r/todayilearned 12h ago All-Seeing Upvote

TIL there is a pyramid being built in Germany that is scheduled to be completed in 3183. It consists of 7-ton concrete blocks placed every 10 years, with the fourth block to be placed on September 9 2023.

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en.wikipedia.org
27.9k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 4h ago

TIL in 1982 for a film named Fitzcarraldo, director Werner Herzog had the cast drag a 320-ton steamship over a steep hill: to depict real life events. Under the threat of death, Carlos Fitzcarrald forced indigenous workers to transport a 30 ton ship over a mountain to get to another river in 1894.

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en.wikipedia.org
2.1k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 3h ago

TIL 4 US Presidents were male cheerleaders.

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sportsandservice.com
1.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 2h ago

TIL that the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud suggested that addictions, including tobacco, were substitutes for masturbation.

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en.wikipedia.org
1.1k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 5h ago

TIL that Benjamin Franklin wrote a joke paper submission to the Royal Academy of Brussels called "Fart Proudly" which details how important research into reducing the smell of farts needs to be undertaken.

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en.wikipedia.org
1.9k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 9h ago

TIL The Muppet Show was filmed entirely in England because US networks rejected it.

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en.wikipedia.org
3.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL that hot thermal pools have killed more people than bears in Yellowstone National Park. 20 deaths v. 8 deaths.

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r/todayilearned 6h ago

TIL Polly Smith, costume designer for the Muppet Show and Sesame Street also invented the sports bra

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679 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 2h ago

TIL: The oldest time capsule in the US was buried in 1795 by Governor Samuel Adams and Paul Revere in a cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House and was found by accident in 2014 by workers trying to fix a water leak

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worldatlas.com
297 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago Heartwarming

TIL Mr. T stopped wearing virtually all his gold, one of his identifying marks, after helping with the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He said, "I felt it would be insensitive and disrespectful to the people who lost everything, so I stopped wearing my gold.”

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76.8k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 31m ago

TIL John Cena holds the world record for granting the most wishes through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. As of September 2022, he’s granted 650 wishes. No other individual has surpassed 200.

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r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL when Game Boy was first released 1989, the North America version came bundled with only Tetris. Only four other games were available: Allyway, Baseball, Super Mario Land and Tennis. Within ten years more than 1000 games were available.

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r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL about the 1983 video game recession in which US video game revenue plummeted from $3.2B in 1983 to $100m in 1985. Nintendo is credited with reviving the industry with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

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9.3k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL the PS3 game “MAG” received an award from Guinness World Records as "Most Players in a Console FPS" with 256 players in matches simultaneously.

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en.wikipedia.org
10.8k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 17h ago

TIL that women hold 14 of the longest 23 neutral endurance records in marathon swimming

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swimmingworldmagazine.com
1.2k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL Desperation pies are defined by inexpensive staple ingredients for filling. These types of pies were more popular during depressions, World Wars, and before refrigeration. Varieties include Green tomato pie, Shoofly pie, chess pie, and vinegar pies.

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en.wikipedia.org
8.1k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 4h ago

TIL on 1971, the WLBT TV station in Mississippi had its license revoked for biaised coverage of the Civil Rights movement, cutting pro-Civil Rights materiel because of "Cable Trouble from New York" while allowing reporters to use racial slurs and carrying the "Citizens’ Council Forum"

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94 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL Marc-Antoine Fardin published a paper in which he cited photographs of cats in jars, baskets and salad bowls and concluded that cats have the properties of both solid and liquid objects. For this work, Fardon was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017.

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23.6k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 20h ago

TIL in Eastern Canada 1923 is known as “The year of free beef”. When the Maritimes changed from driving on the left to the right hand side of the road, oxen could not be retrained to walk on the right side and so were sent to slaughter causing a precipitous decline in beef price.

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1.4k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 2h ago

TIL elephants were used as executioners in some ancient cultures. In India, for example, rogue elephants were sometimes trained to execute criminals by crushing them with their massive weight.

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gizmodo.com
41 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1d ago

TIL The US Marshals recovered North Carolina’s copy of the U.S. Bill of Rights in 2003 via a sting operation after it was stolen from the State Capitol by a union soldier following the civil war.

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1.8k Upvotes

r/todayilearned 14h ago

TIL of the 1866 shipwreck of the General Grant near New Zealand. Of the 83 on board only 15 survived the sinking and became castaways on Auckland Island. After nine months four of the survivors attempted to row for help and were never seen again. After 16 months the last survivors were rescued.

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221 Upvotes

r/todayilearned 1h ago

TIL Canada's population growth rate of 2.7% in 2022 would put it among the top 20 in the world. Almost all countries with a higher pace of population growth were in Africa.

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r/todayilearned 22m ago

TIL the second highest scoring fighter ace with 301 kills, Gerhard Barkhorn, crashed a prototype British Harrier jet fighter in 1965. When being helped from the wreckage he is said to have commented, "Drei hundert und zwei [302]!"

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r/todayilearned 8h ago

TIL Mastaba, meaning house of stability or house of eternity in Ancient Egyptian, is a type of flat-roofed, rectangular structure constructed out of mudbricks. It was the standard type of tomb in pre-dynastic and early dynastic Egypt for the pharaoh and the social elite, and a precursor to pyramids.

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62 Upvotes