r/todayilearned • u/candlebo • 4h ago

TIL that in 1958, Burma-Shave offered a "free trip to Mars" for sending in 900 empty jars. A grocery store manager, Arliss French, took it literally and collected all 900. To save face, Burma-Shave sent him, fully dressed as an astronaut, to Moers, Germany (of which they felt was pronounced Mars).

snopes.com

22.6k Upvotes

526 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Flares117 • 7h ago

TIL: Pascha is the largest brothel in Europe, having over 120 workers and serves 1000 daily customers. The workers rent a room for 180 Euros/day and negotiate in the halls. Each floor is themed with one for cheap services and another for Trans. It offers a money back guarantee for bad service.

en.wikipedia.org

11.7k Upvotes

791 comments

r/todayilearned • u/frumpi • 14h ago

TIL that if your SSN was issued before 2011 it reveals where you lived when you got your number. The first 3 digits correspond to a specific state.

ssa.gov

13.7k Upvotes

858 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Backtivist • 2h ago

TIL that the Statue of Liberty is a gender-swapped statue modeled loosely after the Colossus of Rhodes.

greekreporter.com

759 Upvotes

151 comments

r/todayilearned • u/_icarcus • 15h ago

TIL Coca-Cola was exempt from the 1942 sugar rations by promising service members a bottle of Coke for five cents wherever they were

historynet.com

6.5k Upvotes

72 comments

r/todayilearned • u/IHadThatUsername • 19h ago

TIL that because the V2 rocket was fueled by drinking alcohol, during its development technicians would often drink the fuel, causing significant delays

popsci.com

10.0k Upvotes

131 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Retrospectrenet • 14h ago

TIL police radio codes like 10-4 for affirmative all start with 10 to allow time for the radio to power up. The first syllable spoken of a transmission was often not understood due to early technology quirks. Officers were trained to wait after pressing the receiver but forgot when rushed.

en.wikipedia.org

2.8k Upvotes

75 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 22h ago

TIL in 2012, a California high school student was directed to urinate in a bucket in a supply room closet after a teacher mistakenly believed that bathroom breaks were not permitted. In 2017, a court ordered the school district to pay the student $1.25 million.

bbc.com

27.7k Upvotes

958 comments

r/todayilearned • u/RNHood51 • 9h ago

TIL that US Navy sailors in World War II drank torpedo juice, a blend of 180-proof grain alcohol fuel from a torpedo and pineapple juice. Despite the Navy's attempts to render the alcohol undrinkable, sailors still found ways around this to varying degrees of effectiveness.

en.wikipedia.org

1.1k Upvotes

84 comments

r/todayilearned • u/XiGoldenGod • 21h ago

TIL a man was killed by a beaver while trying to photograph it. The man spotted the beaver while fishing with friends, approached it, and the beaver bit the man on the thigh, which severed an artery. Tragically the man's friends were unable to stanch the blood loss.

usatoday.com

12.3k Upvotes

365 comments

r/todayilearned • u/rezikiel • 2h ago

TIL The earliest known reference to the Mile High Club is from a betting book in 1785, a mere 2 years after the first successful balloon ascent

en.wikipedia.org

256 Upvotes

25 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 2h ago

TIL when JRR Tolkien attempted to change the entire tone of The Hobbit to fit the more serious Lord of the Rings trilogy, he gave up after the third chapter because it "just wasn't The Hobbit" any longer without its playful tone and quick pace.

smithsonianmag.com

225 Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Puzzleheaded_Eye_276 • 1d ago

TIL that Japanese war criminal Hitoshi Imamura, believing that his sentence of 10 years imprisonment was too light, built a replica prison in his garden where he stayed until his death in 1968

en.wikipedia.org

54.3k Upvotes

1.9k comments

r/todayilearned • u/GDW312 • 5h ago

TIL about Ken McElroy an American criminal and convicted attempted murderer who resided in Skidmore, Missouri, United States. He was known as "the town bully", and his unsolved killing became the focus of international attention. Brad Wesley, in the 1989 action movie Road House, is based on him.

en.wikipedia.org

256 Upvotes

44 comments

r/todayilearned • u/pur__0_0__ • 8h ago

TIL the French car Renault 5 was marketed in the United States by the name Le Car.

en.wikipedia.org

355 Upvotes

34 comments

r/todayilearned • u/globehater • 21h ago

TIL that in 1949, a NJ gas station owner started the first cheap self-serve station in the state; rival stations tried to intimidate him into closing, but when even a drive-by shooting didn't work, they got the legislature to pass a law banning self-service that is still on the books today

theconversation.com

3.6k Upvotes

306 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WilliamofYellow • 1d ago

TIL that when Dylan Thomas (the Welsh poet) died, his widow had his body shipped from New York to Wales. While they were under way, she discovered a group of sailors unwittingly using the coffin as a card table. She decided not to say anything as she thought her husband would have liked it.

dylanthomas.com

13.1k Upvotes

70 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MajesticBread9147 • 1d ago

TIL After a lawyer complained that Cleveland Browns fans were throwing paper airplanes, their lawyer responded "Attached is a letter that we received on November 19, 1974. I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters."

snopes.com

20.4k Upvotes

327 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Admirable_Animal8025 • 16h ago

TIL that the creator of Space Invaders, Tomohiro Nishikado, developed the entire game on his own. He took on the roles of designer, programmer, artist, and sound engineer, and even built the game’s microcomputer from the ground up.

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

43 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dudenotnude • 1h ago

TIL that he 1883 eruption on Krakatoa produced the loudest sound ever known. It reverberated around the globe seven times before diminishing. It was heard 4,000 miles away, and people within 100 miles had permanent hearing loss.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/SaltyPeter3434 • 21h ago

TIL the Beatles were not legally dissolved as a band until 1974 when John Lennon signed the final contract while on vacation at Disney World in Florida

ultimateclassicrock.com

2.3k Upvotes

65 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Majorpain2006 • 1d ago

TIL Medieval Peasants generally received anywhere from eight weeks to a half-year off. At the time, the Church considered frequent and mandatory holidays the key to keeping a working population from revolting.

yahoo.com

15.6k Upvotes

381 comments

r/todayilearned • u/johnnykatz • 15h ago

TIL The Amazing Jonathan, late comedian and magician, was married to, and managed by, Anastasia Synn, a transhumanist, biohacker, and cyborg rights activist. She holds the Guinness World Record for most technological implants in the female body and has the largest magnet ever implanted in a person.

en.wikipedia.org

626 Upvotes

130 comments

r/todayilearned • u/AllColoursSam • 1h ago

TIL of Capgras Delusion - A psychological disorder in which a person believes that a friend, family member, or pet has been replaced by an identical imposter.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

22 comments

r/todayilearned • u/PnPineappleApplePn • 3h ago

TIL that 3% to 15% of the human population have Arachnophobia (aka anywhere from 246 million to 1.2 billion out of the current 8.2 billion population)

my.clevelandclinic.org

59 Upvotes

27 comments

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As of May 2024

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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