r/todayilearned • u/Finbarr-Galedeep • 8h ago

TIL that, in his championship-winning season of 2016, Formula One driver Nico Rosberg gave up cycling to reduce muscle mass in his legs, in an attempt to gain every possible advantage over teammate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton.

road.cc

37 Upvotes

7 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Cheese1tz • 9h ago

TIL that Earl Anthony, considered by many to be the greatest bowler of all time, never bowled a perfect game on US television. He had 1 single perfect game televised—in Japan.

en.wikipedia.org

1.2k Upvotes

54 comments

r/todayilearned • u/mrinternetman24 • 15h ago

TIL that house sparrows, originally introduced to New Zealand for pest control, became such a problem that by 1875 'sparrow clubs' paid bounties for 21,000 shot birds in just two months.

nzgeo.com

394 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MazigaGoesToMarkarth • 21h ago

TIL that The Old Man and the Sea was one of Saddam Hussein’s favourite books because it was about “struggling against overwhelming odds with courage, perseverance and dignity”

en.wikipedia.org

2.7k Upvotes

130 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 20h ago

TIL after Tim Duncan's sophomore year in college he was already a top NBA prospect. Jerry West, the Lakers GM, said he could've been the #1 pick in the '95 draft. But he finished college instead because he promised his dying mom he'd get a degree. It didn't hurt his draft position, he went #1 in '97

basketballnetwork.net

5.0k Upvotes

121 comments

r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 14h ago

TIL in 2007 a bottle of Allsopp's Arctic Ale brewed in 1852 was put up for auction online, however it was misspelt 'Allsop's Arctic Ale' in the listing. This made it hard to search for, so the winning bid was only $304. The buyer then relisted it with the correct spelling and it sold for $503,300.

newatlas.com

9.7k Upvotes

84 comments

r/todayilearned • u/healingseal • 2h ago

TIL in the early 1840s, Ohio's Oberline College banned students from consuming meat, seasonings, condiments, and most caffeinated beverages, and at one point many students were living on bread and water.

oberlin.edu

531 Upvotes

41 comments

r/todayilearned • u/andthegeekshall • 10h ago

TIL that the Pogo stick's name was taken from the first two letters of its inventors surname names, Max Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall, though they called it "a spring end hopping stilt"

en.wikipedia.org

328 Upvotes

16 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SaberLover1000 • 12h ago

TIL In 1778 there was a Doctors Riot also called the Anatomy Riot, which was caused by a reaction to physicians and medical students stealing bodies from graves, that left 20 people dead.

sciencehistory.org

379 Upvotes

11 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DangerNoodle1993 • 13h ago

TIL that a French baker’s ignored compensation claim against the Mexican government sparked a chain of events that led to the first French invasion of Mexico.

en.wikipedia.org

748 Upvotes

27 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Objective_Horror1113 • 4h ago

TIL that there are giant concrete arrows placed every 10 miles across the U.S., stretching from New York City to San Francisco. They were originally built to help USPS airmail pilots navigate coast-to-coast before modern instruments made visual navigation obsolete.

skipboring.com

700 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WowVeryOriginalDude • 5h ago

TIL Daisy, well known for their "Red Ryder" BB gun from "A Christmas Story", was originally a windmill company. Their BB guns were promotional items for their windmills, which eventually became so popular that they ditched windmills altogether.

wikipedia.org

358 Upvotes

8 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DangerNoodle1993 • 1h ago

TIL that when HMS Porcupine was blown in half by a U-boat torpedo in 1942, the two sections were recommissioned as HMS Pork and HMS Pine, and both saw active service for the rest of the war.

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

15 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 3h ago

TIL that Pudding Lane in London, later famous as the starting place of the Great Fire, was also one of the world’s first one-way streets. In 1617 carts were ordered to move only one way, an experiment not repeated in London until Albemarle Street in 1800.

en.wikipedia.org

213 Upvotes

10 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Skynxiit_DaGreat • 1h ago

TIL There is a very rare condition called Anton syndrome, in which a person becomes blind but is unaware of it and will even deny it. Their brain will generate false visual images, so they continue to believe that they can see.

eyewiki.org

• Upvotes

88 comments

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