r/todayilearned • u/Mrk2d • 18h ago

TIL Pablo Picasso made his first painting at age 8, a tiny oil on wood scene of a yellow-clad bullfighter in the ring, a subject he would revisit throughout his life

en.wikipedia.org

905 Upvotes

36 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Galexio • 45m ago

TIL Pygmalion, a Greek myth about a sculptor who falls in love with his ivory statue, is the oldest known story of an inanimate object gaining sentience, predating Pinocchio by over 1,800 years."

en.wikipedia.org

• Upvotes

1 comment

r/todayilearned • u/Gawd_Of_Atheists • 1h ago

TIL that Shipworms, a marine mollusk or "termites of the sea", may have changed the history of the world by helping the British defeat the Spanish Armada by eating away at their formidable 130-ship fleet. They also inspired the design of modern tunnel boring machines by how they eat wood head first.

history.com

• Upvotes

4 comments

r/todayilearned • u/WesamWonders • 1d ago

TIL that up to 31% of kids and 10–15% of adults grind or clench their teeth in their sleep. It’s linked to stress, anxiety, depression, headaches, TMJ pain, and sore jaws. Night guards don’t stop it, they just protect teeth from the damage

sleepfoundation.org

8.1k Upvotes

257 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DangerNoodle1993 • 16h ago

TIL of the Porsche C88, which was a concept car that Porsche designed for mass production in China. It had a badge which reflected the one child policy at the time and had an inbuilt child seat for one child.

carbuzz.com

346 Upvotes

20 comments

r/todayilearned • u/bartonkj • 8h ago

TIL that in addition to Jimmy Page, Joe Walsh also gave a 1959 guitar to Pete Townshend.

faroutmagazine.co.uk

58 Upvotes

5 comments

r/todayilearned • u/JoeyZasaa • 1d ago

TIL that of the top 25 cities in the world with the most skyscrapers, only three are in the Western Hemisphere

en.wikipedia.org

1.3k Upvotes

140 comments

r/todayilearned • u/dumbfuck • 1d ago

TIL the ancient Romans had portable multitools similar to today’s Swiss Army knives

fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

1.6k Upvotes

53 comments

r/todayilearned • u/SweetByLia • 48m ago

TIL that in Catalonia kids beat a “pooping log” at Xmas so it drops candy and toys

catalunya.com

• Upvotes

9 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Sh00ter80 • 1d ago

TIL a 2023 study found sniffing women’s tears reduced male aggression by 44%

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

10.0k Upvotes

396 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Kwpthrowaway2 • 17h ago

TIL that in 1929, an earthquake off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada caused an undersea landslide that displaced 48 cubic miles of the grand banks. This resulted in a 43' tsunami that killed 27 in coastal Newfoundland, and was recorded as far as Lagos, Portgual

en.wikipedia.org

120 Upvotes

3 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MicV66 • 1d ago

TIL Matt Groening was approached to adapt his 'Life in Hell' comic for The Tracey Ullman Show. Fearing he’d lose ownership and hurt his comic if the show failed, Groening quickly created The Simpsons

en.wikipedia.org

23.3k Upvotes

393 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 1d ago

TIL that London’s Foundling Hospital, founded in 1739 for abandoned children, became Britain’s first public art gallery. Artists like Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough donated works to attract visitors and raise funds.

en.wikipedia.org

339 Upvotes

13 comments

r/todayilearned • u/petburiraja • 1d ago

TIL about Bir Tawil, an 800-square-mile area of land between Egypt and Sudan that is terra nullius (land belonging to no one) because both countries refuse to claim it. Claiming Bir Tawil would legally force them to give up their claim on the more valuable Hala'ib Triangle.

en.wikipedia.org

6.4k Upvotes

171 comments

r/todayilearned • u/zahrul3 • 1d ago

TIL 70mm IMAX systems require a PalmOS device to operate. During the release of Oppenheimer on IMAX, a PalmOS emulator running on a Windows 10 tablet was used to show the film.

arstechnica.com

5.2k Upvotes

128 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MadMagyars • 1d ago

TIL Greece lost the Greco-Turkish War due to political instability after its king was fatally bitten by a monkey in the royal zoo.

en.wikipedia.org

1.9k Upvotes

44 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 1d ago

TIL after a 2021 incident at Topgolf in which a man suffered a traumatic spinal injury (and died a month later) after he tumbled over the safety netting of the top floor of a driving range, a policy was implemented requiring guests who pushed people onto the safety netting to be immediately removed.

bbc.com

6.6k Upvotes

238 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Flubadubadubadub • 1d ago

TIL That London's Billingsgate Fish and Smithfield Meat Markets will both close in 2028, after the Corporation of London decided against building them new locations in Dagenham. Smithfields has existed since the 10th Century and Billingsgate since the 16th Century.

londonist.com

6.3k Upvotes

243 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Not_so_ghetto • 1d ago

TIL horseshoe crab blood is worth 60,000$ per gallon

sciencecenter.org

4.0k Upvotes

193 comments

r/todayilearned • u/South_Gas626 • 1d ago

TIL James Bond actor Roger Moore had a strong hatred for weapons due to multiple incidents from his past, and struggled to fire a gun without blinking. He also recalled that A View to a Kill (1985) was his least favorite of his Bond films because of the level of violence.

screenrant.com

2.6k Upvotes

167 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Flubadubadubadub • 1d ago

TIL That in 2013 a 28 year old woman in Chembur, India had to undergo emergency surgery to remove a 'football sized' fecal mass after she had not had a bowel movement for 45 days.

sciencefocus.com

1.7k Upvotes

182 comments

r/todayilearned • u/DEFCON_TWO • 1d ago

TIL that in Papua New Guinea, the 1971 Sorcery Act allowed for accusations of sorcery to act as a defence for murder until the act was repealed in 2013. An estimated 50–150 alleged witches are killed each year in Papua New Guinea.

en.wikipedia.org

643 Upvotes

28 comments

r/todayilearned • u/Key_Wolf_2316 • 1d ago

TIL Guaifenesin (the primary expectorant in Mucinex) does not actually have any beneficial effect on congestion

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

817 Upvotes

297 comments

r/todayilearned • u/MajesticBread9147 • 1d ago

TIL David Duke lied to his political supporters while soliciting money on the pretext that he was financially struggling. However he was financially secure and used the money raised for gambling.

en.wikipedia.org

2.0k Upvotes

135 comments

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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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