (24m) from a seventh floor balcony before bouncing off a cafe awning into the doctor’s arms. His catch helped the boy escape “miraculously without a single scratch.”

The toddler had been left alone with his four-year-old sister while their parents reportedly “popped out” for some shopping. They were charged with causing injury through neglect.

Bensignor, 58, a GP, said it was pure luck he was passing while out walking with his seven-year-old son Raphaël, last week.
…
Bensignor said it was thanks to Raphaël that he saved the falling child.
“We were walking and Raphaël was talking to me … then he looked up and said: ‘Papa, have you seen the children on the balcony up there?’ There was no panic in his voice, just astonishment.”
He said he looked up just as the baby fell.

Image credits: tyrion2024

#27

TIL in 1940, when Paramount asked Fleischer Studios to created a Superman cartoon, Fleischer thought it would be too hard to make. In an attempt to avoid making the cartoon, they quoted four times the cost of an average cartoon for the budget ($100k). To their shock, Paramount agreed to the budget.

Image credits: TirelessGuardian

#28

TIL George Washington is the only U.S. president elected as an independent to date. Washington opposed the development of political parties.

#29

TIL the 2022 Ignobel prize in economics went to a bunch of Mathematicians who proved, mathematically, that luck matters more than talent to achieve success.

#30

TIL that ancient Rome had fast food restaurants called ‘thermopolia,’ where people bought hot meals on the go, much like modern takeout.

Image credits: AprumMol

#31

TIL There was a Portuguese woman in early 18th century who disguised herself as a man and joined the army, fought in India and became captain of a fortress. She was found out when she asked the king for permission to marry a colleague.

#32

TIL April 8th 1945 a prisoner at Buchenwald rigged up a radio transmitter and sent a message in a desperate attempt to contact the allies for rescue. 3 minutes after his message the US Army answered “KZ Bu. Hold out. Rushing to your aid. Staff of Third Army”. The camp would be liberated 3 days later.

#33

TIL that some people are genetically gifted in that they can sleep for as little as 4 hours without suffering from daytime sleepiness or other consequences of sleep deprivation.

#34

TIL an American photographer lost and fatally stranded in Alaskan wilderness was ignored by a state trooper plane because he raised his fist which is the sign of all okay.

#35

TIL Chef Boyardee’s canned Ravioli kept WWII soldiers fed and he became the largest supplier of rations during the war. When American soldiers started heading to Europe to fight, Hector Boiardi and brothers Paul and Mario decided to keep the factory open 24/7 in order to produce enough meals.

#36

TIL Thomas Edison’s son, Thomas Edison Jr was an aspiring inventor, but lacking his father’s talents, he became a snake oil salesman who advertised his scam products as “the latest Edison discovery”. His dad took him to court, and Jr agreed to stop using the Edison name in exchange for a weekly fee.

#37

TIL: There was obesity in the Middle Ages, but the rich were expected to restrain themselves as fat people can’t become knights. However, Sancho I was a morbidly obese king who weighed 240 kg and couldn’t wield a sword, bed his wife, or walk. He was eventually expelled as he was too obese to rule.

#38

TIL every person who has become a centibillionaire (a net worth of usually $100 billion, €100 billion, or £100 billion), first became one in 2017 or later except for Bill Gates who first reached the threshold in 1999.

#39

TIL all of the 500 fastest supercomputers in the world run on Linux.

#40

TIL Jefferson Davis attempted to patent a steam-operated propeller invented by his slave, Ben Montgomery. Davis was denied because he was not the “true inventor.” As President of the Confederacy, Davis signed a law that permitted the owner to apply to patent the invention of a slave.

#41

TIL in 2010 Sam Ballard was drinking with several friends when he was dared to eat a slug that had begun to crawl across his friend’s concrete patio. After he ate it, he’d find out the infected slug had given him rat lungworm disease, which put him into a year-long coma & ultimately took his life.

#42

TIL that Great White Sharks across the Pacific Ocean consistently congregate at one specific spot in the Pacific Ocean. Scientists call this the White Shark Cafe.

#43

TIL – Blind people who regain sight after years struggle to recognize objects because vision is learned, not automatic. They need to train their brain to actually see.

#44

TIL of hyperforeignism, which is when people mispronounce foreign words that are actually simpler than they assume. Examples include habanero, coup de grâce, and Beijing.

#45

TIL Brian Acton was rejected by Facebook for a job in 2009. And that same year, he & Jan Koum “took a chance” and co-founded WhatsApp together. Then in 2014 after amassing 450 million global users, they sold WhatsApp to Facebook in a deal that reportedly made both of them a multi-billionaire.

#46

TIL that Alaska has a much higher rate of missing persons per 100,000 residents than any other state, standing at a stark 42.16 compared to the next highest, Arizona, with 12.28.

#47

TIL Dr. Pepper promised a free can to everyone in the US (except Slash and Buckethead) if Guns N’ Roses released “Chinese Democracy” in 2008, but faced a lawsuit when they couldn’t deliver after the album’s release.

#48

TIL the British Library must store one copy of every single book published in the UK and Ireland. It houses over 200,000,000 publications, adds 6 miles (9.65 km) of new shelf space a year, and receives over 8000 new publications daily.

#49

TIL South Park aired an episode titled “Band in China”… which resulted in them being banned in China.

#50

TIL a student wore the same pair of jeans 330 times over 15 months without washing them, then after washing them, wore them another 13 days. A textile scientist had tested the jeans for bacteria both after the 15 months (pre-wash) & after the 13 days. Little difference in bacterial count was found.

Image credits: tyrion2024

#51

TIL F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen nearly bankrupted the Lotus team by being too good. His contract said that he would be awarded €50,000 for every championship point scored. Lotus thought their car would be so uncompetitive that year that it would not be a problem. Kimi went on to score 207 points.

#52

TIL that a KGB agent and a CIA agent became friends while trying to recruit each other; they knew the other was a spy and just didn’t talk about it.

#53

TIL that after George Harrison’s death from lung cancer, his widow sued a doctor at the hospital where he received radiation therapy for allegedly forcing Harrison to listen to his son play guitar and autograph the guitar while lacking his mental faculties.

#54

TIL – the family that couldn’t sleep, a family in Venice, Italy where for over 200 years many of the family members died suffering from fatal insomnia.

#55

TIL that during WWII the average recruit was 5’8” tall and weighed 144 pounds. During basic training, they gained 5-20 pounds and added an inch to their 33 1/4” chest.

#56

TIL the T4 Program was a N*zi German euthanasia program that forcibly k**led the physically or mentally disabled, the emotionally distraught, elderly people and the incurably ill. The death toll may have reached 200,000 or more.

#57

TIL that donations of used clothes are NEVER needed during disaster relief according to FEMA.

#58

TIL: The “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” was declassified in 2008 and it contains advice on how spies can sabotage the enemy by just being maliciously incompetent. Advice include praising inefficient coworkers, cry and sob frequently at work, asking inane questions in meetings, and spreading gossip.

#59

TIL that in utero, a third artery temporarily runs down the arm to help with the development of the hand. By 8 weeks after birth, this artery usually disappears. For unknown reasons, people are retaining this artery as adults, and it’s now three times as prevalent as it was 100 years ago.

#60

TIL Siblings can get completely different results (e.g., one 30% Irish and another 50% Irish) from DNA ancestry tests, even though they share the same parents, due to genetic recombination.

#61

TIL of safety razor slots. In the 1930s-50s some home bathrooms had slots built into their walls where people would insert used razor blades. Future renovations have found walls packed with hundreds of blades.

#62

TIL: The Lord of the Rings is presented as a translation of a book originally written in Westron, the common speech of Middle-earth. Therefore, Frodo Baggins’ real name in Westron is Maura Labingi.

#63

TIL that due to an agreement between the National Archives and Caroline Kennedy, the jacket Jackie Kennedy wore on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated cannot be displayed in public until 2103.

#64

TIL a study involving 75K adults compared the participants’ preferred sleep timing (known as chronotype) with their actual sleep behavior & found regardless of one’s preferred bedtime, everyone benefitted from turning in early. Being up late is not good for your mental health (suggested 1am bedtime).

#65

TIL: A scientist involved in the US nuke project determined the age of the world, created the clean room, and campaigned against leaded gasoline because it was poisoning everyone.

#66

TIL United States is the only country in the world which applies the same tax regime to all its citizens, regardless of where they live.

#67

TIL Christa McAuliffe, who was the teacher who died on the Space Shuttle Challenger, was 1 of 11,000 applicants in NASA’s search to find an “ordinary person” to put their first civilian in space. She later remarked, “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.”

#68

TIL accoding to the FAA, air traffic controller applicants must be under the age of 31 and generally must retire at age 56.

#69

TIL that Prince used a photo of Dave Chappelle dressed as him and serving pancakes for one of his singles’ cover.

#70

TIL that “court jesters” were often used to give bad news to the monarch that no one else would dare deliver. When the French fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Sluys, Phillip VI’s jester told him that the English sailors “don’t even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French”.

#71

TIL in 2011 twenty-two “fake” Apple Stores were discovered in China; at least one of which actually sold real Apple products while the employees there had no idea they didn’t really work in retail for Apple.

#72

TIL The Marvels (2023) has the biggest estimated nominal loss for a movie at $237 million.

#73

TIL that Gene Roddenberry originally did not want to cast Patrick Stewart as Picard, since he had envisioned an actor who was “masculine, virile, and had a lot of hair”.

#74

TIL the United States Army is the largest single employer of musicians in the country.

#75

TIL of a disgruntled designer for SimCopter (1996) that created an Easter Egg that would spawn “shirtless men in Speedo trunks who hugged and kissed each other” in great numbers on certain dates, such as Friday the 13th. But the RNG he created for it malfunctioned, leading them to appear frequently.

#76

TIL the first known instance of a storm chaser or meteorologist k**led by a tornado occurred in 2013 when Tim Samaras, his son Paul, & Carl Young were killed near El Reno, OK by the widest tornado ever recorded. It expanded from 1 mile to 2.6 miles wide in about 30 seconds as it closed in on them.

#77

TIL Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) is the most expensive independent film ever made with a production budget of around $180 million. Although it grossed $226 million worldwide, it was considered a box-office bomb due to its high production and advertising costs.

#78

TIL in 2020 a woman took an online DNA test which showed a 22% match with a man who she’d eventually discover to be her still alive uncle, who was kidnapped in 1951 at the age of six & had been missing for 70 years. After he was abducted in Oakland, he was flown to the east coast & raised there.

#79

TIL – During the California gold rush of 1849, eggs were $3 each, not adjusted for inflation.

#80

TIL that in 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés sank his own ships except one after landing in Mexico to prevent his men from retreating, This bold move forced them to march inland and ultimately led to the fall of the Aztec Empire.

#81

TIL that from 2003 to 2005, Dell sold over 11 million computers with leaky capacitors, with documents indicating that Dell was aware they were almost certain to fail. At one point, 1,000 computers that Dell delivered to the law firm that was defending it in a related lawsuit started failing.

#82

TIL the British military once had an idea to put live chickens inside nuclear bomb cases with a week’s worth of food and water. The bombs were meant to be planted into the ground as mines, so they had to be kept warm in the winter to keep working.

#83

TIL that an airgapped laptop was intentionally loaded with 6 famously catastrophic computer viruses, worms, and pieces of Malware for the commissioned art piece titled “The Persistence of Chaos”. Much of the $10,000+ spent to produce the work went toward the creation of an effective firewall.

#84

TIL the “Elephant’s Foot” mass of radioactive material beneath the Chernobyl disaster was so dense that they needed to use armor-piercing rounds fired from an AK-47 rifle to break off samples.

#85

Today I learned that Joey, the spin-off of the Friends sitcom, was canceled halfway through its second season, and the final eight episodes were never aired in the U.S. by NBC.

#86

TIL Only 47 people live on the Pitcairn Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Almost all of the residents are descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, a British ship in 1790.

#87

TIL when it gets cold enough, daddy long legs will huddle together in the thousands to create warmth.

Image credits: fudgiethequail

#88

TIL that before 1979, you could use the hippie trail to go from Western Europe to India without flying.

#89

TIL the modern Oval Office was only created in 1934, and designed so that President Franklin D Roosevelt, who used a wheelchair, could move easily between the Office and the Residence.

#90

TIL that when Winona Ryder was offered the role of Joyce Byers, she agreed on the condition that she would be allowed time off to film a sequel to Beetlejuice if it began filming while Stranger Things was still in production.

#91

TIL that since the year 1960, London has only experienced six White Christmases.

#92

TIL the total number of Americans over 7-feet tall is estimated between 85 and 150.

#93

TIL that digambara monks don’t wear clothes, don’t bathe or clean their teeth, sleep on the ground, only eat food free of pain, cutting or destruction, pluck all the hair off their head and face by hand, and only walk on well-worn, well-lit paths to avoid stepping on insects.

#94

TIL there is currently a worldwide shortage of black pepper and the price-per-ton has almost tripled since January 2023.

#95

TIL according to the US women’s clothing catalog sizes system, a 2011 size 0 is equivalent to a 2001 size 2, and is larger than a 1970 size 6 or 1958 size 8.

#96

TIL that Samuel L. Jackson planned to become a marine biologist before becoming an actor. He is currently the highest-grossing actor of all time.

#97

TIL about Stewart Smith who, over the course of 40 years, breed non-native fish in his garage and covertly released them from his car which was outfitted with oxygenated fish tanks into New Zealand’s north island waterways for sport fishing.

#98

TIL Mavs GM Nico Harrison, while working at Nike in 2013 botched the presentation to Steph Curry, where he called him Seth, & the presentation he used was made for Kevin Durant. This, along with not offering Curry a signature shoe, caused Curry to switch from Nike & sign with Under Armor.

#99

TIL After his lung cancer diagnosis, actor Yul Brynner wished to warn people against smoking. After his death, the american cancer society aired an ad with the actor saying: “Now that I’m gone, I tell you: just don’t smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn’t be talking about any cancer.”

#100

TIL that under New York City, on the lower concourse of Grand Central Station, there’s a windowless, 440-seat oyster and seafood bar that has been serving customers since the terminal’s opening in 1913. Except for brief closures for a fire in 1997 and COVID-19 it has operated continuously.

#101

TIL when David Lynch was asked by fans for clues or answers regarding one of his films, he’d typically refuse; however when fans in France asked him for clues to help them decipher Mulholland Drive (2001), he gave them 10. “I thought the clues were only going to exist in France & then..the internet.”

#102

TIL that the first laws outlawing food coloring were in regards to bread. White bread was expensive and some bakers added chalk to lighten dark bread. King Edward I (1272-1307) created a law saying anyone caught using whiteners in bread would be put in the public pillory for one hour.

#103

TIL that Gabe Newell owns a marine research company, and now mostly lives at sea on his boats and submarines.

#104

TIL Robert F. Kennedy’s a*sassin is still alive and has been denied parole 17 times.

#105

TIL that Mr.Dink’s name is an acronym for Double Income No Kids; this is why he was able to afford gadgets that were “very expensive”.

#106

TIL after Leona Helmsley did not pay her contractors that worked on her Connecticut home, she was investigated for tax evasion, and she received a 16 year sentence. During trial her housekeeper testified that Helmsley said “only the little people pay taxes.” She ended up serving 19 months in prison.

#107

TIL the UK’s nuclear submarines all carry identitcally worded “Letters of Last Resort” which are handwritten by the current Prime Minister and destroyed when the Prime Minister leaves office.

#108

TIL there were just 5 surviving longbows from medieval England known to exist before 137 whole longbows (and 3,500 arrows) were recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose in 1980 (a ship of Henry VIII’s navy that capsized in 1545). The bows were in excellent finished condition & have been preserved.

#109

TIL Q Lazzarus, singer of Goodbye Horses, was unknown when the song appeared in Silence of the Lambs. Labels had rejected her due to her dreads, so she drove a cab. Once, she picked up “Lambs” director Jonathan Demme, and played him her demo. He responded “Oh my God, what is this and who are you?”

#110

TIL There isn’t a single stop sign in Paris.

#111

TIL about ‘Balconing’ in Ibiza, a phenomenon in which intoxicated party goers die or are injured by acting wildly on the balconies of the hotel establishments where they have stayed.

#112

TIL Mr Bean’s (Rowan Atkinson) son is a Gurkha.

#113

TIL 10 US states have absolutely no vehicle inspection whatsoever (i.e no safety, emissions, or VIN inspections).

#114

TIL that in 1975, Twentieth Century Music Corp sued a restaurant owner for copyright infringement for playing a radio broadcast of two of their songs in his establishment, arguing it constituted an unremunerated performance. It reached the Supreme Court, which sided with the restaurant owner.

#115

TIL the richest person in the world was Mansa Musa, the 14th Century West African ruler, perhaps equal to $400bn in today’s money. When he traveled to Cairo, he gave out so much gold that it depreciated the value of gold and caused over a billion dollars in economic losses in the Middle East.

#116

TIL Saudi Arabia does not have a single flowing river on its land.

#117

TIL: Maria Rasputin, Rasputin’s daughter, after his death worked as a cabaret dancer, then for the Busch Circus. In one season, she became a lion tamer. She was eventually mauled by a bear and left the circus to work as a riveter in the US before dying in LA.

#118

TIL that in 1997, a crew member on the USS Yorktown (CG-48) entered 0 into a database field. It caused the Remote Data Base Manager to attempt to divide by zero, causing all machinery on the network to stop working, including the propulsion system.

#119

TIL in 1902, one day after being jailed for a fight, a man named Ludger Sylbaris survived for four days while the pyroclastic flow from Mt. Pelée k**led 30,000. His jail cell was a former ammunition storehouse with thick walls and no windows apart from one ventilation shaft.

#120

TIL that in Major League Baseball the ball is pitched so fast that the eye cannot track it. However, the brain is able to calculate its trajectory via specialized cells, making it possible for the batter to hit it.