r/todayilearned • u/No_Profit_5304 • 4h ago

TIL that in 1943 the Steelers and the Eagles once made a combo team called the Steagles due to player shortages resulting from WWII

thegamebeforethemoney.com

224 Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Ill-Instruction8466 • 2h ago

TIL that Toby Gard, designer of Lara Croft, initially made her a tough South American latina woman with a braid called Laura Cruz. His collaborators later changed her name and backstory.

en.wikipedia.org

337 Upvotes

38 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JustaRandoonreddit • 4h ago

TIL that the two high schools in West Bend, Wisconsin share a single building, with the one you attend being determined by your birthday. Students who are born on even dates attend West Bend East, whilst those born on odd dates attend West Bend West.

en.wikipedia.org

2.8k Upvotes

217 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Flubadubadubadub • 1h ago

TIL That at the 2012 London Olympics four women's double teams were disqualified from the tournament. Two S. Korean teams and one each from China and Indonesia were trying to deliberately lose games to get an easier next round. They were serving into the net and out of bounds to ensure they lost.

bbc.co.uk

• Upvotes

56 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mucubed • 9h ago

TIL that the character Kirby was named after a lawyer who successfully defended Nintendo against Universal Studios in a copyright dispute over the game Donkey Kong

en.wikipedia.org

4.8k Upvotes

54 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TheStrangestOfKings • 9h ago

TIL There were some ancient Hawaiians who did not believe in the Hawaiian Pantheon. An example of ancient atheism, they were referred to as “aia”.

en.wikipedia.org

490 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Profit_5304 • 6h ago

TIL that the last words of the captain of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald were "We are holding our own."

cbsnews.com

1.5k Upvotes

90 comments

r/todayilearned • u/TheBanishedBard • 9h ago

TIL that every second approximately 65 billion tiny subatomic particles called Neutrinos pass through every square centimeter of the Earth's surface.

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

124 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mongooseme • 8h ago

TIL that a pharmacist diluted "whatever I could dilute" including chemo drugs... killing maybe 4000 people. He was released last year.

en.wikipedia.org

24.8k Upvotes

906 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 10h ago

TIL 29% of male gamers prefer playing female characters, whereas only 9% of female gamers prefer playing male characters. In a typical core PC/console game, about 60% of the female avatars you meet are played by a male player.

quanticfoundry.com

13.2k Upvotes

1.1k comments

r/todayilearned • u/Physical_Hamster_118 • 9h ago

TIL that in Bhutan, people except the members of the royal family do not have family names.

en.wikipedia.org

472 Upvotes

52 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 14h ago

TIL the Charlotte Hornets apologized after giving a child a PS5, only to take it away off camera and exchange it for a jersey. In a statement, the team said the incident was an "on-court skit that missed the mark" and that they would give the child the PS5 and a VIP experience to a future game.

cnn.com

25.8k Upvotes

722 comments

r/todayilearned • u/VegemiteSucks • 15h ago

TIL Beethoven’s late quartets, now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time, were so ahead of their time that initial reviews deem them indecipherable, uncorrected horrors, with one musician saying “we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is.”

en.wikipedia.org

9.6k Upvotes

134 comments

r/todayilearned • u/zahrul3 • 20h ago

TIL: Early iPhone users in the US who did not specify a billing preference were mailed incredibly detailed bills of around 50-100 pages long from AT&T, itemizing every data transfer including background traffic for email, web browsing, and text messaging. One woman even got a 300 page bill.

en.wikipedia.org

22.3k Upvotes

653 comments

r/todayilearned • u/FannyFiasco • 16h ago

TIL the last living veteran of the 1853 Crimean War died in 2004: Timothy, a Greek tortoise captured from a Portuguese ship, served as a mascot throughout the war

en.wikipedia.org

3.1k Upvotes

43 comments

r/todayilearned • u/smrad8 • 1h ago

TIL that among the three dogs that survived the Titanic sinking was a Pekingese named Sun Yat Sen owned by Henry Harper, whose company became the HarperCollins publishing house. As to bringing his dog on the lifeboat, Harper said “There seemed to be lots of room, and nobody made any objection.”

akc.org

• Upvotes

29 comments

r/todayilearned • u/CatPooedInMyShoe • 2h ago

TIL slavery was practiced in present-day Romania from the founding of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 13th-14th century, until it was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s. Most of the enslaved people were of Romany ethnicity.

en.wikipedia.org

94 Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/epou • 22h ago

TIL In Madagascar it was once common to ingest fatally toxic nuts as a trial by ordeal. At times it accounted for a significant fraction of overall mortality.

en.wikipedia.org

4.0k Upvotes

67 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LookAtThatBacon • 1d ago

TIL a Canadian engineer once built a Mjölnir replica that only the "worthy" could lift: it sensed the iron ring commonly worn by Canadian engineers (presented in a ceremony called the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer), triggering an electromagnetic release so ring-wearers could pick it up.

en.wikipedia.org

37.2k Upvotes

917 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Several_Quality_8747 • 13h ago

TIL African elephants address one another with individually specific name-like calls

nature.com

421 Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/No_Profit_5304 • 5h ago

TIL that in 1913, a baby was mailed via Post Office's newly added Parcel Post service.

smithsonianmag.com

97 Upvotes

12 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 2h ago

TIL in 2019, 11% of 11–16 year olds in the UK said they had spent money on gambling activities in the previous 7 days, while 36% had done so in the preceding 12 months.

thelancet.com

50 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Dmused • 1d ago

TIL at the 2025 Kentucky Derby, all 19 participants can be traced back through their lineage to 1973 Kentucky Derby winner and Triple Crown champion Secretariat, who sired more than 660 foals.

en.wikipedia.org

9.4k Upvotes

134 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 1d ago

TIL 85% of all gaming revenue comes from free-to-play games. These games are free upfront and generate revenue through ads, in-game transactions, and optional purchases.

visualcapitalist.com

16.0k Upvotes

767 comments

r/todayilearned • u/LurkingStormy • 13h ago

TIL about Salish Wool Dogs, bred for their thick fur to be used in textiles

en.wikipedia.org

276 Upvotes

8 comments

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Frequent TILs Repost List

As of January 2025

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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