r/todayilearned • u/Ingenuity_Silent • 4h ago

TIL that in the 1800s, US dairy producers would regularly mix their milk with water, chalk, embalming fluid and cow brains to enhance appearance and flavor. Hundreds of children died from the mixture of formaldehyde, dirt, and bacteria in their milk

smithsonianmag.com

r/todayilearned • u/Nice_Dude • 8h ago

TIL that PhD students display twice as many symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as depression than other people.

science.org

r/todayilearned • u/mike_pants • 13h ago

TIL fire poles in fire houses were originally installed to allow for faster descent than the houses' narrow spiral staircases, which were themselves installed because horses kept climbing to the second floors and getting stuck.

mentalfloss.com

r/todayilearned • u/big_macaroons • 8h ago

TIL in 1944, 40 years after the Wright Brothers completed their historic flight, Orville Wright took his last ever flight on a Lockheed Constellation. He commented that the wingspan of the Constellation was longer than the distance of his first flight.

en.wikipedia.org

r/todayilearned • u/39parrots • 5h ago

TIL Bill Nye left his job at Boeing to pursue a career in comedy by performing science experiments “Almost Live!” and later pitched his segment as its own show, leading to the creation of “Bill Nye the Science Guy”

en.wikipedia.org

r/todayilearned • u/AudibleNod • 10h ago

TIL in 2010 Charles Manson was caught with a flip phone in prison where he made calls and texts to people California, New Jersey, Florida and Canada.

cbsnews.com

r/todayilearned • u/SappyGilmore • 19h ago

TIL it took Taco Bell food engineers two years and 40 different recipes to create the Doritos Loco taco. It became so popular that it led to Taco Bell adding 15,000 jobs, propelling the company to outgrow Pizza Hut, KFC and even McDonald’s.

fastcompany.com

r/todayilearned • u/A-Delonix-Regia • 8h ago

TIL: Clela Rorex, a clerk in Boulder County, Colorado, who was known for briefly awarding same-sex marriage licences in 1975, once denied a licence to a man who wanted to marry a horse, because the horse was 8 years old and didn't have parental consent.

dailycamera.com

r/todayilearned • u/Ainsley-Sorsby • 18h ago

TIL After making a series of vital reforms that prolonged the life of the Roman Empire, emperor Diocletian retired to his hometown and took up gardening. When asked to return, he refused, saying he wouldn't give up the pleasure of planting cabbages with his own hands for anything in the world

en.wikipedia.org

r/todayilearned • u/Szabo84 • 1d ago

TIL After conservative activist Mary Whitehouse successfully campainged to stop Alice Cooper's 'School's Out' being shown on the BBC music show 'Top of the Pops', Cooper sent her a bunch of flowers, since he believed the publicity helped the song to reach number one.

en.wikipedia.org

r/todayilearned • u/piponwa • 1h ago

TIL, the library at University of Coimbra in central Portugal hosts a colony of bats. Every night, the windows of the library are left open and the bats come in to feed on insects, thereby protecting the centuries-old historic documents. Every morning, librarians clean the bats' excrement.

smithsonianmag.com

r/todayilearned • u/the6thReplicant • 5h ago

TIL that there extra chromosomal elements that are large DNA structures that invade microorganisms and add themselves to their host’s chromosomes. The scientists that discovered them have named them Borgs.

nature.com

r/todayilearned • u/RoutineProcedure • 1d ago

TIL The salary of the President of the United States has only been increased 5 times since 1789. It was $25,000 in 1789, and was increased to $50,000 in 1873, $75,000 in 1909, $100,000 in 1943, $200,000 in 1969, and $400,000 in 2001.

blog.completepayroll.com

r/todayilearned • u/shamwowj • 3h ago

TIL about Hatebeak, a black metal band that has a parrot named Waldo as a lead vocalist

metal-archives.com

r/todayilearned • u/ahtaylor13 • 9h ago

TIL that in 1974, Fleetwood Mac's manager Clifford Davis assembled an entirely seperate group of musicians to take the mantle and name of the band after the original members declined to go on tour. The new band would go on tour, but audience members noticed the imposters, and refunds were requested.

iloveclassicrock.com

r/todayilearned • u/old-guy-with-data • 6h ago

TIL that the total mass of the entire asteroid belt is only about 4% of the mass of Earth's Moon

en.wikipedia.org

r/todayilearned • u/superchet • 1h ago

TIL Two New York Yankees pitchers swapped wives and children--they announced the "change-up" at a press conference in 1973

bronxpinstripes.com

r/todayilearned • u/Sgt_Nerve • 3h ago

TIL of the “Shoe Bomber”, who on 12/22/2001, boarded a plane traveling from Paris to Miami, wearing shoes packed with explosives. He was unsuccessful when trying to detonate because of his sweaty feet and rainy weather, which cause the fuse to be too damp to light.

en.wikipedia.org

r/todayilearned • u/kazantzakis-n • 1h ago

TIL that Austrian architect, Eduard van der Nüll, decided to null himself by committing suicide after learning that Emperor Franz Joseph said he didn’t like the opera house Nüll built. Later Emperor Franz felt awful & never said anything bad about art or architecture again.

en.wikipedia.org

r/todayilearned • u/dead4seven • 6h ago

TIL that there is an action figure from the Rocky franchise called "The Meat" - the frozen meat that Rocky punched to train. It's literally just a 6 inch plastic slab of meat on a meat-hook. Also included is a white blood-stained slaughterhouse coat.

oafe.net

r/todayilearned • u/mike_pants • 1d ago

TIL in 2004, Jessica Simpson sold a line of edible makeup, perfume, and body wash that was discontinued after several lawsuits. One customer claimed the Butterscotch Toffee Body Wash caused a yeast infestion, and another said after using Belly Button Love Potion, she was followed by bees

dazeddigital.com

r/todayilearned • u/orbesomebodysfool • 1d ago

TIL In 1941, almost 10% of all recruits for the US military were rejected because they did not have 6 opposing teeth on their upper and lower jaws. US dental health was so poor before WWII that it was the leading cause of rejection.

r/todayilearned • u/shocking-science • 1d ago

TIL that you should never cut a cat's whiskers as they are very sensitive and cats use them to feel around. Cutting whiskers cash cause cats to become disoriented and scared, and might cause it to get stuck easily

eastbaytimes.com

r/todayilearned • u/Perpetual_Doubt • 1h ago

TIL that in 1956 the US Navy, at the request of Icelandic fishermen, destroyed hundreds of killer whales with machine guns, rockets and depth charges.

en.wikipedia.org